Article:		Protect Your Source Code: Obfuscation 101
Subject:		Article purpose
Date:		2005-04-13 09:23:25
From:		Florijan
I am a beginner programmer, and I work with Java a lot at the moment. I read the article, and by thoughts were: oh well, not such a big wisdom described, however I can imagine it to be useful. I also thought that obfuscation is NOT such a nice method of "hiding" your source code. Performance and size being the main reasons. But I still thought it was a decent article because it introduces some tools and techniques I (and many others I think) have considered. I did not see any nasty presumptuous sentences like: "If you obfuscate (and obfuscation is beautiful and costs you nothing), you are free from all the possible hacking threats there are or ever will be in this universe!" And those comments I read on the article seemed to be attacking exactly that one line which WASN"T THERE. So, read carefully people. I think it is an OK article, even thought I don't think it will help many people.

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• Statements via association
  2005-04-13 13:52:40  Michael Schwern | [View]
  
  
  Part of the art of writing is putting things in the right context. Associating one point with another without having to come right out and saying it.
  
  So, the setup talking about bank accounts and espionage.
  
  "With a few magic keystrokes, the entire system would somehow just start transferring funds to foreign bank accounts..."
  
  "Well, that might account for the money laundering and espionage back in the 1980s"
  
  The conclusion talking about government secrets.
  
  "In a world where everyone follows license agreements and no one wants to reverse engineer government secrets, obfuscation techniques wouldn't be of much use."
  
  And with just one sentence between...
  
  "Hopefully, you now have a better feel for the compilation process and understand how obfuscation is a powerful tool you can use to protect your code from exploitation and hacking."
  
  What sort of code are we protecting? Why code that protects government secrets, foreign bank accounts and espionage of course! That's the impression the author will walk away with especially if they're reading quickly.
  
  The author might not have been aware of what was implied, but since he's not sitting next to everyone reading the article to correct their impressions it doesn't matter.