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2008 Underhanded C Contest Officially Open

Posted by Soulskill on from the sneaky-sneaky dept.

Xcott Craver writes "The 2008 Underhanded C Contest has just opened. Every year, contestants are asked to write a simple, innocent, readable C program that appears to perform an innocent task — but implements some non-obvious evil behavior. This year's challenge: redact blocks from an image, but do it so that the excised pixels can somehow be retrieved. We also have listed the winners of last year's contest, which was to write a simple encryption utility that mysteriously and undetectably fails between 1 percent and 0.1 percent of the time. The winning entry is truly impressive." We discussed the first of these contests in 2005.

11 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. I submit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Microsoft Windows Operating System, pick your version.

    1. Re:I submit by Rhapsody+Scarlet · · Score: 5, Funny

      Um, hello? Simple? Readable? Seemingly innocent? Does any current version of Windows manage to fulfil even one of these criteria?

    2. Re:I submit by dotancohen · · Score: 4, Funny

      Um, hello? Simple? Readable? Seemingly innocent? Does any current version of Windows manage to fulfil even one of these criteria?

      Post the Windows source code and we'll tell ya.
      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    3. Re:I submit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Post the Windows source code and we'll tell ya.
      A rare moment when a goatse.cx link would be appropriate.
    4. Re:I submit by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 5, Funny

      When that chunk of the Win2K Pro source code hit the net I had to look... And where do you live again?

      --The IP Police
  2. Encryption utility that fails... by darekana · · Score: 5, Funny

    encryption utility that mysteriously and undetectably fails... Debian OpenSSL?

    (sorry, couldn't resist, I know they've suffered enough already)
    --
    Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
  3. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Something like Photoshop's Swirl filter.

  4. Re:Hide the evil code? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Of course, I can't code C, so I don't know what I'm talking about.
    You should have begun your post with this line. Then I'd know not to listen to you. :-)
  5. WIC by Saiyine · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wavelet Intelligent Compressor. And it was intellingent, indeed. It had a compression scheme so good it could compress its own .wic files down from megs to bytes. But what do you mean with "random junk", do you mean my .wic based backups could be in trouble????

    --
    Hosting 20G hd, 1Tb bw! ssh $7.95
  6. Re:Hide the evil code? by Heian-794 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "One possible option for this contest is to hide information in the lower bounds of each pixel (stenography like)"

    Pedantry, I admit, but it's steganography that hides the information in that way. Stenography would be copying the RGB values on a piece of lined yellow paper.

  7. Re:Hide the evil code? by kevingolding2001 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Diebold