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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."

3 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Watch list? by markkezner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funny, but you've got a point. What would a potential employer think when, upon googling your name, they learn that you're so good at hiding malicious code that you won a contest for it. Would you hire that guy?

    It's not worth the $100 gift certificate.

    --
    Dangerous, sexy, turing complete: Femme Bots
  2. Re:Watch list? by Applekid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Would you hire that guy?

    Definitely, but maybe for QA or as a Code Review consultant. Of course, I'm assuming that the winner of the contest would also be clever enough to detect hidden maliciousness in others' code.

    --
    More Twoson than Cupertino
  3. Re:Not fair! by derGoldstein · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

    Hardly. It is supposed to be "short, readable, clear and innocent". What are the odds that any software written in C meets that description?

    There, fixed.

    --
    Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.