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Obfuscated Vote Counting Contest

Posted by michael on from the some-votes-are-more-equal-than-others dept.

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."

7 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. I WIN! by AmigaAvenger · · Score: 5, Funny

    Quick, someone post some of the Diebold voting machine code, you certainly will have a winner in there!

  2. Hiding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If I were doing this, I would hide the date analysis and vote rigging in another part of the program. For example, the code used to handle the screen and menus, or the network stack.
    Then, you could obfuscate a call to jump the program pointer to that part of memory directly, run a tiny bit of code that appears to deal with graphics, but does something else when called with the correct offset.
    The devious would be scattered about, rather than in one single vote counting function.

  3. Summary of this year's election by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    enum Outcome
    {
    AMERICAWINS,
    AMERICALOSES
    }

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

    Outcome o;

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

  4. Patent pending by GrAfFiT · · Score: 5, Funny

    "C code that appears correct but does the wrong thing when counting votes"
    Beware of Diebold suing you for infringing one of their patents !

  5. Re:last election by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Surely you know that C and C++ don't give a damn if there are new lines and carriage returns in the whitespace or not.

    Only newbie programmers use new lines and carriage returns.

    Real programmers don't use new lines and carriage returns as it detracts from being able to glance at the whole program at once and immediately understand it's intent, purpose, and spot any bugs in a holistic fashion.

  6. This is pretty much accurate: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  7. Ken Thompson's compiler hack by FleaPlus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.