Towards a Formally Verified Obfuscating Compiler

This paper extends the idea of specializing modified interpreters for systematically generating obfuscated code. By using the Coq proof assistant we specify some elementary obfuscations and prove that the resulting distorted interpreter is correct, namely it preserves the intended semantics of programs. The paper shows how the semantic preservation proofs generated and verified in Coq can provide a measure of the quality of the obfuscation. In particular we can observe that there is a precise corresponding between the potency of the obfuscation and the complexity of the proof of semantics preservation. Our obfuscation can be easily integrated into the CompCert C compiler, providing the basis for a formally verified obfuscating compiler which can be applied to any C program.