Protect Your Source Code: Obfuscation 101 (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

Protect Your Source Code: Obfuscation 101 (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Apr 11, 2005 23:45 UTC (Mon) by XERC (guest, #14626)
Parent article: Protect Your Source Code: Obfuscation 101 (O'ReillyNet)

Now, suppose one has to work on a speed-critical application, for example, image processing(feature detection).

Now, suppose that at least halve of the billed time is spent on ALGORITHM DEVELOPMENT, to be more exact, finding algorithms that give good results and ARE AS FAST AS THE WHOLE TEAM CAN EVER THINK OF. Now, suppose that those algorithms are coded in a fashion that ABSOLUTELY EVERY LINE IS ANALYSED FROM SPEED'S POINT OF VIEW, not to mention the architecture.

OK, and what would obfuscation do? It would ABSOLUTELY DESTROY the work that took at least 50% of the development(finding fast algorithms and coding them in a "speed first" style) time. So, my point is that technically there is NO WAY for a vendor, who provides a really speed-critical application, to use any obfuscation.

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Protect Your Source Code: Obfuscation 101 (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Apr 13, 2005 2:58 UTC (Wed) by XERC (guest, #14626) [Link]

I just couldn't leave one joke unsaid:

I wonder, has anybody tried to use obfuscation
on a safety critical system, let's say, a heart
simulator or a car's brakes system? After all,
IP protection against ones competitors would
make sense from business point of view, right?

OK, if You didn't figure it out, read the following
from right to left:
.ssenisub eht spleh sydob daed gnivah taht saw ekoj ehT