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The First Annual Underhanded C Contest
Xcott Craver writes "We have just announced a new annual contest, the Underhanded C Contest, to write clear, readable, innocent-looking C code that implements malicious behavior. The object is to hide evil functionality that survives visual inspection of the source. The prize is beer."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People will do anything for beer! Who needs speech when you're gulping down a cold lager?
OLPC Australia
kill the brain cells that made innocent looking malicous code :P
Pussy.
Count on the likes of Sun, Microsoft, and anyone else selling a non-C language to pounce on this as a marketing opportunity.
C is a superb language. Why besmirch its reputation with a contest to make it seem as untrustworthy as possible?
#include
:)
main()
{
printf("Hello World");
}
Seemingly harmless, right? Wrong. It's still in devlopment, but think about it. You should have to greet the world before you destroy it.
I'm going to go create my own technology news site, with blackjack and hookers. You know what? Forget the news site.
Any open-source steganography programs
Why, yes! http://sourceforge.net/projects/steghide/
bash: rtfm: command not found
The authorities start a contest such as this, an unsuspecting programmer submits a malicious program, and he or she is arrested and charged with a variety of computer crimes.
What computer crimes would be broken?
Frankly, I won't participate in this contest considering the current legal state of America.
No, you won't participate because of yor current state of paranoia over the legal state of America.
#include stuff.h
/* nothing / */ /* to see / * here */
/* whats * / challenging / * about */
/* this */ /* there / is no */ evil /* /* here
/* their / * / eyes testing */ ();
void main()
{
screensaver(); * function */
anyone that thinks there is * / needs */
}
585
liqbase
Why attack the source code when you can instead attack the compiler?
You need only attack the compiler, or the linker, or the interpreter.
Just tuck it away in a commonly used header file, use touch to restore the last date/time of modification, and you're all set.
#define void int
Hours & hours of irritation & confusion!
T&K.
Political language
Can you even breathe in that tinfoil cocoon?
Everyone knows that it is possible to write malicious code in C. That's just because C gives you the near utmost control over your system, and does not discrminiate based on human emotions like "good", "bad", and "malicious". Perhaps a better idea would have been to try to write malicious code in a language such as Java, which tries to prevent a programmer from writing such code. That would be a real challenge.
Yeah, I just flip the "+good +bad -malicious" flags on javac when I want to trust code. Come on, that's ridiculous.
This is not a hard task, but it's kind of stupid, on the order of "who can break into the most computers today" (I dunno, who can run nmap the longest?)
There are so many *interesting* things that could be done as a programming contest, and the submitter chose something that's a pain in the ass for other people, doesn't really challenge the brain ("shortest version of X"), and can't be used for much other than bogus arguments that "C is dangerous" or the obvious card, "Open Source is insecure" (you can look at the much larger sample set of SourceForge and the lack of Trojans implanted and later discovered).
The number of *interesting* security stories that could have challenged people and been useful is legion. "Can we have a system that is unbreakable and does X", (followed by the inevitable followup posts where people punch holes in the design) or other things. You could have asked "How can OSS projects avoid allowing malicious code being sumitted?", which would have started an interesting set of threads from people who work on proof-carrying code, would have taught readers something, and maybe provided improved security for the world at large. Instead, we're going to see a handful of bad, obfuscated C, and a bunch of halfassed arguments against C and OSS, neither of which has much connection with reality. There will be some language arguments, where someone says "we should use [LANGUAGE_WITH_BOUNDSCHECKING]", some security guy that will point out that this doesn't begin to avoid stopping malicious code, someone will make some stupid arguments about how their favorite OS is more secure than anyone else's, we'll get some rehash of NX features that have been done time and time again on Slashdot...seriously, goddammit. The day someone makes a knockoff of Slashdot that's a bit more computer-science oriented and isn't solely aimed at producing the same tired old trolling every day is the day I jump ship.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
I mean I could do something like this:
# When do you want it done?
$today="sudo";
$yesterday="su -c";
# Define our globals
$superman="ls";
$wonderwoman="rm"
$bat
$aquaman="mv";
#define some important flags
$blows="-r";
$maims="-p";
$chunks="-f";
#define some targets
$your_mom="/";
$your_dad="/usr";
$your
$your_teacher="/bin";
$hell="/dev/n
$heaven="/dev/random";
$skyhigh="nfs://mys
#....later, back at Superfriends Headquarters
`$batman $blows $your_sister $skyhigh`;
`$wonderwoman $blows $chunks $on $your_sister`;
`$today $batman $and $your_mom $think $heaven $is $a $great $place $for $your_sister`;
#Would you like to see the rest of the story?
