---
title: "Evil code in disguise"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/22/evil-code-in-disguise.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/22/evil-code-in-disguise.html"
published: "2005-06-22T22:48:00"
updated: "2005-06-22T22:48:00"
tags: ["Off Topic"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "The Underhanded C Contest \"..we hereby announce an annual contest to write innocent-looking C code implementing malicious behavior. In many ways this is the exact opposite of the Obfuscated C Code Contest: in this…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Evil code in disguise

By Roy Osherove June 22, 2005 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

**Historical article** · Originally published June 22, 2005; technical details may be outdated.

[The Underhanded C Contest](http://www.brainhz.com/underhanded/)

_"..we hereby announce an annual contest to write innocent-looking C code implementing malicious behavior. In many ways this is the exact opposite of the Obfuscated C Code Contest: in this contest you must write code that is as readable, clear, innocent and straightforward as possible, and yet it must fail to perform at its apparent function._

_To be more specific, it should do something subtly evil. "_

(via [James Robertson](http://www.brainhz.com/underhanded/) )

## More in Off Topic

[All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

- Jun 26, 2005

    ### [The ultimate gamer keyboard?](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/26/the-ultimate-gamer-keyboard.html)

- Jun 26, 2005

    ### [\[OT\] What are you afraid of?](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/26/ot-what-are-you-afraid-of.html)

- Jun 22, 2005

    ### [My Session schedule at Tech-Ed Europe](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/22/my-session-schedule-at-tech-ed-europe.html)

- Jun 22, 2005

    ### [$50,000 to build a Cool Tool?](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/22/50000-to-build-a-cool-tool.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/