Obfuscated Vote Counting Contest

Daniel Horn writes "In a flash of inspiration coming from the Obfuscated C code contest and the current E-voting scandals, I wondered if there shouldn't be a similar code obfuscation contest based on obfuscating voting results, that is, C code that appears correct but does the wrong thing when counting votes. Submit your obfuscated vote-counting code now, and the two winners will be selected on November 2 and will receive a free Vega Strike CD. Obviously incorrect code, however, is not welcome."

Comments

Summary of this year's election

[Dancin_Santa]

enum Outcome
{
AMERICAWINS,
AMERICALOSES
}

int main()
{
bool voted = didYouVote();

Outcome o;

switch (voted)
{
case true:
o = AMERICAWINS;
case false:
o = AMERICALOSES;
}
return o;
}

This is pretty much accurate:

[Anonymous Coward]

if(voter.ethnicity != WHITE)
return 0;
if(GetVote(&voter))
{
switch(voter.vote)
{
case BUSH:
case KERRY:
++BusinessAsUsual;
break;
default:
AlertFBI();
}
}

Ken Thompson's compiler hack

[FleaPlus]

The best way to do this would be a variant of Ken Thompson's cc hack, published in ACM back in 1984. Basically the voting code would be pristine, but the compiler itself would be modified to add in "features" at compile time. The compiler also had hooks to add in the trojans while compiling pristine compiler code.

Both compiler and voting application code would appear pristine, with the the actual hack existing only in the compiled code.