Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.

6 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm... by Vectronic · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    So, this is to prevent titties and clitties? And kitties too apparently... "enter registration code to see complete image"

    Interesting, but... thats the only purpose I can see... other than just general "for the hell of it" programming.

    1. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      help!i have virii on my lunix boxen!!

    2. Re:Hmm... by hostyle · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      And I have a voodoo doll with your name on it. Coincidence?

      --
      Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
  2. You mean like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    #include

    void main()
    {
            printf("I'M DEFINITELY NOT deletin' yUr FiLez!");
    }

    Wait, how do I execute command line arguments from C...!? :-P /me is n00b...

  3. Puts on tinfoil hat and just moves along. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    See article.

  4. Re:invisible ink by smittyoneeach · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    That is nearly on topic.
    From the original posting:

    redact blocks from an image, but do it so that the excised pixels can somehow be retrieved.
    If the email settings within Outlook could be considered "an image" then trying to manage email setting using Outlook could be compared to digging around a redacted file, trying to retrieve some missing pixels.
    I can see where Microsoft was going with the ribbon bar in Office2007, as far as making features more coherent and less nested goes.
    Outlook email configuration could really benefit from a similar treatment, and not feel like an Underhanded UI Contest.
    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear