Who wants to become a spy?

[minestrone]

Looked at it for a bit last night, thought I could get somewhere then lost interest when I realised I would have to type it all out again as it was on an image.

[adubya]

This code is written in C++.

I had to look carefully to ascertain this as there is no evidence of object orientation within this code sample so it could easily be mistaken for C.

Indeed it is just C with some sugar on it.

The give away is the use of pointers.

EDIT: This is where Is aw use of pointer: if (*(uint16_t *)&ptr[i] == 0x80cd)

HTH

Joshi

Looks like pure C to me, can't see any "sugar".

Apparently solving the code takes you to a GCHQ application form for ~£20K roles

[OwlHoot]

this means nothing to me but ..

What on Earth does he need all that carp about paging and memory allocation, and the assembler? The guy is just showing off.

[adubya]

What on Earth does he need all that carp about paging and memory allocation, and the assembler? The guy is just showing off.

+1 to that, I saw the assembler and did a geek "lol"

[TimberWolf]

Do I get to meet Alotta Fagina and Ivana Humpalot?

Sort of. Their names are Lucy Fagina and Ivana Trumpalot.

[OwlHoot]

Looked at it for a bit last night, thought I could get somewhere then lost interest when I realised I would have to type it all out again as it was on an image.

Lazybones - Only took me about 5 minutes to type out.

There are several repeated sequences that occur in both blocks, such as "df 29 cf" (just over half way down, and of course the two lots of "41 41 41 41". Also, there seem far more 88s and 89s than one would expect by chance.

Counting the distances between the 89s and mapping these to A, B, C, ... I ended up with "FKBCLEAIM", which if you squint at it seems to contain a garbled version of "FACEBOOK"; but that might just be coincidence.

[doodab]

Looks like pure C to me, can't see any "sugar".

Apparently solving the code takes you to a GCHQ application form for ~£20K roles

If the geniuses that run GCHQ are struggling to solve the puzzle of why they can't attract people with brains it's no wonder they need help with codebreaking. I suspect this is less about recruitment and more about lulling the enemy into a false sense of security.

[gingerjedi]

If the geniuses that run GCHQ are struggling to solve the puzzle of why they can't attract people with brains it's no wonder they need help with codebreaking. I suspect this is less about recruitment and more about lulling the enemy into a false sense of security.

They pay their code breaking staff 20k yet the outsourced guy who fixes the printers is on 50k just because he has DV.

[PAH]

They pay their code breaking staff 20k yet the outsourced guy who fixes the printers is on 50k just because he has DV.

True. There's more money in supplying them with paperclips (that are from a security approved supplier so need a 1000% markup ) than working for them or any other government department directly.

Especially now the government is cutting back on the staff, and will have to get contractors in to do the work.

[sasguru]

Crikey, I wondered where sasguru worked!

I know everything about you, bald short-arse.