Method for determining and protecting proprietary source code using mnemonic identifiers

摘要

A semantics engine is described that produces a semantically-impaired but equivalent version of the original source code that can be compiled and executed using conventional tools for commonly used programming languages. This semantically-impaired source code and the compiled assemblies it produces are incomprehensible to anyone who would attempt to read them. The semantics-impairing process is irreversible both at the source and the assembly levels and the machine code generated by the semantically-impaired source code is exactly the same as that produced by the original source code. The semantics engine achieves confidentiality without using encryption or compression. All protective modifications are made directly to copies of the original source code thereby introducing no intermediate forms of the code.