#print "Would you like to hear more? Please type your password to continue!";
The superfriends save the day again.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Hacking was never about malicious behaviour, it was about learning and understanding. Granted, much of what one learned could be applied in malicious ways, but that wasn't the goal. Coding contests whether they be geared towards obfuscation or speed are still learning endeavors.
Who is behind this and what is their motivations? What will they do with the ideas submitted in this contest? In a day of professional computer hackers, this is not a contest to have.
Help Wanted:
Diebold needs new programmers. If you have what it takes to hide "winning" code in our election machines. Apply to Diebold Careers
Please check out the contest page: the "evil" behavior is not something java would prevent you from doing. We're not talking about crashing a computer or gaining root access, but performing a data processing task incorrectly. It's entirely problem state.
That being said, I chose C because it does permit more tricks along the lines of stack smashing and type mismatches. The winners of the obfuscated V contest used techniques like this to conceal their evil behavior, so I feel this would give people more freedom to get creative.
Finally, this is not meant to slam C, or open source, or any such like. I can't imagine how anyone can look at this contest and see it as an argument for less openness.
Xcott
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
He'll submit the source code to IE.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
int main () { WinExec ("iexplore.exe"); }
This reminds me about the attempt at inserting a backdoor in the linux kernel to gain root access. If they found out who did this, maybe he should get the free beer? ;)
The attempt was trying to insert
if ((options == (__WCLONE|__WALL)) && (current->uid = 0))
inside a function. Note that (current->uid = 0) is not testing but rather sets the UID to zero (and the surrounding brackets avoid the GCC warning).
"write clear, readable, innocent-looking C code", right?
Wow, nobody's going to win this one.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Programmer: 'Take this source code, but beware! It carries a terrible curse!'
Judge: 'That's bad.'
Programmer: 'But it's optimized for PowerPC!'
Judge: 'That's good!'
Programmer: 'PowerPC is also cursed.'
Judge: 'That's bad.'
Programmer: 'But you get your choice of operating systems!'
Judge: 'That's good!'
Programmer: 'The operating systems run on Intel.' *pause* 'That's bad.'
Judge: 'Can I go now?'
A picky compiler is a blessing, not a curse. It's much easier to identify and fix compile errors than run-time errors.
difficult to convert to better languages (thank you preprocessor)
Meaningless troll.
encourages obfuscation
Unless the compiler is literally holding a gun to your head, this is meaningless. In C you have nearly limitless control to write your code the way you feel is clearest. If it came out obfuscated then you have nobody to blame but yourself.
some constructs are clearly tacked on and/or poorly implemented (switch), arbitrary nonorthogonality (struct, parens and brace usage, pointer/array declaration), shitty strings.
Tacked on? If you don't like the way constructs are set up then fine, that's your opinion. But if you read The C Programming Language you can tell that every single construct was scrutinized over for the proper balance of efficiency (why it makes sense to pass array parameters as pointers and structs as copies) and consistency (why data types are declared the way they are. Declaration and use of data is made to match.) Do you honestly believe the creators/first users of C, some of the greatest programmers who ever lived, really said, "Ahhh, fuck it. Let's just throw something together," when designing their own programming tools?
Most people who don't like C are really just saying they don't like low-level programming because that's what it was designed for, and that's what it's perfect for. Too many newbie programmers get used to some modern, flash-in-the-pan, all-things-to-all-people languages and when they are faced with the challenges of low-level languages rashly conclude that it's the language's fault they're having problems.
C is the perfect language for the job it was designed for. The same cannot be said for most more modern languages.
Happy people make bad consumers.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311486
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Well...
C is good for what it was first used for: writing Unix. At least initially, it was mimimalistic; orthogonality took a back seat to ease of implementation. (See Gabriel's classic essay for details.)
(It's certainly not flawless. Any language that needs a utility like cdecl to make declarations understandable has problems, and there should've been a Boolean type from the beginning. It would be nice if char (which should be whatever represents a glyph on the target system) weren't conflated with short short int. Basically, if C were in your back yard, it would be declared an "attractive nuisance.")
I think the authors of The Art of Unix Programming wisely recognize that C, like any other tool, should be used only where appropriate. (Sorry if that's tautological, but I can't think of a better way to put it.)