Re: encrypted source file support in jdk?
Thomas Schodt wrote:
tom forsmo wrote:
To explain again, what I am looking for is a way to protect the SOURCE
CODE and CLASS FILES during DEVELOPMENT, that means only when the code
is in-house. I am not talking about protecting class files distributed
to the public.
You need to focus on the screening process you have in place for who
gets to see the code then.
Or even the finished product.
For a competitor who wants to implement what you have, coding it from
scratch, based on what it does, might very well be the cheapest option.
Well, the most valuable scenario i can think of is a company that starts
up a project to produce f.ex. a web 2.0 page. It might take them 12-24
months fo work and money to develop before it can be released to the
public. In the mean time information comes out through various sources,
market reports, announced deals, directed marketing, press release,
gatherings etc. After a while somebody get curious and starts
investigating the rumour and puts up a web page to collect all
information about the rumour. A big dollar company notices this and
starts an investigation to protect their own business and to find what
this newcomer is up to. They do is start some monitoring the company and
perhaps buys some hacking services from the black market (organised
crime) over the internet. This makes them able find out if the newcomer
has some ideas they have not thought of, which they can exploit.
Eventually they find that the newcomer, being new in the market, has a
fresh view of things and have an idea or two that is going to stir up
the market. So the company, having considerable more resource, sets up a
project with the goal of implementing that idea. Since they already have
a product they can just incorporate it into the existing one, and
release it to the market before the newcomer. They keep monitoring the
newcomer so that they can determine other important information f.ex.
when they plan to enter the market, if they have other ideas that can
threaten their business and so on. If you are lucky you might be
competeing with a company of a country which is not very democratic and
wants nothing more than to beat your country for political reasons, good
examples in that respect is for example russia, china, france, korea,
iran and so forth.
This is not a very unlikely situation, because it has already happened.
The source code of Cisco IOS (the operating system used in cisco
routers) where stolen a couple of years ago and uploaded on the net for
every one to find and use. MS will do anything to get ahead of google,
even breaking laws in an attempt to do so. The last job I had, their
test computers where broken into, by deliberate actions. They stole a
lot of documentation about internal configuration of the devices we
where producing and then they deleted the entire directory.
Its not about stealing the work, its about picking up competitors ideas
and internal information without them knowing it, and using that
information to gain market share unlawfully. A good idea is worth much
more than some man months of work.
regards
tom