Towards code obfuscation through video game crowd sourcing
Date
2014-12-12
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Abstract
Code obfuscation is used to prevent software piracy as well as to avoid reverse engineering of malicious software (malware). From the perspective of malware authors,
unique approaches to obfuscate code are beneficial to avoid detection. There have
been instances where malware authors have leveraged the support of unsuspecting
humans for malicious activities. In this work, we analyze if humans can obfuscate
code without knowing that they are generating code. We opted to examine if video
games could be a possible channel to extract code obfuscations from humans.
In this thesis, we discuss the development of a new game that is designed to
generate obfuscated code during gameplay. We also research if code obfuscations are
possible using existing games. We assess our implementation to check if it is feasible
to generate diverse obfuscated versions of original code based on the randomness
generated in the game due to player interactions or movements in video games. Lastly, we discuss the limitations of this approach and recommend some future work.
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Keywords
Computer Science
Citation
Dey, S. (2014). Towards code obfuscation through video game crowd sourcing (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28479