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16th IOCCC Winners Announced
chongo writes: "The winners of the 16th International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC) have been selected.
The judges are in the process of notifying the winners by EMail. We expect to release the source code around mid April 2002 after the winners have had a chance to review our writeup of their entries."
Write a program in one language, but make it appear to be in a different programming language. For example make a perl program look like a java program.
I think you just notified them via Slashdot.
The Shadow Government Knows
tcd004
> We expect to release the source code
> around mid April 2002
Will we also get a translation in assembler to help clarify the soure code?
We have already had one anonymous winner request to become non-anonymous.
chongo (was here)
Of course it is silly, but why should it be counterproductive? It acknowledges that complex and obfuscated code does get created, so we might as well have fun with it. You don't say crossword puzzles are bad for encouraging word mangling, or that belly flop contents encourage overeating, do you? Lighten up :)
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
Looks like this site is now the winner of todays International Obfuscated Website Contest due to the /. effect.
.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
To write the most Obscure/Obfuscated C program under the rules below.
To show the importance of programming style, in an ironic way.
To stress C compilers with unusual code.
To illustrate some of the subtleties of the C language.
To provide a safe forum for poor C code. :-)
If you use gcc, you probably have benefited from fixes of bugs those programs have helped uncover.
Yeah! I said the same thing when they started giving out awards for the worst academic prose. But no one listened, and now there are hordes of people going into philosophy and English just to win prestigious awards for terrible prose. And don't get me started on the Razzies, which have clearly encouraged intentionally poor filmmaking. I mean, why would you purposely award bad things? Oh, the humanity!
GPL ABUSER has WON the IOCCC CODE CONTEST!
Creating the immense amount of obfuscation seen in these code snippets requires a great deal of skill, and the people who enter this contest definitely don't code like that in the course of their normal work. (Creating code like that takes too much time, and 2 of the main programmer virtues are "laziness" and "impatience".)
Part of the Linux kernel's oddness is caused by the fact that it's a kernel. Parts are in assembly (stuff under arch/ , and possibly some device drivers) and there are more "goto"s than one might like. These are there for efficiency. Speed is much more critical in the kernel than it is in userspace, since functions may be called while another part of the kernel is holding a spinlock, etcetera.
Also, many of the IOCCC entries become much more legible if you run "gcc -E ioccc.c > preprocessed-ioccc.c && indent preprocessed-ioccc.c" . A fair number of them rely on Fancy Preprocessor Tricks to achieve maximum obfuscation. HTH,
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
There was the Bill Gates award that was given out back in 1993.
On a slightly related topic, one can use the Best Utility from 1998 to pootify Microsoft's web site for better reading. :-)
chongo (was here)
... without just appearing to be in another language, but actually being so. Take a look here . Genius or travesty?
?-|||-----x<*))))><
The winner on this years contest is Microsoft for their submission of
Microsoft Corporation End User Agreement
Contributed by an anonymous user.
Since this code is obfuscated I guess the GPL does not apply to it?
When I say I'm not much of a programmer, I mean that I'm not a programmer at all :-) I don't use gcc, but if this contest has helped to improve it, then maybe I was wrong about it. Thanks for pointing that out to me!
--
I'm wasted and I can't find my way home...
We expect to release the source code around mid April 2002
To quote Homer: 40 seconds? But I want it NOW!
Any of the winners care to link to their source? (Obviously nothing would get past the lameness filter ;-)
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
Every time I hear about the IOCCC I'm reminded of this old anecdote:
The highlight of the annual Computer Bowl occurred when Bill Gates, who was a judge, posed the following question to the contestants:
"What contest, held via Usenet, is dedicated to examples of weird, obscure, bizarre, and really bad programming?"
After a moment of silence, Jean-Louis Gassee (ex-honcho at Apple) hit his buzzer and answered "Windows."
Mr. Bill's expression was, in the words of one who was there, "classic."
(source)
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
#include <stdio.h> ,m ),A(n ,i))() {B (A(h,c ),A(r ,a ))*p=x ;B(A( n, i),t)t ,A(r, o )) (;*p;Q( p)++){C( B( A(c,t) ,h),B(A( ,s ++)Z( 1,t+= 8 ;,s++ )Z ,putchar(t-73);t=s=0)}}})
#define S(s)char x[]=#s;s
#define Q(x)x
#define A(x,y)y##x
#define B(x,y)A(y,x)
#define C(x,y)B(y,x)
#define Z(s,t,u)case s:if(*p!=32){t;}else{u;}break;
S(B( A( a
=0;B(A(n , i),t)s =0;B( f
w, s),i))( s){ Z( 0,t+=8 *8-00
( 2, t++
Best Abuse of User: Edward Rosten (England) - Greasy mouse
also qualifies for the Iron Chef competition. Or am I alone in thinking that Greasy Mouse sounds like some sort of England variant on Chinese/Indian cookery? *grin* (I can't wait to see this entry. I love the Abuse of User programs...)
