Interview This month, presidential hopeful Donald Trump got a tool in his arsenal, some allegedly

The billionaire behind Trump's 'unhackable' phone is on a mission to fight Tesla's FSD

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2024-10-21 20:00:08

Interview This month, presidential hopeful Donald Trump got a tool in his arsenal, some allegedly "unhackable" communications kit, and The Register has talked to the man behind the operating system, who also ran for the US Senate on a campaign to get self-driving Teslas off the road and is on something of a crusade about the matter.

Dan O'Dowd, founder of Green Hills Software, is a curious character - a little-known billionaire who has earned his spurs writing very secure code sold to the government and military, which he claims is "unhackable." This hasn't gone down well with some in the security community.

"Anyone who claims that an OS is "unhackable" shouldn't be trusted, simply based on the ludicrousness of the claim," cryptography expert Bruce Schneier told The Register. "No respectable security professional would ever say something like that."

O'Dowd is a 1976 Caltech graduate who developed a passion for extreme security, and in 1982, set up a firm to develop the most secure operating system possible. The result was over a billion-dollar payoff and allowed him to develop a personal style that - given the money involved - could be described as eccentric.