Micah Silverman

A major roadblock to using any of the server-side scripting architectures for developing commercial software is the fact that (traditionally) the source code must be delivered to customers when deploying applications. Java source code is compiled into an intermediate code called bytecode, and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) interprets this bytecode directly. It's the bytecode that makes Java class files completely platform-independent. Not only is the bytecode easy to decompile, but the descriptive variable names are included in it (and thus in the decompiled source code), making it much easier to understand the decompiled source code. This presents another formidable roadblock to deploying commercial Java-based software. This article outlines a technique to protect JSP-based applications in such a way that they can be deployed to customers without giving away source c... (more)

Using JNI for Safer Java Servers

For those of you not too familiar with the UNIX way of life, here's a brief overview. There are really two categories of accounts under UNIX: the superuser (named root) and everything else. Being root on a UNIX machine gives you the keys to the kingdom. You can remove files created by any other user, for instance. You can stop running processes started by root or any other user. A UNIX system can be entirely compromised if an unauthorized person or process gains root access. One of the more common ways to do this is to exploit bugs in server processes that are running as the sup... (more)