Communications of the ACM
Hackers Compete to Create the Most Insidious Code
The malicious software development contest at the Underhanded C Conference is one of a growing number of competitions aiming to turn computer programming into a game in order to identify top talent.
Credit: Kevin Simpson/Wired News
The Underhanded C Conference calls on developers to create software that performs some kind of malicious activity but looks innocuous even under scrutiny. If the malicious activity is exposed at all, it should appear to be an honest error rather than a deliberate attempt at causing problems.
The contest is part of a growing number of competitions aiming to turn computer programming into a game in order to identify top talent. The contest was started in 2005 by Binghamton University professor Scott Craver, whose research focuses on steganography.
This year's contestants will assume the role of contractors for a fictional social network called ObsessBook. The challenge is to create a piece of C code for determining the degrees of separation between users and to integrate malicious code that will wrongly report the number of degrees separating one user's profile from other users, thus gaining unintended access to as many users as possible.
From Wired News
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