In the article refered by Linux Journal article - possible advocacy potential the master of obfuscation warns us:

In addition, we are considering changing our data file format from an arcane system developed in-house to one using XML.

I'm scared! Erudil tackles XML! I am _so_ afraid of the result! Such a sick and twisted mind applied to such a sick and twisted format!

So I am certainly not an obfuscation expert, but I decided to strike pre-emptively and to write a sick and twisted XML obfuscation, using XML::Parser to sorta parse itself and to sorta print a JAPH.

#!/bin/perl -w
use strict;
seek DATA, $[,$[; 
sub another{ foreach( $[..(($^W<<1)+$^W)) { <DATA>}}
my $just= another or my $xml=hacker() and <DATA>;
sub hacker { $_=
<DATA> }
sub smoke { pipe 0, 1}
sub mirror { return join( " \n", split( /[^a-x]+/, $xml))}
sub ON { "perl -e'print q{". (smoke and mirror) . "}' |" }
open( ELT, ON);
<ELT>;use XML::Parser;
$xml=~ s<!-- smoke --><!--mirror-->;
my $parser= XML::Parser->new( Handlers => 
  { Start   => sub { while( <ELT>) { chomp; print ucfirst; last; } }, 
    End     => sub { print "\n" if( $_[0]->depth == 0); },
    Comment => sub { <ELT>=~ m</ELT>;} 
  });
$parser->parse( \*DATA);
$just=q</ELT>. qq</ELT>;
__DATA__
</DATA>

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In reply to XML _is_ sick and twisted by mirod

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