5 ms·

Underhanded C contest

12 points by nyellin 15y ago

robertskmiles 15y ago
It's fun how these are a matter of perspective. Many view the very fact that it's possible to write obfuscated Perl as a weakness in Perl itself, while others see it as a strength. Similarly, the fact that a piece of code can look perfectly innocuous and do something evil is, in my view at least, a serious problem with the C language. Also, I laughed at "Underhanded C Contest: The official perfectly innocent web page for law-abiding good guys".
- amatus 15y ago
  I don't think this contest depends on a serious problem with the C language. The 2008 winner (http://underhanded.xcott.com/?page_id=17 http://underhanded.xcott.com/?page_id=17) could have been written in any language.
  - scott_s 15y ago
    Indeed, what impressed me about that entry was it was a fundamental error that is surprisingly subtle. It could have easily been implemented in Python in about the same number of lines.
  - robertskmiles 15y ago
    That's true, I think that one is particularly impressive because for that reason. Nonetheless if you look at the majority of entries, the main techniques used are things like heavy wizardry with pointers, broken macros, and other preprocessor stuff, which, while admittedly not unique to C, are not so bad in most other languages.
- sp332 15y ago
  The most coveted prize is the "we had to change the rules because of this entry" prize. The shortest quine is an empty .c file (with some Makefile mangling), stuff like that :)
  - scott_s 15y ago
    I believe you're thinking of the Obfuscated C contest. This is rather the opposite of that - non-obfuscated code with subtle bugs.
bhickey 15y ago
The contest is defunct. It hasn't been updated in two years.
camtarn 15y ago
Cheers for re-linking this - I've was looking for this contest after mentioning it in conversation a couple of months back, but my Google-fu failed me (I was looking for "sneaky C contest" and variations on that term, but never thought of "underhanded") :)
adg001 15y ago
Along the same line (and not defunct) the Backdoor Hiding & Finding Contest https://backdoorhiding.appspot.com/ https://backdoorhiding.appspot.com/
scott_s 15y ago
As others have noted, the contest is over, but there's no walkthrough of the winners. The previous years have walkthroughs. I liked the winner from 2008: http://underhanded.xcott.com/?page_id=17 http://underhanded.xcott.com/?page_id=17

12 points by nyellin 15y ago

It's fun how these are a matter of perspective. Many view the very fact that it's possible to write obfuscated Perl as a weakness in Perl itself, while others see it as a strength. Similarly, the fact that a piece of code can look perfectly innocuous and do something evil is, in my view at least, a serious problem with the C language. Also, I laughed at "Underhanded C Contest: The official perfectly innocent web page for law-abiding good guys".

amatus 15y ago
I don't think this contest depends on a serious problem with the C language. The 2008 winner (http://underhanded.xcott.com/?page_id=17 http://underhanded.xcott.com/?page_id=17) could have been written in any language.
- scott_s 15y ago
  Indeed, what impressed me about that entry was it was a fundamental error that is surprisingly subtle. It could have easily been implemented in Python in about the same number of lines.
- robertskmiles 15y ago
  That's true, I think that one is particularly impressive because for that reason. Nonetheless if you look at the majority of entries, the main techniques used are things like heavy wizardry with pointers, broken macros, and other preprocessor stuff, which, while admittedly not unique to C, are not so bad in most other languages.
sp332 15y ago
The most coveted prize is the "we had to change the rules because of this entry" prize. The shortest quine is an empty .c file (with some Makefile mangling), stuff like that :)
- scott_s 15y ago
  I believe you're thinking of the Obfuscated C contest. This is rather the opposite of that - non-obfuscated code with subtle bugs.

bhickey 15y ago

The contest is defunct. It hasn't been updated in two years.

camtarn 15y ago

Cheers for re-linking this - I've was looking for this contest after mentioning it in conversation a couple of months back, but my Google-fu failed me (I was looking for "sneaky C contest" and variations on that term, but never thought of "underhanded") :)

adg001 15y ago

Along the same line (and not defunct) the Backdoor Hiding & Finding Contest https://backdoorhiding.appspot.com/ https://backdoorhiding.appspot.com/

scott_s 15y ago

As others have noted, the contest is over, but there's no walkthrough of the winners. The previous years have walkthroughs. I liked the winner from 2008: http://underhanded.xcott.com/?page_id=17 http://underhanded.xcott.com/?page_id=17