Not really clever. Format strings have a fairly restricted format; that one can&#x27;t have all that many bits of entropy. Once the obfuscation method occurred to an attacker, it wouldn&#x27;t take long to brute force it even if they didn&#x27;t have a file to search for suggestions. (And now that the idea is out there, I bet any number of hackers, wearing assorted coloured hats, are trying this out on other systems Even As We Speak.)