Cryptography Breakthrough Could Make Software Unhackable

From www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/02/cryptography-breakthrough:

 

Practical consequences of using functional encryption for software obfuscation

 

Satellite TV boxes (as of 2000, when I stopped playing with them) used ZKT (Zero Knowledge Tables). They still got hacked, but as usual it was because of "holes" in other areas.

 

I wonder how much of an execution slowdown there is with their construction.

 

That aspect is covered in comments posted at http://www.reddit.com/r/programming...develop_mathematical_jigsaw/cbdl3n7?context=9.

 

New Software Obfuscation Throws Wrench into Reverse Engineering

 

This strikes me as one of those technologies that should be destroyed before it's finished. The potential risks far outweigh the benefits, especially if 3 letter agencies and blackhats start using it. Malware using this would be immune to dismantling and heuristic analysis. Slight variations in the encryption would make definitions and detection impossible. There'd be no way of verifying what such an encrypted app is actually doing on your system.

 

Great comments at the end of this article!

 

Behavioral analysis would be unaffected as far as I know. But logic bombs would be a concern.

 

Wonkish: Progress and Challenges in Code Obfuscation (part I/II) and Progress and Challenges in Code Obfuscation: Part II.

 

From the last link:

 

There are a number of comments at http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/0...thematical-jigsaw-puzzles-to-encrypt-software.

 

Cryptographic obfuscation and 'unhackable' software by Matthew Green.

-- Tom