Re: Trojan Source Attacks

["David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler () dwheeler com>]

> On Nov 2, 2021, at 9:23 AM, Josh Bressers <josh () bress net> wrote:
> You could argue the obfuscated C contest is related, that goes back to 1984.
> https://www.ioccc.org/years.html#1984

You could certainly make that argument :-). At the least,
I think the obfuscated V contest was heavily inspired by the obfuscated C contest.
After all, just look at the similarities of the name! 

I didn’t make that argument.  The obfuscated C contest doesn’t bill itself
as trying to fool anything as thinking some code did something *different*.
Most entries are so bizarre that you have to deeply analyze it to figure out what it does at all.
It’s usually painfully obvious that obfuscated C entries are hard to read.

Underhanded code is, I think, significantly different. Instead of being clearly hard to understand,
It’s designed to be (1) easy to understand WRONGLY, (2) look innocent, and
(3) do something malevolent.

--- David A. Wheeler