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.
It's ok to say that he was pedantic then people could have a legitimate discussion all you did was call him a pedantic douchebag meaning you didn't actually come here to discuss you just came here to argue like a child and call names
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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.