Re: Reverse-Engineering Bytecode: A Possible Commercial Objection To O'Caml

From: Markus Mottl (mottl@miss.wu-wien.ac.at)
Date: Wed Jun 07 2000 - 22:23:43 MET DST

  • Next message: Michael Donat: "Re: Reverse-Engineering Bytecode: A Possible Commercial Objection To O'Caml"

    > How can companies protect their bytecode, at least their modules, from reverse
    > engineering?

    I fear that there is probably no way to prevent this: as soon as you have a
    virtual machine that can (somehow) decode the byte code - it has to if it
    wants to execute anything useful - you know the internal structure of the
    code.

    Since all the sources of INRIA are open (i.e. also the protocols),
    everybody could "fake" a virtual machine that, instead of just executing
    the code, emits the decoded byte code.

    That's also the reason why you can (in theory) always break any kind of
    copy protection: as soon as a program runs on your machine, you can track
    any information about it you want. That may be lots of work (admittedly
    less work for byte code) - but it can be done.

    Regards,
    Markus Mottl

    -- 
    Markus Mottl, mottl@miss.wu-wien.ac.at, http://miss.wu-wien.ac.at/~mottl
    



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