Coding Styles Survive Binary Compilation, Could Lead Investigators Back To Programmers (princeton.edu)

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers have created an algorithm that can accurately detect code written by different programmers (PDF), even if the code has been compiled into an executable binary. Because of open source coding repositories like GitHub, state agencies can build a database of all developers and their coding styles, and then easily compare the coding style used in "anti-establishment" software to detect the culprit. Despite all the privacy implications this research may have, the algorithm can also be used by security researchers to track down malware authors. We also discussed an earlier phase of this research.

Comments

Heck

[vikingpower]

gotta change my indentation style and public void( String s1 ) whitespace habit, now the guvnmunt automagically can also get these out of binaries built from my code. O gawd, I'm afraid now.

Stackoverflow is the culprit!

[WarmBoota]

Good luck tracking me!! I copy all of my code from Stackoverflow!