[nickserv]

On the one hand this could be interesting for military and government looking to make sure there are no backdoors in the hardware they are using.

On the other hand, having it public makes exploits more likely since everyone can take a look.

For software this is beneficial, any fixed bug or exploit is then available to everyone and can be easily deployed.

I'm not very familiar with hardware but it seems like it would require new chips to be manufacturered to really fix any issues.

[GTP]

> On the other hand, having it public makes exploits more likely since everyone can take a look.

Everyone can take a look, but not everyone will spend money to produce their own. So this will improve security, not reduce it.