[Retr0id]

People writing malware generally don't want to deploy it on honeypots, because then they're handing their payload (and other tradecraft) directly to analysts.

So often the first stage is an attempt at honeypot detection, or more broadly, device fingerprinting.

A bad honeypot might not even run a real /bin/sh, and this detects that right off the bat.

[lucianbr]

That makes a lot more sense than "it obscures the obscure thing it does to obscure itself".