Microsoft: programming contest defaced, not hacked

David M Williams
Tuesday, 07 October 2008 18:49

Business IT - Technology

This glitch meant the screenshots of submissions did not display correctly, but also reveals some insight into the physical server organisation Microsoft use for their web sites which is on the one hand academically interesting and on the other hand potentially useful for more capable hackers than the forum posters.

Perhaps worst of all is the disappointing turn out. There were some pretty great prizes on offer – a fully-paid trip to the MIX conference next year including airfare to Vegas plus accommodation in the Venetian, a host of Xbox 360 consoles and other items.

For all this, and out of all the software developers in Australia, only 38 entries could be coaxed out. And of these at least three were reworks of the infamous calculator that ships with Windows.

Why was the turnout so poor? It wasn’t for lack of loot: the cachet of prizes was valued at $18,000. And it’s certainly not due to a dearth of programming talent within Australia.

The contest allowed for entries spanning a range of modern Microsoft platforms. Even if we play Devil’s advocate and suggest Silverlight is not drawing the masses it would be unreasonable to think the same is true for Windows Vista desktop apps or Windows Mobile.

To my mind the biggest failing of the contest was the brief: the challenge was to make something reflecting “old school” cool using “new school” tech. The requirement largely limited itself to modernising Pong and other age-old games from an era past. In fact, Pong did form a submission by itself and as a component of another.

Not all submissions met the brief anyway: one submission implemented a secure recycle bin. Another amounted to nothing more than a Trojan horse, a Windows Mobile app which would listen for specifically worded SMS messages and then silently dial the sender allowing them to eavesdrop on conversations.

For what it’s worth, my money is on Console Connect which offers a social networking web 2.0 experience within a green-screen terminal environment replete with ASCII profile pictures, instant messaging and three console games. I love it. And I note the author describes it on his own site because DevSta’s “submission display page doesn’t work too well.” Elsewhere he questions who performed quality assurance checks on the DevSta site after another problem bugs him.

I’ll keep an eye out for the contest results. I’d hate to see a naff Windows calculator be rewarded with an Xbox.

And most definitely a Trojan doesn’t deserve to win – although Ov3rLord might think so. But then, his less than formidable hacking talent probably needs all the help it can get.