Obfuscation (software)

In software development, obfuscation is the act of creating source or machine code that is difficult for humans or computers to understand. Like obfuscation in natural language, it may use needlessly roundabout expressions to compose statements. Programmers may deliberately obfuscate code to conceal its purpose (security through obscurity) or its logic or implicit values embedded in it, primarily, in order to prevent tampering, deter reverse engineering, or even to create a puzzle or recreational challenge for someone reading the source code. This can be done manually or by using an automated tool, the latter being the preferred technique in industry. The architecture and characteristics of some languages may make them easier to obfuscate than others. C, C++, and the Perl programming language are some examples of languages easy to obfuscate. Haskell is also quite obfuscatable despite being quite different in structure. The properties that make a language obfuscatable are not immediately obvious. Types of obfuscations include simple keyword substitution, use or non-use of whitespace to create artistic effects, and self-generating or heavily compressed programs. According to Nick Montfort, techniques may include: naming obfuscation, which includes naming variables in a meaningless or deceptive way; data/code/comment confusion, which includes making some actual code look like comments or confusing syntax with data; double coding, which can be displaying code in poetry form or interesting shapes. A variety of tools exist to perform or assist with code obfuscation. These include experimental research tools created by academics, hobbyist tools, commercial products written by professionals, and open-source software. Deobfuscation tools also exist that attempt to perform the reverse transformation. Although the majority of commercial obfuscation solutions work by transforming either program source code, or platform-independent bytecode as used by Java and .NET, there are also some that work directly on compiled binaries.