From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,FREEMAIL_FROM, INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,4c42ac518eba0bbe X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: frsdes@aol.com (FRS DES) Subject: Re: Programming language vote - results Date: 1997/10/16 Message-ID: <19971016134401.JAA11348@ladder01.news.aol.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 280983698 References: <34466EB4.3381@dynamite.com.au> X-Admin: news@aol.com Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-10-16T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <34466EB4.3381@dynamite.com.au>, Alan E & Carmel J Brain writes: >D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote: >> >> Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote: >> > Every time someone says how terse and powerful C is, I think of APL. >> >> My favourite quote about APL - "I refuse to use any computer language >> in which the proponents shove snippets of code under each other's >> nose saying 'I bet you can't guess what this does!'" > >Trouble is, this is true. I wrote a security system that took a user >input, used it to write a program which when executed wrote another >program that modified the first program, exited, and the first program >then gave access to certain data. In 2 lines. Due to hardware >limitations, this 2-liner was impossible to make "hidden" so I made it >Cryptic, and self-modifying. 2 months later, even I couldn't figure out >exactly what it did. > Of course, you were deliberately *trying* to be cryptic, as a security measure (not the best way to do security, IMO, but that is another matter). I would say that your code fulfilled its designed function pretty well. It might have been a good idea to document what it did, how and why, and sve this in a secure (off-line) place, since the code was intentionally obscure. -David E. Siegel Software Developer, Financial Reporting Software (FRS) FRSdes@AOL.COM