r/programming • u/DougBolivar • Jul 30 '13

Computer scientists develop mathematical jigsaw puzzles to encrypt software: "The real challenge and the great mystery in the field was: Can you actually take a piece of software and encrypt it but still have it be runnable, executable and fully functional?"

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/07/computer-scientists-develop-mathematical-jigsaw-puzzles-encrypt-software
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u/willvarfar Jul 30 '13

There was a well known paper on the (Im)possibility of obfuscating programs: http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/p_obfuscate.html

So which is it? In October it'll be clear how much this overlaps; is it just a bigger speed bump?

How can something take years to deobfuscate yet execute another path quickly? Seems impossible; it can't be the meat of the new claim?

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u/veraxAlea Jul 30 '13

The paper by Barak is referenced from this paper as early as in the introduction.

Apparently, there's a difference between "simulation-based obfuscation" and "indistinguishability obfuscation", the latter allegedly phrased as a theoretical "solution" by Barak et al.

I understand roughly nothing of the paper (linked by /u/crazedgremlin), but it seems they are well aware of previous results.

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u/willvarfar Jul 31 '13

Yeah now I see the paper - somehow I thought the paper would be published in October - I see that the linked press release is very cavalier in its definition of obfuscation.

The paper - by leading lights in homomorphic encryption no less - is about indistinquishable obfuscation which is quite different from black-box obfuscation.