A Rather Curious Pattern

2008-05-12

I know another term that will act as "an extra obstacle for people trying to recover the original value, though it does smell a little of security through obscurity. "

its called PEPPER

CAPTCHA : validus

2008-05-12

perhaps he's a seasoned developer rim shot

2008-05-12

I think this says it all:

Italian Proverb:
Give neither counsel nor salt till you are asked for it

and

Stephen King:
Talent is cheaper than salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

2008-05-12

I think we have agreement that the comments were the most WTFy part. So I fixed the comments:

<?php
   // Create a string-token that is
   // (a) impossible to predict and
   // (b) different for every request 
   // Both requirements are taken more seriously than is
   // usual for PHP code. Instead of half-assed, this will
   // be done fully-assed.
   function make_random_code() {
      // The characters from which the random code is made.
      // The string is called $salt because I read
      // a cryptography book once.
      $salt = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789";
      // Reinitialize the random generator every time through
      // because I bet it would otherwise start repeating
      // itself when I'm not looking.
      // Since srand expects an int, passing microtime()
      // directly would always get truncated to 0 and
      // that would be embarrassing.
      // Use double-size math because we care deeply
      // about the precision of our random numbers.
      srand((double)microtime()*1000000);

      // Make a random string, 7 characters long
      $i = 0;
      while ($i <= 7) {
         // Generate a random number suitable for indexing
         // $salt. Use a simple modulo because we're not
         // really serious about the whole random thing,
         // so it doesn't matter that the resulting
         // distribution is skewed towards 0.
         // Also, calling rand(0, 32) seemed too complicated.
         // Use modulo 33 because $salt is 36 characters
         // long and the numbers 7, 8 and 9 traumatized me
         // when I was young.
         $num = rand() % 33;
         // Extract the somewhat-randomly chosen
         // character from $salt.
         $tmp = substr($salt, $num, 1);
         // Building strings one character at a time
         // builds character.
         $random_code = $random_code . $tmp;
         $i++;
      }
      return $random_code;
   }

   // Make sure it doesn't throw an error
   // like the last time I edited it.
   // Also, it would be a pity to leave
   // without polluting the global namespace.
   $random = make_random_code();
?>

A Rather Curious Pattern

Featured Comments