Obfuscation
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Obfuscation refers to concealing the meaning of a communication by making it more confusing and harder to interpret.
In computing, obfuscation refers to the deliberate act of nondestructively changing either the source code of a computer program or machine code when the program is in some compiled or binary form, so that it is not easy to understand or read.
Binary obfuscation is usually performed, preventing or making more difficult reverse engineering and disassembly attempts which aim to get some form of source code that is close to the original form.
As a side effect, obfuscation sometimes makes the resulting programs smaller (though it can make programs larger in other cases).
See Obfuscated code for source code obfuscation.
Obfuscation may be used for other purposes. Doctors have been accused of using jargon to conceal unpleasant facts from a patient. Author and doctor Michael Crichton has claimed that medical writing is a "highly skilled, calculated attempt to confuse the reader". [1] (http://upalumni.org/medschool/appendices/appendix-25.html). Similarly text-based language, like gyaru-moji and some forms of leet are obfuscated to make them incomprehensible to outsiders.
External links
- The International Obfuscated C Code Contest (http://www.ioccc.org/)
- Protecting Java Code Via Code Obfuscation (http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~collberg/Research/Students/DouglasLow/obfuscation.html)