[Jochim]

I agree! Your system is already heavily compromised if this is a problem for you.

I think the real problem lies in a lack of visibility into the state of the device. A compromised dongle could easily be transferred between machines. What we need is to make obvious what the machine/device is doing.

[unsnap_biceps]

Esp32 devices support enforcement of signed firmware that prevents the issue if it's in your threat model.

https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/stable/esp32/...