[hwh]

So, more turtles waiting down there....

In the end, it is the attempt to create a positive proof in a system that is not a defined formal system (real world vs pure mathematics). Impossible - as you say, you need to place your trust somewhere. Even if it's your own abilities. But that trust can always turn out to be not justified.

[nickpsecurity]

You need to make a simple interpreter or processor that's verified by eye, brute force, or mathematically. An old example was FM9001 with newer ones being VAMP (open?) and AAMP7G (proprietary). You do that on a node you can verify by eye. You verify a random sample of the pile you ordered by eye. You use it with cheapest, simplest, oldest parts for input and display that you ordered in obfuscated way so they don't think source of order was important. Then, you have hardware you can trust to do the rest of the calculations for trustworthy hardware or software that's much better. Including image recognition software to semi-automate your job of spotting things that don't below in images of chips. ;)