The Reliable USB Formatting Utility
This report summarizes scanner evidence for pbatard/rufus, a C project with 38,181 GitHub stars. SynthScan examined 205,999 lines of code across 519 source files, recording 433 pattern matches distributed across 5 syntactic categories. The legacy adjusted pattern signal is 2.1 (Low pattern signal); it is not an authorship estimate.
Use the findings to ask whether maintainers can explain intent, verify dependencies, simplify unnecessary scaffolding, and focus review effort. Risk Payload v1 adds ownership, supply-chain, over-engineering, and review-effort vectors when available. These are prompts for human verification, not probabilities, security findings, or measured maintenance costs.
Use each vector to guide manual verification of the underlying findings.
Payload schema: 1.0.0 · Engine: 2.0.0 · Scoring: heuristic-density-v1 · Scan date: 2026-10-31.
Can maintainers explain intent, assumptions, and trade-offs? 433 finding(s).
Are imports declared and package/API names verified? 0 finding(s).
Are wrappers, guards, and repeated structures necessary? 0 finding(s).
Which changes need focused human review? 433 finding(s).
This chart tracks the legacy adjusted pattern score across scan runs. Changes can reflect source changes, scan coverage, or detector/scoring versions; they do not measure AI adoption or prove that a team refactored code. Compare runs only when their scoring versions are compatible. The dashed line tracks the raw pattern-hit count.
Groups findings by configured severity weight. Severity is not a confidence estimate, security rating, or proof that a package is missing. Verify imports against the project's manifests and inspect each finding in its local design context.
This horizontal bar chart shows where configured pattern scores accumulate across directories. Treat the bars as locations to inspect, not as evidence of authorship or code quality. Use the file-level findings to decide whether a directory needs a focused ownership, dependency, complexity, or review check.
The scanner identified 433 distinct pattern matches across 5 syntactic categories. Each entry below represents a discrete location in the source code where the engine recorded a detector match to inspect in context. Expand any category row to inspect the individual file paths, line numbers, code snippets, and the lexical context (CODE, COMMENT, or STRING) in which each match was detected.
Reading the findings table: The Severity column indicates the configured finding weight (CRITICAL / HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW). The Context column identifies whether the match occurred inside executable code, an inline comment, or a string literal — legacy comment-context matches receive a ×1.5 score weight. The ⚡ bolt icon marks clustered matches: three or more patterns within a 10-line window, each receiving an additional ×1.5 density multiplier under the legacy scoring model.
| Severity | File | Line | Snippet | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LOW | _pre-commit.sh | 1 | #!/bin/sh | COMMENT |
| LOW | res/setup/resource.h | 1 | //{{NO_DEPENDENCIES}} | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/xml.c | 21 | * TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/localization.h | 21 | #include <stddef.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.c | 21 | #include <stdlib.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.c | 41 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | src/rufus.c | 3381 | }; | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/process.c | 21 | * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/ui.h | 21 | #include <stdint.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/ui.h | 61 | UPT_ETA, | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/settings.h | 21 | #include "rufus.h" | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/settings.h | 41 | #define SETTING_DISABLE_VHDS "DisableVHDs" | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/format_fat32.c | 21 | #ifdef _CRTDBG_MAP_ALLOC | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/format_fat32.c | 361 | // Sector 0 Boot Sector | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/format.c | 21 | #include <crtdbg.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/format.c | 41 | #include "resource.h" | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/vhd.c | 21 | // because we must apply a delay-loading workaround, and that workaround | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/format_ext.c | 21 | #include <stdlib.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/stdio.c | 21 | #include <stdlib.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/stdio.c | 761 | return res; | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/smart.h | 21 | * along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/smart.h | 41 | #define USB_JMICRON_ATA_PASSTHROUGH 0xdf | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/smart.h | 61 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | src/drive.h | 21 | #include <stdint.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/drive.h | 41 | #define PI_MAIN 0 | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/drive.h | 281 | HRESULT (STDMETHODCALLTYPE *Wait)(__RPC__in IVdsAsync *This, __RPC__out HRESULT *pHrResult, __RPC__out VDS_ASYNC_OUTPUT | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/drive.h | 301 | #define IVdsPack_Release(This) (This)->lpVtbl->Release(This) | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/dos.c | 21 | /* Memory leaks detection - define _CRTDBG_MAP_ALLOC as preprocessor macro */ | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/dos.c | 41 | static DWORD DiskImageSize; | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/hash.c | 61 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | src/hash.c | 81 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | src/dev.h | 21 | #include <cfgmgr32.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/msapi_utf8.h | 21 | * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/msapi_utf8.h | 41 | #include <sys/types.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/msapi_utf8.h | 61 | WideCharToMultiByte(CP_UTF8, 0, wsrc, -1, NULL, 0, NULL, NULL) | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/dos_locale.c | 21 | #ifdef _CRTDBG_MAP_ALLOC | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/missing.h | 21 | #include <intrin.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/missing.h | 41 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | src/missing.h | 61 | #pragma intrinsic(_byteswap_ushort) | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/missing.h | 161 | return r; | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/missing.h | 181 | #define INTERNET_OPTION_HTTP_DECODING 65 | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/missing.h | 201 | #define IMAGE_FILE_MACHINE_LOONGARCH32 0x6232 | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/ntdll.h | 21 | * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/ntdll.h | 41 | #define STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED ((NTSTATUS)0xC0000022L) | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/ntdll.h | 241 | } RTL_HEAP_PARAMETERS, *PRTL_HEAP_PARAMETERS; | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/ntdll.h | 261 | // Privileges | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/ntdll.h | 281 | #define SE_SHUTDOWN_PRIVILEGE (19L) | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/localization.c | 21 | #ifdef _CRTDBG_MAP_ALLOC | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 21 | #include <inttypes.h> | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 41 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 61 | #define LEFT_TO_RIGHT_MARK "\u200e" | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 81 | #define MAX_LOG_SIZE 0x7FFFFFFE | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 101 | #define SEARCH_PROCESS_TIMEOUT 5000 // How long we should wait to get the conflicting process data (in ms) | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 121 | #define RSA_SIGNATURE_SIZE 256 | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 141 | #define OSCDIMG_HASH "2000160b2c5044691b2f9a0ac308e5207f273d4880a572457af16d05886ba861" | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 161 | #define ARRAYSIZE(A) (sizeof(A)/sizeof((A)[0])) | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 181 | } | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 201 | #define static_sprintf(dst, ...) safe_sprintf(dst, sizeof(dst), __VA_ARGS__) | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 221 | extern void uprintfs(const char *str); | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/rufus.h | 361 | #define NB_OLD_C32 2 | COMMENT |
| 366 more matches not shown… | ||||
| Severity | File | Line | Snippet | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEDIUM | res/scripts/loadcfg.py | 17 | # Create a temp file as our source | COMMENT |
| MEDIUM | src/localization_data.sh | 9 | # Create the first sed command file | COMMENT |
| MEDIUM | src/localization_data.sh | 68 | # Create the second sed command file | COMMENT |
| Severity | File | Line | Snippet | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HIGH | src/bled/bled_size.c | 4 | * Mostly generated by AI - No copyright assigned. | COMMENT |
| Severity | File | Line | Snippet | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEDIUM | src/xml.c | 1076 | #ifdef EZXML_TEST // test harness | COMMENT |
| Severity | File | Line | Snippet | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LOW | src/ui.c | 317 | // Don't forget to add the dialog border width, since we resize the whole dialog | COMMENT |
| LOW | src/ui.c | 515 | // Don't forget to scroll the edit to the bottom after resize | COMMENT |