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Java-Based x86 Emulator

Posted by kdawson on from the DOS-you-say dept.

jaavaaguru writes "Researchers at Oxford University have produced a Java-based x86 emulator that they hope will be useful in testing applications and learning about viruses without damaging the host, utilizing the robust sandboxing that Java provides. They have an online demo available that boots DOS and has some games to play. Being purely Java, this emulator should be able to run on almost anything, including cell phones." The code is not yet available outside the Oxford community; the developers are said to be working on a suitable general license. In the meantime the code can be licensed on a case-by-case basis.

5 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How's the efficiency? by slamb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    More specifically, You can take a virus and run in it a way to compromise the virtual machine without compromising the machine itself. This means your output is not likely to be damaged in any ways as well as you can monitor the activity from a removed setting while maintaining a presence.

    Well, that's great, but you can already do that with VMware, Parallels, QEMU, or other virtualization tools. Sure, virtualization requires the same host and guest architecture, but we all have plenty of x86 machines sitting around, and near-native speeds are necessary to actually boot Windows Vista before the sun goes supernova. So while this is neat software, it's not as suitable for malware researchers as what they are already using. The JPC project needs to find a different niche.

  2. Re:Interesting, but by chorltonian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Errm... how about trying it out before judging it? As has been covered god knows how many times before, Java is capable of runtime optimisations not possible with statically compiled languages like C++.

  3. Re:Interesting, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Don't you know, around here:
    • All Java is slow
    • All Perl is unreadable
    • All PHP is insecure
    • All JavaScript is a useless intrusion into your browser
    ... and all comments like those are written by "experts" who've never written one line in the language in question.
  4. Re:Interesting, but by MobyTurbo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Errm... how about trying it out before judging it? As has been covered god knows how many times before, Java is capable of runtime optimisations not possible with statically compiled languages like C++. Maybe so, but it is running much slower than DOSEMU or DOSBOX does in Linux here, which are probably written in C or C++, with possibly some assembly; and can do emulation of all the games it emulates. Java is indeed capable of certain optimizations that are not done in a non-JIT compiler, but that simply is because it needs them. Anyone who tells you that Java operating system emulators typically run faster than C operating system emulators has been smoking SUNW crack. That having been said, there are reasons for choosing Java over C. One of them is built-in security sandboxing, which was obviously the reason for the choice.
  5. Re:Interesting, but by heinousjay · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Awesome, you've successfully combined unnecessary anger, anecdotal evidence, the arrogant assumption that only your opinion matters, a Slashdot meme, and a bunch of insults into one post. I think you get some kind of award for that.

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