[ctstover]

While I would love a contemporary performance computer that can be trusted, no such device is even remotely possible in the manufacturing and fabrication ecosystems of today. Consider for just a moment ALL the chips inside the box. All the microcode, all the ROM, all the places something could be intentionally hidden. The idea that you could buy some parts on the internet at retail price that could satisfy the truly paranoid (ie defense & espionage communities) is ridiculous.

On the other hand, it still is probably possible to prevent a computers unrestricted access to the internet. For now at least.