This flies in the face of science.
The contributors, winners, judges and just about
anyone who has anything to do with IOCCC, should
be in your "not to hire" black-list.
Unless you want your project to be implemented as
a self-printing pelindromic asciiz, that has a built in tetris.
--
And of course, let's not forget The Bulwer-Lytton Contest.
The 1996 Winner, my favorite sentence of all time:
"Ace, watch your head!" hissed Wanda urgently, yet somehow provocatively, through red, full, sensuous lips, but he couldn't you know, since nobody can actually watch more than part of his nose or a little cheek or lips if he really tries, but he appreciated her warning."
- Worst driver
Anonymous 4 (USA) - A driver gameHey, I didn't know Anonymous 4 did programming too?
Har har. Anyway, compared to today's high-level languages, C is boring. Let's see some obfuscated Ruby programs.
Is there a secret society of Grand Master programmers
I sense much fear in this one. Train you, I cannot.
Give them an inch and they'll take a foot. Much more than that, you won't have a leg to stand on.
Well, unfortunately it's not always that simple. Let's take the Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker v3.1.9 as an example. It can crack every single password encrypted with crypt(3) containing 1 to 8 lowercase latin letters. It uses a sophisticated cryptoanalysis method, which scientists call the "Brute Force". Its main purpose is to hide domain of my electronic-mail address from spammers (see my bio). Here's the source code:
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker v3.1.9
#
# Copyright (C) 2001,2002 shiny@key.salt (shiny@output)
# http://slashdot.org/~Shiny+Metal+S./
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
# of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General
# Public License along with this program;
# if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
# 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
#
$x=substr$q,q,0,,q,2,if$q=q,plfeY04jaJnYI,;for
(++$_..$_<<3){qq,$q,eq crypt$_,$x and die
qq,$_.$x,for q,a,x$_..q,z,x$_}
As you can clearly see, the main algorithm used in this program (in the main loop) is able to always find every password (from the 1-8 lowercase latin characters set) but what does it mean? I had to use strong cryptography, because otherwise my electronic-mail address could be harvested by spambots (and therefore be used to perform unsolicited commercial mass mailing), but it also means, that this algorithm could be used to crack passwords from your /etc/passwd (or even from /etc/shadow),
which usually contain passwords
encrypted with crypt(3)
and this could compromise
the whole system security
(imagine hackers having
unlimited
access to your PC).
It's a very dangerous problem.
Most of password cracking tools use the,
so called,
"Dictionary Method"
to guess passwords,
which mean that you're safe as long as you have
a password like "wmctsbvg" or
"obwhdrle" or even
"awxolfrk", but this program will guess such passwords.
My point is, that it can be to dangerous
to publish a clear and well documented
source code to such a dangerous tool.
It could be used by one of many
underground
hacker groups,
like the famous
Script Kiddies,
who don't even care that reverse engineering
of this code is illegal under the DMCA.
Fortunately, this program was written in
Perl, which
was found
to be the only language,
with mathematically proved
possibility of secure one-way obfuscating
(also known as WOL - "write only language",
or WORN paradigm - "write once - read never"),
so it is impossible to reverse engineer.
The situation will be even improved when
Perl 6
is released
(read Apocalypse I,
Apocalypse II,
Exegesis II,
Apocalypse III,
Exegesis III and
Apocalypse IV
for a good introduction to this subject).
That way, people can still use crypt(3) to
encrypt their passwords, with no fear that
hackers know how to crack them,
the crypt(3) encryption method is as secure as
before.
When this program will be rewriten in Perl 6,
the crypt(3) method
will be actually even
more secure than before,
thanks to the strong source code
obfuscation method.
I hope I explained where the
obfuscated code can be useful,
but this is only one example,
I'm sure there are many places where
the good old obfuscation will
be priceless for many decades.
If you have any additional questions,
feel free to contact me.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
Actually, using gcc's built in C language extensions for dubius kernel hacks you should REALLY be able to show off some obfuscated C. Runtime dynamic "static" stack arrays anyone?
