Re: code transformations?

Darius Blasband <darius@phidani.be>
26 Sep 1996 11:05:34 -0400

          From comp.compilers
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Re: code transformations? ma@camcon.co.uk (1996-09-25)
Re: code transformations? darius@phidani.be (Darius Blasband) (1996-09-26)
Re: code transformations? meulenbr@prl.philips.nl (1996-09-26)
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Re: code transformations? torbenm@diku.dk (1996-09-29)
Re: code transformations? ndc@icanect.net (Norman Culver) (1996-09-29)
Re: code transformations? kaz@nt.com (1996-10-03)
Re: code transformations? hdlambri@cs.arizona.edu (Henry Dan Lambright) (1996-10-20)
[2 later articles]
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From: Darius Blasband <darius@phidani.be>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 26 Sep 1996 11:05:34 -0400
Organization: Phidani Software, Brussels
References: 96-09-094
Keywords: tools, comment

Tom Lord wrote:


> ... This got me to thinking -- suitably
> sophisticated transformations could preserve the semantics of the
> program, while completely disguising the text of the source. This has
> obvious implications for anyone into intellectual property theft.
>
> So the question is, has anybody written such a program? Will anyone?
> Would releasing such a program on the net be like the SATAN of IP?
> [There are certainly C obfuscators, but the ones I know of perform primarily
> lexical smooshing. -John]


We had received quite a bunch of source code, where, besides the
lexical smooshing - quoting John - the code was also destructured,
that is, enum variable declarations where replaced by ints,
loops by gotos, etc... It was rather effective: we rebuilt the source
code of a single function, and it was awfully long and awkward. I doubt
that it could be performed automatically reasonably easily.


I think it was produced by a tool by Gimpel Software. I never used it myself,
and I guess there might be limitations when using such a tool with too
much preprocessor niceties.


Cheers,


Darius
[Gimpel's product was called C Shroud. I presume it's still available,
though I don't see it on their web site, either. -John]
--

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