Specific instance of Tx using a malformed null byte vector for P2SH; insight req
Another very interesting question!

First, note the date of the transaction. Specifically:

"created_at": "2013-10-25T13:16:51.598Z"


It turns out that until this issue, ANY value could be used instead of OP_0. To quote Peter Todd:


  While normally OP_0 is used, the actual value of this argument is not
  checked, and thus creates a source of mutability for any transaction
  with CHECKMULTISIG inputs.


The patch here actually made it so that the first argument of a standard multisig had to be OP_0 as to not cause transaction malleability.

Given that this transaction was before this commit got into the standard bitcoin client, that transaction was perfectly fine. You literally could have put almost any value as the first byte and it would have gone through.

Also note that this was a soft-forking change. It's still legal to put OP_INVALIDCODE instead of OP_0, it just won't be propagated by the standard bitcoin client and thus probably won't get into a block. Otherwise, this would have been a hard-forking change.



Edit: It looks like the API from biteasy is different than other places like blockchain:

Note that the script begins with 00, not ff as with biteasy.

https://blockchain.info/rawtx/fccf964964c34994e5dbbb9ff7f914159b524b0831f6eea12255aa424b39090e

{
"ver": 1,
"inputs": [
{
"sequence": 4294967295,
"prev_out": {
"spent": true,
"tx_index": 38094378,
"type": 0,
"addr": "35aHovjnZ9xdfYZsB2yBVTs6CWqnBpHNDY",
"value": 100000,
"n": 1,
"script": "a9142a9ada309638ec606f67e6b107867184c58a3aab87"
},
"script": "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"
}
],
"block_height": 265976,
"relayed_by": "24.212.184.180",
"out": [
{
"spent": true,
"tx_index": 38095095,
"type": 0,
"addr": "1QKjwQ7tJGaWrXyftce4ns47gvZ67GoqMt",
"value": 80000,
"n": 0,
"script": "76a914ffd6391cff55413edb04761ecf1a447d80bfe74188ac"
}
],
"lock_time": 0,
"size": 435,
"double_spend": false,
"time": 1382706718,
"tx_index": 38095095,
"vin_sz": 1,
"hash": "fccf964964c34994e5dbbb9ff7f914159b524b0831f6eea12255aa424b39090e",
"vout_sz": 1
}