CodeSOD: Classic WTF: Hacker Proof Booleans

We continue our summer break with a classic case of outsmarting oneself in the stupidest way. Original -- Remy

"Years ago, long before I'd actually started programming, I spent my time learning about computers and data concepts by messing around with, believe it or not, cheat devices for video games," wrote Rena K., "The one I used primarily provided a RAM editor and some other tools which allowed me to tool around with the internal game files and I even get into muddling around with the game data all in the interest of seeing what would happen."

"As such, by the time my inflated hacker ego and I got into programming professionally, I was already pretty familiar with basic things like data types and binary. I was feeling pretty darn L33T."

"However, this mindset lead to me thinking that someone could potentially 'steal my program' by replacing my name with theirs in a hex editor and claiming to have made it themselves. (Which wasn't unheard of in the little game hacking communities I was in...) So I used the h4x0r sk1llz I'd picked up to make my program hacker-proof."

"Of course I knew full well how boolean variables worked, but I'd read somewhere that in VB6, boolean types were actually integers. From this, I concluded that it was technically possible that a boolean variable could hold a value that was neither true or false. Of course there was no way to do this from within VB, so that could only mean someone was monkeying around with something they shouldn't. I needed a way to detect this."

if var = true then doThings()else if var = false then doOtherThings()else MsgBox("omfg haxor alert") End --terminate programend if

"I kept up adding the above to my code for years until I grew up enough to realize that it didn't do a darn thing. For the record though, nobody ever managed to 'steal my program'."

Do you have any confessions you'd like to make? Send them on in. [Advertisement] Infrastructure as Code built from the start with first-class Windows functionality and an intuitive, visual user interface. Download Otter today!