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From: lady0065@sable.ox.ac.uk (David Hopwood)
Subject: Re: Java Risks
Date: 1996/06/01
Message-ID: <4opkk5$a3p@news.ox.ac.uk>#1/1
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sender: david.hopwood@lmh.ox.ac.uk
references: <4o56db$p66@ns1.sw-eng.falls-church.va.us>
 <Ds5wHE.Au4@ips.cs.tu-bs.de>
 <Pine.GSO.3.92.960530095503.21075A-100000@nunic.nu.edu>
 <JSA.96May31144955@organon.com>
followup-to: comp.sw.components,comp.software-eng,comp.edu
organization: Oxford University, England
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 comp.lang.ada,comp.sw.components,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.edu
Date: 1996-06-01T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <JSA.96May31144955@organon.com>,
Jon S Anthony <jsa@organon.com> wrote:
>In article <Pine.GSO.3.92.960530095503.21075A-100000@nunic.nu.edu> Richard Riehle <rriehle@nunic.nu.edu> writes:
>> > Although there are many Java interpreters and Ada compilers, neither
>> > the Java language nor the Ada language impose a particular model of
>> > program execution (compiler, interpreter, distribution, etc.)

Correct.

>>   Interpreted code is relatively easy to reverse-engineer. Consequently,
>>   it is harder to protect proprietary algorithms.
>
>Really?  Presumably this is relative to machine code, but it is just
>plain not true.

Actually, I've reverse engineered JVM code and 80x86 code (for mostly-
legitimate reasons), and JVM code is considerably easier. This is mainly
because the structure of each class is exposed in the classfile format,
and also because you can easily replace classes individually.

OTOH, the difference is simply in the degree of obscurity, not in whether
reverse engineering is possible.

David Hopwood
david.hopwood@lmh.ox.ac.uk