Surreptitious Software

Footnotes

Preface

¹ During a particularly lively dinner in Beijing in January 2008 with Chinese security researchers, we (Collberg) asked about this incident. One person proudly announced, “Yes, some of the information was recovered!” and then, realizing his mistake, immediately clammed up. This was later corroborated by a different researcher at a second dinner: “The Americans didn’t have time to destroy everything!”

² You don’t.

Chapter 1

¹ In this book, Axel is the prototypical bad guy (hence the shaved head). For some variety in prose, we’ll switch between calling him the adversary, the attacker, the cracker, the reverse engineer, or simply he. Doris is the person or institution who produces a piece of software with a secret she needs to ...