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Reads like a marketing junk to be honest. I don't doubt that they have invented something interesting, but this is not a way to announce it. > This is known in

Reads like a marketing junk to be honest. I don't doubt that they have invented something interesting, but this is not a way to announce it. > This is known in computer science as "software obfuscation," and it is the first time it has been accomplished. No, of course not. See Fravia, see skype.exe. > "The real challenge and the great mystery in the field was: Can you actually take a piece of software and encrypt it but still have it be runnable, executable and fully functional" A mystery? Is this edited for an O magazine? Again, Fravia, Skype, Carberp/bootkit. > According to Sahai, previously developed techniques for obfuscation presented only a "speed bump," forcing an attacker to spend some effort, perhaps a few days, trying to reverse-engineer the software. Uhm, no? Again, see Skype that withstood reverse-engineering attempts for several years with its incremental decrypting loader and other tricks that it was stuffed with to the brim.

peterwwillis 13y ago
My initial reaction was also "....Wtf? No..." This is just a mathematical function equivalent to Skype's RC4 obfuscation. You can reverse engineer it, it just takes a long, long time to undo it all and all the associated protocols. That being said, having a unique method to encrypt every program so each one required an equivalently long period of reverse engineering would make it very costly to reverse engineer programs. But it would only make sense in terms of protecting new functions. Protocols and other components that have to survive over multiple versions could not simply be re-obfuscated once they were cracked (or at least, it would serve no purpose). You'd have to change the protocol every time and make the previous one obsolete to new clients while still retaining backwards compatibility with old clients.
- gizmo686 13y ago
  Protocols in general cannot be obfuscated directly with this technique. For the sake of simplicity, I will assume we are talking about network protocols. Because this encryption, by definition, does not change behavior, the program would send identical messages over the network, and you can still monitor these and reverse engineer the protocol like before. For the more general, but not formally defined, idea of obfuscation you would also be able to obfuscate the network traffic and other external stuff, because you can change the behavior without actually changing the behavior.
Nimi 13y ago
They're talking about an obfuscation that's provably strong - i.e. there is no way to de-obfuscate the code, not even in a million years. You're talking about an obfuscation that's "good enough for the real world" - i.e. it will take a very skilled person several years to de-obfuscate. Also, their result is very theoretic, and too slow to be deployed in the real world, at least for the next couple of years. See my other comment if you're interested. BTW - I think by "mystery" they meant "open computational problem". Kind of a mystery if you think about it :-)
- freyr 13y ago
  "there is no way to de-obfuscate the code, not even in a million years." Perhaps you're just being hyperbolic, but can you qualify this statement? Is it not possible in a million years given today's technology (this seems unlikely, even the marketing material suggested 100 years)? Or are you claiming there is mathematical proof that advances in computational power, a growing body of knowledge about de-obfuscation, etc., will not break this approach?
  - Nimi 13y ago
    The latter - there is mathematical proof that advances in computational power, a growing body of knowledge about de-obfuscation, etc., will not break this approach. Also, this is not "marketing material" - nobody is selling this technology, and likely nobody will in the foreseeable future. They're just trying to interest the general public in a major theoretical CS breakthrough.
    - freyr 13y ago
      I wasn't aware such a proof existed, that's very cool. But it's certainly marketing material. They're selling UCLA's engineering department to potential students, potential sponsors, and the general public. That's not a bad thing. Universities would be stupid not to promote their brand and their professors' achievements.
      - Nimi 13y ago
pseut 13y ago
This is a press release written by someone in the university's PR department (essentially; I don't know exactly what UCLA technically calls it). If the faculty involved in the research were at all smart, they had as little to do with this writeup as possible (it's not important at all for their careers and, more important, their heavy involvement probably wouldn't make the release any more accurate). The research was announced by the paper and by presentations at seminars and conferences. You are quoting and disputing marketing junk written by one of UCLA's media contacts. (It's still fine for HN to link to it, since most of us won't/can't read the original research).
- freyr 13y ago
  Exactly. It's promo material to raise the profile of UCLA and its engineering department. Which is fine, but it shouldn't be considered objective, unbiased news. Often, these releases will play up exciting potential applications, which in reality may still be completely infeasible. They downplay practical limitations and the theoretic nature of the work. This article is not particularly bad, in that regard.
deleted 13y ago
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peterwwillis 13y ago

My initial reaction was also "....Wtf? No..." This is just a mathematical function equivalent to Skype's RC4 obfuscation. You can reverse engineer it, it just takes a long, long time to undo it all and all the associated protocols. That being said, having a unique method to encrypt every program so each one required an equivalently long period of reverse engineering would make it very costly to reverse engineer programs. But it would only make sense in terms of protecting new functions. Protocols and other components that have to survive over multiple versions could not simply be re-obfuscated once they were cracked (or at least, it would serve no purpose). You'd have to change the protocol every time and make the previous one obsolete to new clients while still retaining backwards compatibility with old clients.

gizmo686 13y ago
Protocols in general cannot be obfuscated directly with this technique. For the sake of simplicity, I will assume we are talking about network protocols. Because this encryption, by definition, does not change behavior, the program would send identical messages over the network, and you can still monitor these and reverse engineer the protocol like before. For the more general, but not formally defined, idea of obfuscation you would also be able to obfuscate the network traffic and other external stuff, because you can change the behavior without actually changing the behavior.

Nimi 13y ago

They're talking about an obfuscation that's provably strong - i.e. there is no way to de-obfuscate the code, not even in a million years. You're talking about an obfuscation that's "good enough for the real world" - i.e. it will take a very skilled person several years to de-obfuscate. Also, their result is very theoretic, and too slow to be deployed in the real world, at least for the next couple of years. See my other comment if you're interested. BTW - I think by "mystery" they meant "open computational problem". Kind of a mystery if you think about it :-)

freyr 13y ago
"there is no way to de-obfuscate the code, not even in a million years." Perhaps you're just being hyperbolic, but can you qualify this statement? Is it not possible in a million years given today's technology (this seems unlikely, even the marketing material suggested 100 years)? Or are you claiming there is mathematical proof that advances in computational power, a growing body of knowledge about de-obfuscation, etc., will not break this approach?
- Nimi 13y ago
  The latter - there is mathematical proof that advances in computational power, a growing body of knowledge about de-obfuscation, etc., will not break this approach. Also, this is not "marketing material" - nobody is selling this technology, and likely nobody will in the foreseeable future. They're just trying to interest the general public in a major theoretical CS breakthrough.
  - freyr 13y ago
    I wasn't aware such a proof existed, that's very cool. But it's certainly marketing material. They're selling UCLA's engineering department to potential students, potential sponsors, and the general public. That's not a bad thing. Universities would be stupid not to promote their brand and their professors' achievements.
    - Nimi 13y ago

pseut 13y ago

This is a press release written by someone in the university's PR department (essentially; I don't know exactly what UCLA technically calls it). If the faculty involved in the research were at all smart, they had as little to do with this writeup as possible (it's not important at all for their careers and, more important, their heavy involvement probably wouldn't make the release any more accurate). The research was announced by the paper and by presentations at seminars and conferences. You are quoting and disputing marketing junk written by one of UCLA's media contacts. (It's still fine for HN to link to it, since most of us won't/can't read the original research).

freyr 13y ago
Exactly. It's promo material to raise the profile of UCLA and its engineering department. Which is fine, but it shouldn't be considered objective, unbiased news. Often, these releases will play up exciting potential applications, which in reality may still be completely infeasible. They downplay practical limitations and the theoretic nature of the work. This article is not particularly bad, in that regard.

deleted 13y ago

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