Redundancy and majority-vote decisions are not much use if you're relying on 3 instances of the same subverted hardware.
(A similar problem applies to non-malicious uses, where multiple systems (even with N-version programming, clean room implementations, etc) interpret the specification incorrectly and the majority vote the wrong way.)
Second sourcing and strict requirements for different hardware implementations would cut a lot of the risk, especially if, as you say, one of them is a trusted, domestic manufacturer.
The level of global production processes for high technology used in weapons would make for an interesting
additional dynamic to military foreign policy. You can't really go attacking the guy who makes the widgets for your laser guided bombs unless you've got either a really big stockpile (and risk economic problems and obsolescence), or you can build them domestically if necessary.
The statistic quoted in the article:
"The Pentagon now buys 1 percent of all the world’s integrated circuit production"
Assuming they're in it purely for GPU power, 1% of the estimated 10E12 MIPS is 100 Billion MIPS for the US defence establishment. Of course, 90% of it will be custom fabbed stuff for embedded systems, but the sheer scale of it is mind-blowing.
(A similar problem applies to non-malicious uses, where multiple systems (even with N-version programming, clean room implementations, etc) interpret the specification incorrectly and the majority vote the wrong way.)
Second sourcing and strict requirements for different hardware implementations would cut a lot of the risk, especially if, as you say, one of them is a trusted, domestic manufacturer.
The level of global production processes for high technology used in weapons would make for an interesting additional dynamic to military foreign policy. You can't really go attacking the guy who makes the widgets for your laser guided bombs unless you've got either a really big stockpile (and risk economic problems and obsolescence), or you can build them domestically if necessary.
The statistic quoted in the article:
"The Pentagon now buys 1 percent of all the world’s integrated circuit production"
is pretty scary. I can't seem to find any reasonable source for the total IC production available. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1200970 looks interesting, but I don't have access, so I've gone with the Ars summary on it: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/02/adding-up-the-wo...
Assuming they're in it purely for GPU power, 1% of the estimated 10E12 MIPS is 100 Billion MIPS for the US defence establishment. Of course, 90% of it will be custom fabbed stuff for embedded systems, but the sheer scale of it is mind-blowing.