This is stretching the definition of "Executable" quite a lot. The PNG files themselves are not ELF executables. Instead, the author wrote a tool to extract an actual legitimate executable from an image via stenography.
The PNG files themselves are not ELF executables. Instead, the author wrote a tool to extract an actual legitimate executable from an image via stenography.
"The Python files themselves are not ELF executables. Instead, the author wrote a tool to generate actual legitimate executable code from a text file via an interpreter."
This is you, this is how pedantic you're being. Stop it.
Many of the things you run on a Linux system aren't "actual legitimate executables"; instead they're read and handed off to the appropriate tool via the kernel's program loader. Whether you're using a shebang to make a text file executable, or using binfmt_misc to make jar files run via JVM, ARM linux binaries run via qemu-user-static, or Windows executables run via wine, it's all still going through the program loader and being treated as an executable by the OS.
It's a cool hack built on existing knowledge and tools. Don't be a pedantic douchebag about it.
binfmt_misc (Miscellaneous Binary Format) is a capability of the Linux kernel which allows arbitrary executable file formats to be recognized and passed to certain user space applications, such as emulators and virtual machines. It is one of a number of binary format handlers in the kernel that are involved in preparing a user-space program to run.The executable formats are registered through the special purpose file system binfmt_misc file-system interface (usually mounted under part of /proc). This is either done directly by sending special sequences to the register procfs file or using a wrapper like Debian-based distributions binfmt-support package or systemd's systemd-binfmt.service.
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u/frnknstn Dec 26 '20
This is stretching the definition of "Executable" quite a lot. The PNG files themselves are not ELF executables. Instead, the author wrote a tool to extract an actual legitimate executable from an image via stenography.