Re: Obfuscating methods

From:
"Andrew Thompson" <u32984@uwe>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:06:36 GMT
Message-ID:
<78185a8c21b02@uwe>
cmurthy wrote:
...

I'm not a hardcore JAVA


Java is a word, so unlike acronyms or abbreviations,
only the first letter should be Upper Case.

..programmer though.
But why aren't the code Obfuscated?


You'd have to ask them. I can give you the reasons
I would avoid using obfuscation, if in their position.
- Getting meaningful StackTraces is a lot more helpful
for developers who need to use the API's.
- If someone really wants the code, they will either
reverse engineer it (despiteany obfuscation) or if that
looks to be too expensive/difficult, revert to getting a
bunch of people to sit down in front of the program and
describe the inputs and outputs, then give that description
to Java devlopers with the instruction to 'code that'.

Above, did you intend to say that Obfuscating the code doesn't matter
to them at all?


I cannot say. All I know is that generally they don't.

Stating the issue i'm facing, I have created/used Java Wrappers around
a few API's written in C.
As a matter of Security issue, ..


Who's security exactly? What is it, specifically, that
you wish to prevent the end user from doing? *
(e.g. Protecting the secret encryption key used to
wrap up the I/O with a banking server? Preventing
the user from directly accessing the C API's in
ways except as clearly defined in the Java program?
What..?)

..we need to use some kind of Obfuscation
for protecting the code from being reverse engineered.


Obfuscation will make it harder. *Nothing* can prevent it.

You are better to look to keeping sensitive code
entirely out of the end user's VM, if at all possible,
and instead offer it only through a web service.

OTOH, without knowing more details of exactly what
you seem to be being very coy about*, it is hard to
provide good advice.

* What is it all for?

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.athompson.info/andrew/

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