Watermarking, tamper-proofing, and obfuscation - Tools for software protection

Christian S. Collberg; Clark Thomborson

doi:10.1109/TSE.2002.1027797

Watermarking, tamper-proofing, and obfuscation - Tools for software protection

Christian S. Collberg, Clark Thomborson

Computer Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

535 Scopus citations

Abstract

We identify three types of attack on the intellectual property contained in software and three corresponding technical defenses. A defense against reverse engineering is obfuscation, a process that renders software unintelligible but still functional. A defense against software piracy is watermarking, a process that makes it possible to determine the origin of software. A defense against tampering is tamper-proofing, so that unauthorized modifications to software (for example, to remove a watermark) will result in nonfunctional code. We briefly survey the available technology for each type of defense.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	735-746
Number of pages	12
Journal	IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Volume	28
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2002.1027797
State	Published - Aug 2002

Keywords

Intellectual property protection
Obfuscation
Tamper-proofing
Watermarking

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Software

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10.1109/TSE.2002.1027797

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title = "Watermarking, tamper-proofing, and obfuscation - Tools for software protection",

abstract = "We identify three types of attack on the intellectual property contained in software and three corresponding technical defenses. A defense against reverse engineering is obfuscation, a process that renders software unintelligible but still functional. A defense against software piracy is watermarking, a process that makes it possible to determine the origin of software. A defense against tampering is tamper-proofing, so that unauthorized modifications to software (for example, to remove a watermark) will result in nonfunctional code. We briefly survey the available technology for each type of defense.",

keywords = "Intellectual property protection, Obfuscation, Tamper-proofing, Watermarking",

author = "Collberg, {Christian S.} and Clark Thomborson",

note = "Funding Information: The authors are grateful for the extensive and insightful comments of two anonymous referees. This material is based upon work supported by the US National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0073483.",

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T1 - Watermarking, tamper-proofing, and obfuscation - Tools for software protection

AU - Collberg, Christian S.

AU - Thomborson, Clark

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AB - We identify three types of attack on the intellectual property contained in software and three corresponding technical defenses. A defense against reverse engineering is obfuscation, a process that renders software unintelligible but still functional. A defense against software piracy is watermarking, a process that makes it possible to determine the origin of software. A defense against tampering is tamper-proofing, so that unauthorized modifications to software (for example, to remove a watermark) will result in nonfunctional code. We briefly survey the available technology for each type of defense.

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KW - Obfuscation

KW - Tamper-proofing

KW - Watermarking

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Watermarking, tamper-proofing, and obfuscation - Tools for software protection

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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