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The 7th Underhanded C Contest Is Online

Posted by samzenpus on from the back-again dept.

Xcott Craver writes The 7th Underhanded C Contest is now open. The goal of the contest is to write code that is as readable, clear, innocent and straightforward as possible, and yet somehow exhibits evil behavior that cannot be seen even when staring at the source code. The winners from 2013 are also online, and their clever and insightful submissions make for fun reading.

12 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. New twist this time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Previously the contest has been about doing nefarious stuff to the user of the program while keeping the code innocuous.
    This time, they want you to clandestinely warn users of government spying. It's a complete about-face on the definition of "underhanded". I love it.

    1. Re:New twist this time by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 3, Funny

      This NSA recruiting program has to become more subtle in order to attract participants.

    2. Re:New twist this time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you read the whole thing you'd notice that you're playing the role of an NSA insider who's leaking information... I thought you people liked that sort of thing?

    3. Re:New twist this time by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or it gives some insiders who might want to do such a thing a few ideas of how to go about it while maintaining plausible deniability.

  2. Re:The previous entry page leads to 404 by Xcott+Craver · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's not a defunct link to previous entries, but a defunct link to a previous version of the contest site. I've un-defuncteded it to more recent previous version of the contest site, but soon that will also be defunctitated or defunctified, or defunctored.

    You can see the previous entries by scrolling down, or by selecting "past years" from the menu bar on the web page.

  3. Re:The previous entry page leads to 404 by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've un-defuncteded it to more recent previous version of the contest site, but soon that will also be defunctitated or defunctified, or defunctored.

    What defunct are you talking about? ;-)

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. Re:The previous entry page leads to 404 by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've un-defuncteded

    So it's totally funct now?

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  5. Not so clever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't get me wrong this is all great fun yet many of these schemes stand no chance of being committed in any serious project.

    Implicit returns generate compiler warnings.

    printf variable as format specifier is a well known security issue lazy eyeballs and static analysis tools check for.

    Serialization delimiter games are also well known issues standing little chance of being accepted.

    1. Re:Not so clever by BlackPignouf · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah right.
      Something like this http://www.gergely.risko.hu/de... would never get committed.

  6. Not so clever by slashdice · · Score: 4, Insightful

    were that true, CVE wouldn't be a thing.

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  7. OpenSSL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sorry guys but this year's winner hands down is OpenSSL.

    1. Re:OpenSSL by swillden · · Score: 4, Funny

      Sorry guys but this year's winner hands down is OpenSSL.

      No, underhanded C submissions have to be readable, clear and straightforward. OpenSSL is none of those.

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