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Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Theses and Dissertations

2008

Reverse engineering

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Obfuscation Framework Based On Functionally Equivalent Combinatorial Logic Families, Moses C. James Mar 2008

Obfuscation Framework Based On Functionally Equivalent Combinatorial Logic Families, Moses C. James

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to be a few building blocks in the bridge between theoretical and practical software obfuscation that researchers will one day construct. We provide a method for random uniform selection of circuits based on a functional signature and specific construction specifiers. Additionally, this thesis includes the first formal definition of an algorithm that performs only static analysis on a program; that is analysis that does not rely on the input and output behavior of the analyzed program. This is analogous to some techniques used in real-world software reverse engineering. Finally, this thesis uses the equivalent circuit library to …


Software Obfuscation With Symmetric Cryptography, Alan C. Lin Mar 2008

Software Obfuscation With Symmetric Cryptography, Alan C. Lin

Theses and Dissertations

Software protection is of great interest to commercial industry. Millions of dollars and years of research are invested in the development of proprietary algorithms used in software programs. A reverse engineer that successfully reverses another company‘s proprietary algorithms can develop a competing product to market in less time and with less money. The threat is even greater in military applications where adversarial reversers can use reverse engineering on unprotected military software to compromise capabilities on the field or develop their own capabilities with significantly less resources. Thus, it is vital to protect software, especially the software’s sensitive internal algorithms, from …


Dynamic Protocol Reverse Engineering A Grammatical Inference Approach, Mark E. Deyoung Mar 2008

Dynamic Protocol Reverse Engineering A Grammatical Inference Approach, Mark E. Deyoung

Theses and Dissertations

Round trip engineering of software from source code and reverse engineering of software from binary files have both been extensively studied and the state-of-practice have documented tools and techniques. Forward engineering of protocols has also been extensively studied and there are firmly established techniques for generating correct protocols. While observation of protocol behavior for performance testing has been studied and techniques established, reverse engineering of protocol control flow from observations of protocol behavior has not received the same level of attention. State-of-practice in reverse engineering the control flow of computer network protocols is comprised of mostly ad hoc approaches. We …


Algorithms For White-Box Obfuscation Using Randomized Subcircuit Selection And Replacement, Kenneth E. Norman Mar 2008

Algorithms For White-Box Obfuscation Using Randomized Subcircuit Selection And Replacement, Kenneth E. Norman

Theses and Dissertations

Software protection remains an active research area with the goal of preventing adversarial software exploitation such as reverse engineering, tampering, and piracy. Heuristic obfuscation techniques lack strong theoretical underpinnings while current theoretical research highlights the impossibility of creating general, efficient, and information theoretically secure obfuscators. In this research, we consider a bridge between these two worlds by examining obfuscators based on the Random Program Model (RPM). Such a model envisions the use of program encryption techniques which change the black-box (semantic) and white-box (structural) representations of underlying programs. In this thesis we explore the possibilities for white-box transformation. Under an …