Protecting software from unauthorized use by converting source code modules to byte codes

• US 7,124,445 B2
• Filed: 06/21/2002
• Issued: 10/17/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pace Anti-Piracy, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Pace Anti-Piracy, Inc.
• Inventors: Anderson, Eric C., Cronce, Paul A., Fontana, Joseph M.
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN BA, HOANG VU A
• Application Number:
  US10/177,499
• Publication Number:
  US 20030236986A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,579 Days
• Field of Search: 717/124, 717/126, 717/118, 717/154, 717/167, 709/203, 714/39, 713/151, 713/161, 713/187, 713/192, 713/189, 713/190
• US Class Current: 726/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/14 against software analysis or reverse engineering, e.g. by obfuscation

Abstract

A method for anti-piracy protection of a software application by obfuscation of the execution of portions of the applications code is described. The method comprises providing a language specification and library to implement the functions of the language, providing a compiler to translate the language into byte codes, and providing an interpreter to execute the byte codes using the library. The method further comprises providing the language specifications, library, compiler, interpreter, and instructions to a software publisher, wherein the software publisher embeds the library and interpreter in the application to be protected, and selects and prepares application code segments for processing into byte codes by the compiler. The application is then executed using the embedded library and interpreter, wherein the execution of the application is obfuscated by the use of byte codes.

A further aspect of the invention is to provide the compiler, interpreter, and library functions on a secure server, giving the language specification and only limited instructions to the publisher for preparation of the application for protection processing, for the purpose of preventing a hacker from studying the operation of the toolset.

Claims

1. A method for providing anti-piracy protection for a software application on a server, comprising:

providing a language specification for a programming language, a library to implement the language, a compiler to compile the language into byte codes, and an interpreter to execute the byte codes using the library;

providing the language specification and instructions to a software publisher with instructions for instructing the software publisher on how to select portions of code from the application to be protected, and how to prepare the selected portions of code and the application for processing on a server, including instructing the publisher to create data structures at respective locations where the selected portions of code were taken from the application;

providing the server with the compiler, library, interpreter, and a server application for receiving the software application to be protected and the prepared selected portions of code from the publisher, wherein the server application protects the software application by;

compiling the selected portions of code into byte codes using the compiler,

embedding the byte codes generated by the compiler in the application, and replacing the data structures with interpreter calls to invoke interpretation of appropriate byte code modules representing the removed portions of code, whereby the application operates correctly with obfuscated portions of code running on the interpreter, and

embedding the library and interpreter in the application to support run-time interpretation of the compiled byte codes, thereby obfuscating the selected segments.

2. The method of claim 1 further including removing any remaining location information used to locate the data structures.

3. The method of claim 1 further including storing random data within the data structures to render the data structures more difficult to locate.

4. A method for providing anti-piracy protection for a software application, wherein the software application is written in a standard computer language and compiled into a standard instruction set, comprising:

selecting portions of code from the application to be obscured;

processing the selected portions of application source code with a software tool to generate code comprising a non-standard instruction set, and replacing the selected portions of code with the generated code, thereby increasing difficulty of understanding the execution flow of the selected portions of the application;

providing the software tool for processing the selected portions of application source code on a server, and providing the software tool in the form of a byte code compiler and an interpreter to interpret byte codes generated by the byte code compiler at run-time; and

wherein a publisher is instructed to create data structures where the selected portions of code were taken from the application, and on the server, the data structures are replaced with interpreter calls to invoke interpretation of appropriate byte code modules representing the removed portions of code, whereby the application operates correctly with obfuscated portions of code running on the interpreter.

5. The method of claim 4 further including removing any remaining location information used to locate the data structures.

6. The method of claim 4 further including storing random data within the data structures to render the data structures more difficult to locate.

7. A method for providing anti-piracy protection for a software application, wherein the software application is written in a standard computer language and compiled into a standard instruction set, comprising:

selecting portions of code from the application to be obscured;

processing the selected portions of application source code with a software tool to generate code comprising a non-standard instruction set, and replacing the selected portions of code with the generated code, thereby increasing difficulty of understanding the execution flow of the selected portions of the application;

providing the software tool in the form of a byte code compiler, and providing an interpreter to execute the byte codes generated by the byte code compiler at run time; and

wherein a publisher is instructed to create data structures where the selected portions of code were taken from the application, and on a server, the data structures are replaced with interpreter calls to invoke interpretation of appropriate byte code modules representing the removed portions of code, whereby the application operates correctly with obfuscated portions of code running on the interpreter.

8. The method of claim 7 further including removing any remaining location information used to locate the data structures.

9. The method of claim 7 further including storing random data within the data structures to render the data structures more difficult to locate.