Mathematical Obfuscation Aainst Hackers Is Focus of New Cybersecurity Center

Mathematical Obfuscation Aainst Hackers Is Focus of New Cybersecurity Center

-- Tom

 

This is sort of a logical extension of things like ASLR, but it sounds like an absolute nightmare for debugging. And optimizing compilers already introduce "Heisenbugs"; I can scarcely imagine what an obfuscating compiler would do to large modern programs. I'm not really in a position to comment, certainly not as an expert; but it looks half-baked.

 

Hi Gullible,

I'm sure that the focus is more along the line of making the code less probable to be hacked by increasing the probabilities against it being cracked which is not so half-baked.

-- Tom

 

... Wait, this is not something that works at runtime?

Answer: no, apparently it is not:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/scrambled-code-keeps-software-safe

... This isn't security, it's runtime encryption on steroids. The IEEE calling it "security" is rather offensive IMO, and really raises my hackles.

This wouldn't discourage fuzzing or black-box debugging at all, it would discourage reverse engineering. Exploiting the software would be possible, knowing how it works not so much. It's about protecting trade secrets, not protecting consumers, IMO.

 

Cryptography Breakthrough Could Make Software Unhackable