{"id":{"repo_id":"auckland-ms","oai_identifier":"oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/1511"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/auckland-ms/oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/1511","repository":{"repo_id":"auckland-ms","name":"University of Auckland","base_url":"https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Concepts and techniques in software watermarking and obfuscation","abstract":"With the rapid development of the internet, copying a digital document is so easy and economically affordable that digital piracy is rampant. As a result, software protection has become a vital issue in current computer industry and a hot research topic. Software watermarking and obfuscation are techniques to protect software from unauthorized access, modification, and tampering. While software watermarking tries to insert a secret message called software watermark into the software program as evidence of ownership, software obfuscation translates software into a semantically- equivalent one that is hard for attackers to analyze. In this thesis, firstly, we present a survey of software watermarking and obfuscation. Then we formalize two impor- tant concepts in software watermarking: extraction and recognition and we use a concrete software watermarking algorithm to illustrate issues in these two concepts. We develop a technique called the homomorphic functions through residue numbers to obfuscate variables and data structures in software programs. Lastly, we explore the complexity issues in software watermarking and obfuscation.","abstract_html":"With the rapid development of the internet, copying a digital document is so easy and economically affordable that digital piracy is rampant. As a result, software protection has become a vital issue in current computer industry and a hot research topic. Software watermarking and obfuscation are techniques to protect software from unauthorized access, modification, and tampering. While software watermarking tries to insert a secret message called software watermark into the software program as evidence of ownership, software obfuscation translates software into a semantically- equivalent one that is hard for attackers to analyze. In this thesis, firstly, we present a survey of software watermarking and obfuscation. Then we formalize two impor- tant concepts in software watermarking: extraction and recognition and we use a concrete software watermarking algorithm to illustrate issues in these two concepts. We develop a technique called the homomorphic functions through residue numbers to obfuscate variables and data structures in software programs. Lastly, we explore the complexity issues in software watermarking and obfuscation.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Zhu, William Feng"],"institution":"ResearchSpace@Auckland","degree_name":"PhD","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Prof. Clark Thomborson"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2007,"date_issued":"2007","date_published":"2007","updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:04:15Z","subjects":["computer science","software security"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated."],"rights_urls":["https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm"],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2292/1511","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Prof. Clark Thomborson"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Zhu, William Feng"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2007-08-27T04:58:23Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2007-08-27T04:58:23Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2007"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["ResearchSpace@Auckland"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby","values":["UoA1734351"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["PhD"]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["The University of Auckland"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["computer science","software security"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated."]},{"key":"dc:rights.uri","label":"Rights URI","values":["https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2292/1511"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["With the rapid development of the internet, copying a digital document is so easy and economically affordable that digital piracy is rampant. As a result, software protection has become a vital issue in current computer industry and a hot research topic. Software watermarking and obfuscation are techniques to protect software from unauthorized access, modification, and tampering. While software watermarking tries to insert a secret message called software watermark into the software program as evidence of ownership, software obfuscation translates software into a semantically- equivalent one that is hard for attackers to analyze. In this thesis, firstly, we present a survey of software watermarking and obfuscation. Then we formalize two impor- tant concepts in software watermarking: extraction and recognition and we use a concrete software watermarking algorithm to illustrate issues in these two concepts. We develop a technique called the homomorphic functions through residue numbers to obfuscate variables and data structures in software programs. Lastly, we explore the complexity issues in software watermarking and obfuscation."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Concepts and techniques in software watermarking and obfuscation"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Prof. Clark Thomborson"],"dc:creator":["Zhu, William Feng"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2007-08-27T04:58:23Z"],"dc:date.available":["2007-08-27T04:58:23Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2007"],"dc:description.abstract":["With the rapid development of the internet, copying a digital document is so easy and economically affordable that digital piracy is rampant. As a result, software protection has become a vital issue in current computer industry and a hot research topic. Software watermarking and obfuscation are techniques to protect software from unauthorized access, modification, and tampering. While software watermarking tries to insert a secret message called software watermark into the software program as evidence of ownership, software obfuscation translates software into a semantically- equivalent one that is hard for attackers to analyze. In this thesis, firstly, we present a survey of software watermarking and obfuscation. Then we formalize two impor- tant concepts in software watermarking: extraction and recognition and we use a concrete software watermarking algorithm to illustrate issues in these two concepts. We develop a technique called the homomorphic functions through residue numbers to obfuscate variables and data structures in software programs. 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