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Your comment is weird and senf-contradictory in the light of your homepage. FORTRAN has a fairly clean syntax because it uses newlines and XX ... END XX statements instead of semicolons and braces. Not much unlike
Python. Surely you jest.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The winners will be notified by Obsfucated Email guised as spam.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
I'm sorry... If I were mod'ing I woulda got ya up... I got + 4 right know for a shitty "Funny" post... and you post in a very informed and intellectual manner and you've been modded down to 0....
My personal sorry.... For whats it's worth... I woulda modded you up... Just let your Karma Suffer for now...
I live with the winner of the small program category. He does programming contests "for fun" In his own words "I dont remember how it works anymore"
Best of Show
Most likely to amaze
Best abuse of the rules (Most complete program)
Best X11 Game
Best Short Program
Best position-independent code
Best Abuse of CPP
Best Abuse of User
Best One-Liner
Best curses Game
Most eye-crossing
Most obfuscated sound
Best primal ASCII graphics
Best AI
Worst driver
chongo (was here)
If you want to see a really good password cracking program, check out Alec Muffett's great and famous Crack. It's really great, especially when you have good dictionaries. If you want to check if your password is easily cracked by Crack, you can use Alec Muffett's CrackLib. Check out my online Password-Guessability-O-Meter, I wrote it some time ago to demonstrate to one of my clients how does the CrackLib work. You just enter your desired password, and it tells you if (and why) it is easy to guess, using English, Polish, Czech, French and Latin dictionaries.
I use CrackLib for online registrations CGI scripts etc. so users can't have silly and easy to guess passwords. It can also be used with passwd program. Great library, and easy to use (there's Crypt::Cracklib Perl interface), but may be quite difficult to set up for the first time.
Thanks.I just run this benchmark:
and with Perl 5.6.1 I got this results:But in my code this loop has only eight iterations, where the 8th one takes two years, so the loop control overhead itself doesn't really matter here. The inner loop is more important but crack() function takes most of the time, anyway.
Older versions of Perl (I don't know which exactly) created a temporary array for the range operator in foreach loop, so the code like:
could easily take all of the memory, but now it's fixed. Fortunately, it doesn't create a temporary array any more, and it's highly optimized, so it's safe to use it now for large ranges. Yes, there were print and exit in the original version. You have exactly reconstructed my way of thinking. Well done.I think you're very good, really. Most of people have no idea how to analyze such obfuscated code. Actually I'm quite disappointed that decrypting my code was so easy for you... :)
I'll tell you why and how I wrote this program. I was inspired by this code:
and few JAPH signatures. I wanted to write a small program, that it would be impossible to tell what it writes, until you run it. Most of such programs are very obfuscated but after enough work you can usually find the printed message, without running them. So I thought that the message could be ciphered using some one-way alghoritm, like crypt(3) or MD5, and the code would just brute-force crack it. That way it's really impossible to tell what the message is, until you run the code. The code itself only cracks, but doesn't know what is being cracked and when it finishes. Using crypt(3) had this advantage, that it has 2-character salt, which can act as country code in domain name.So I wrote the first working version and started to make it as small as possible. Originally it didn't have to be obfuscated, just small. This is the smallest version I've written so far:
with 98 characters. But today I shrinked it some more, to 93 characters: and few minutes ago (while I write this comment!) I found a better idea and wrote this: which having only 79 characters is my record so far (thanks to Perl's magical auto-increment operator) and finally fits in one line! Your english is OK, don't worry. Actually, I like the way you use French spelling for some words, like difficile. It's like a French accent in written text, very nice in my opinion. Good point.This Unlambda program "calculates and prints the Fibonacci numbers (as lines of asterisks)":
I wanted to show a Hello world example of Brainf***, but I got this error:
Visit Esoteric Topics in Computer Programming, great stuff if you want to go mad.You like Perl, so if you know Inline::C and Inline::CPR (if you don't, read Pathologically Polluting Perl by Brian Ingerson) you may enjoy understanding this code:
It's great, once you really understand it.Are you up to date with Perl 6 development? It's going to be great and extremely powerful language. Read Larry Wall's Apocalypses and Damian Conway's Exegeses if you're interested:
- Apocalypse 1: The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good (April 2, 2001)
- Apocalypse 2: Fundamental data types, variables and the context and scoping of the language (May
3, 2001)
- Exegesis 2 (May 15, 2001)
- Apocalypse 3: Operators (October 2, 2001)
- Exegesis 3 (October 3, 2001)
- Apocalypse 4: Syntax (January 18, 2002)
It's my favorite language already, and it's not even fully designed yet.~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$