Reading Journal: Trusting Trust

Due

• May 7, 2026 by 1:00pm

Collaboration

You are welcome to read and discuss papers with other students before writing your reading journals, but the work you submit must reflect your own thinking about the paper. You are welcome to include points made by others as part of your journal, provided you include appropriate citation and these outside contributions do not replace your own judgements of the work. The use of AI tools for writing reading journals is not permitted.

Submitting

Submit your reading journal to the appropriate assignment on Gradescope. Your written journal should be uploaded as a plain text file or a PDF. Word documents and other rich text formats (other than PDF) will not be accepted.

Note: These are different questions from our usual reading journal format, so please make sure you review them before writing your responses.

After completing the assigned reading, write a reading journal that addresses each of the elements below. Please organize your response into the five sections below to make it easier to identify each of the required elements.

Summary

What were the main highlights of Ken Thompson’s Turing Award Lecture? You don’t have to give all the details, but you should write a few sentences that describe the main points Thompson covered.

Connections

Why do you think Thompson starts by discussing quines, and what do these have to do with UNIX, compilers, and trust?

Clarification Question(s)

Was anything in this reading unclear or confusing? Include at least one question we should discuss in class that would help you better understand the work.

Quine

Take 10–15 minutes to try to write a quine in C without referring back to Thompson’s examples or any other outside resource. The usual rules for quines prohibit the use of file I/O, so a quine that just reads and prints its own source file wouldn’t count. Share the result of your attempt (even if it doesn’t work) and explain what makes this a difficult challenge.

Discussion Points

Write at least three things you’d like to discuss about this reading. These could be technical details, points from the reading that you thought were interesting, or more general claims or questions about the broader themes of this work.

To receive full credit, your journal should show significant engagement with the reading. Responses should be clear, organized, and should be generally free from spelling and grammar issues. There is no specific requirement for the length of your responses.