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A (marginally) useful x86-64 ELF executable in 298 bytes

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HN · launched Apr 7, 2026 · 13 upvotes (top 33%) · 0 views

Niche: code and binary analysis tools · 118 launches, 4 in the last 7 days ▼ -56% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Horizontal
  • Dev tools
  • Developer
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

No Crafting a working x86-64 ELF executable in under 300 bytes requires manual machine code assembly, overlapping ELF header structures, and deep binary exploitation-level knowledge of the Linux kernel loader.

What it would actually take: Building a sub-300-byte ELF executable requires raw byte assembly and deliberate ELF header corruption/overlapping tricks that take advantage of Linux kernel ELF loader quirks. No high-level compiler or typical AI coding assistant understands the intricate, undocumented kernel header parsing tolerances required to compress headers. This demands specialized expertise in x86-64 assembly, ELF binary specification minutiae, and demoscene-level byte-golfing.

Discussion

No comments on this launch.

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 3189 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #1040 of 3190 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 158 days after the earliest competitor.

The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.