Cloakware Corporation

Northern Telecom Limited

Yuan X Gu

Stanley T Chow

Harold J Johnson

Becky Laiping Chang

Mass data (the contents of arrays, large data structures, linked data structures and similar data structures stored in memory) are common targets for attack. The invention presents a method and system of protecting mass data by mapping virtual addresses onto randomly or pseudo-randomly selected actual addresses. This mapping distributes data values throughout the memory so an attacker cannot locate the data he is seeking, or identify patterns which might allow him to obtain information about his target (such as how the software operates, encryption keys, biometric data or passwords stored therein, or algorithms it uses). Additional layers of protection are described, as well as efficient techniques for generating the necessary transforms to perform the invention.

Tamper resistant software-mass data encoding

If a user loses his password or pass phrase required for a computer or communication system, he must have some way of obtaining a new one. Typically, new passwords are provided to users manually, by another human, an approach that is expensive and insecure. The invention provides an automated solution which allows recovery of secure access. The invention does this by complementary encryption of the user's pass phrase and responses to personal questions, the reference responses being encrypted with the pass phrase and the pass phrase being encrypted with the reference responses. When a user loses his pass phrase, he can provide answers to the personal questions and the system will recover both the reference responses and the pass phrase, so the account can be re-initialized by entering a new pass phrase. The invention also allows 'approximate matching', so biometric data can be used for identification.

Method and system for secure access

The present invention relates generally to computer software, and more specifically, to a method and system of making computer software resistant to tampering and reverse-engineering. 'Tampering' occurs when an attacker makes unauthorized changes to a computer software program such as overcoming password access, copy protection or timeout algorithms. Broadly speaking, the method of the invention is to increase the tamper-resistance and obscurity of computer software code by transforming the data flow of the computer software so that the observable operation is dissociated from the intent of the original software code. This way, the attacker can not understand and decode the data flow by observing the execution of the code. A number of techniques for performing the invention are given, including encoding software arguments using polynomials, prime number residues, converting variables to new sets of boolean variables, and defining variables on a new n-dimensional vector space.

Tamper resistant software encoding

The present invention relates to a method and system of making computer software resistant to tampering and reverse-engineering. &ldquo;Tampering&rdquo; refers to making unauthorized changes to software, such as bypassing password checks, which are of benefit to the tamperer or of detriment to the provider or vendor of the software. Thus, tampering does not denote arbitrary destructive changes, such as causing the software to fail completely. Broadly speaking, the method of the invention is to increase the tamper-resistance and obscurity of software so that the observable operation of the transformed software is dissociated from the intent of the original code, and so that the functionality of the software is extremely fragile when modified: any modification will, with high probability, produce persistently nonsensical behaviour. These effects are achieved by converting the control-flow of the software into data-driven form, and increasing the complexity of the control-flow by orders of magnitude.

Tamper resistant software-control flow encoding

The present invention relates generally to computer software, and more specifically, to a method and system of making computer software resistant to tampering and reverse-engineering. &ldquo;Tampering &rdquo; occurs when an attacker makes unauthorized changes to a computer software program such as overcoming password access, copy protection or timeout algorithms. Broadly speaking, the method of the invention is to increase the tamper-resistance and obscurity of computer software code by transforming the data flow of the computer software so that the observable operation is dissociated from the intent of the original software code. This way, the attacker can not understand and decode the data flow by observing the execution of the code. A number of techniques for performing the invention are given, including encoding software arguments using polynomials, prime number residues, converting variables to new sets of boolean variables, and defining variables on a new n-dimensional vector space.

An encoding technique of the invention protects software programs and hardware designs from being copied, tampered with, and its functions from being exposed. The software programs and hardware designs (collectively called programs) thus encoded still remain executable. The encoding technique employs the concept of complexity of programs and produces proximity inversion in terms of functions contained in the programs, while preserving the behaviors. Various embodiments are possible to achieve this encoding which includes, for example, cascading and intertwining of blocks of the programs.

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Kanata, Canada

Yuan X Gu