Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!samsung!emory!att!dptg!pegasus!dmt
From: dmt@pegasus.ATT.COM (Dave Tutelman)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: C obfuscator
Summary: There's a commercial one
Message-ID: <4803@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Date: 30 May 90 11:44:01 GMT
References: <12546@netcom.UUCP> <220@taumet.COM> <12573@netcom.UUCP> <898@nlsun1.oracle.nl> <1990May29.132631.2253@pdn.paradyne.com>
Reply-To: dmt@pegasus1.ATT.COM (Dave Tutelman)
Distribution: comp
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs - Lincroft, NJ
Lines: 27

I missed the base posting, so I'm going by the subject line alone.
Sorry if I'm off base  ;->

There is a commercially available "C obfuscator", called "C-Shroud",
from Gimpel Software.  They developed it because their flagship product,
Flexe-LINT, had to be distributed as a source product and compiled on
the customer's target machine.  So they developed C-Shroud to pre-process
the Flexe-LINT source before they shipped it.  They now sell C-Shroud
as a product in its own right.

Actually, this might become a common trick in the UNIX software field.
If the portability of UNIX continues to assure a diverse hardware base
in the field (as opposed to, say, the uniform hardware base for MSDOS),
then it might be really hard to attack the market with a binary product.
Even if you can manufacture it for all the target machines, inventory
problems would limit your ability to sell it through the retail channel.
But a shrouded source product might be the answer to a single-inventory
package for UNIX.

Hope this is on the topic (or at least interesting).
Dave
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|    Dave Tutelman						|
|    Physical - AT&T Bell Labs  -  Lincroft, NJ			|
|    Logical -  ...att!pegasus!dmt				|
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