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5th Underhanded C Contest Now Open

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-c-what-you've-done-there dept.

Xcott Craver writes "The next Underhanded C Contest has begun, with a deadline of March 1st. The object of the contest is to write short, readable, clear and innocent C code that somehow commits an evil act. This year's challenge: write a luggage routing program that mysteriously misroutes a customer's bag if a check-in clerk places just the right kind of text in a comment field. The prize is a gift certificate to ThinkGeek.com."

10 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Watch list? by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Funny

    This year's challenge: write a luggage routing program that mysteriously misroutes a customer's bag if a check-in clerk places just the right kind of text in a comment field.

    All participants will also receive complimentary cavity-searches at airport checkpoints.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:Watch list? by w0mprat · · Score: 4, Funny

      This year's challenge: write a luggage routing program that mysteriously misroutes a customer's bag if a check-in clerk places just the right kind of text in a comment field.

      I am certain that this is already a feature of existing luggage routing software.

      --
      After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
  2. Wait a sec... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    | This year's challenge: write a luggage routing program that mysteriously misroutes a customer's bag if a check-in clerk places just the right kind of text in a comment field.

    What, we actually need to write code for something that happens by nature?

    1. Re:Wait a sec... by bcong · · Score: 4, Funny

      the current method of writing in:
      "Package Handler,
      Customer was an asshat...you know what to do"
      was starting to get noticed

  3. Re:Not fair! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hardly. It is supposed to be "short, readable, clear and innocent". What are the odds that any of the airline production code meets that description?

  4. Contest or Job Posting? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    a luggage routing program that mysteriously misroutes a customer's bag

    sounds like Delta is looking for new programmers

    1. Re:Contest or Job Posting? by Sebilrazen · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, that challenge would have random 3 hour tarmac waits generated too.

      --
      "There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
  5. Re:This sounds familiar to, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was going to say, don't forget Perl programmers, but then I remembered the legibility requirement.

  6. For extra points: by w0mprat · · Score: 4, Funny
    For extra points submit this to your favourite open source project and have it accepted into the main code release - since it appears to be prefectly geniune, compiles, and can do what it appears to - it's certainly possible. Finally demonstrate your backdoor when the project is released to the wild.

    If you manage to get this into the GNU/Linux Kernel, you get a job at the NSA.

    Write short, readable, perfectly innocent looking C code, that somehow commits an evil act under certain circumstances.

    --
    After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
  7. Re:Easy? by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 4, Funny

    C motherfucker, do you speak it?!

    --
    Happy people make bad consumers.