A dynamic birthmark for java

Code theft is a threat for companies that consider code as a core asset. A birthmark can help them to prove code theft by identifying intrinsic properties of a program. Two programs with the same birthmark are likely to share a common origin. Birthmarking works in particular for code that was not protected by tamper-resistant copyright notices that otherwise could prove ownership. We propose a dynamic birthmark for Java that observes how a program uses objects provided by the Java Standard API. Such a birthmark is difficult to foil because it captures the observable semantics of a program. In an evaluation, our API Birthmark reliably identified XML parsers and PNG readers before and after obfuscating them with state-of-the-art obfuscation tools. These rendered existing birthmarks ineffective, such as the Whole-ProgramPath Birthmark by Myles and Collberg. Categories and Subject Descriptors: D.2.5 [Software Engineering]: General—Protection mechanisms; General Terms: Legal Aspects, S...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: KBSE
• Authors: David Schuler, Valentin Dallmeier, Christian Lindig
• Keywords: Birthmark, Code Theft, Dynamic Birthmark, KBSE 2007, Software Engineering