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Covert Java: Techniques for Decompiling, Patching, and Reverse Engineering
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by Alex Kalinovsky
Sales Rank: 115003
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List Price: $29.99
$29.99
At Amazon
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Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Sams May 13, 2004
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0672326388
ISBN-13: 978-0672326387
Product Dimensions:
9 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
Book Description
As a Java developer, you may find yourself in a situation where you have to maintain someone else's code or use a third-party's library for your own application without documentation of the original source code. Rather than spend hours feeling like you want to bang your head against the wall, turn to Covert Java: Techniques for Decompiling, Patching, and Reverse Engineering. These techniques will show you how to better understand and work with third-party applications. Each chapter focuses on a technique to solve a specific problem, such as obfuscation in code or scalability vulnerabilities, outlining the issue and demonstrating possible solutions. Summaries at the end of each chapter will help you double check that you understood the crucial points of each lesson. You will also be able to download all code examples and sample applications for future reference from the publisher's website. Let Covert Java help you crack open mysterious codes!
Download Description
Developers face problems created by others every day - when asked to maintain someone else's code, or when forced to use a third-party library without documentation. They might come across exactly the feature they need to implement but can't get hold of the source code. They might spend frustrating hours trying different solutions that don't work. Instead, the techniques in this book will teach developers to decompile, patch, and reverse-engineer applications, to better understand their implementation, and to work more efficiently with applications developed by others.Covert Java offers a unique approach to solving common Java problems, from combating obfuscation in code, to patching core classes to change the intended function of an application. Each chapter focuses on a technique that solves a specific problem - outlining the problem, demonstrating the solution, then suggesting additional ideas for developers to test out the technique. Many chapters include anecdotal examples of the technique in action, and finish with summaries to ensure developers understand the most crucial points of the chapter.
Customer Reviews & Comments
I know that I am reading a high quality computer book when I absolutely have to stop and try the code examples. When I have to download a tool in order to execute the code, then it truly is a book to behold. That happened with this book. As I began reading chapter 2 on decompiling Java bytecode, I immediately went online and downloaded some of the tools. It was a fascinating and also disturbing experience. Java bytecode is of course not in a machine-specific executable form, so it is relatively easy to reconstruct the original source code. From this point on, examples of decompiling Java bytecode will be part of my class on computer security. The topic of chapter 3 is obfuscating classes, something that I already cover in my security class. However, I derived several new ideas for examples from this section. Chapter 4, "Hacking Non-public Methods and Variables of a Class" was one I found fascinating, although somewhat obvious in retrospect. For years, I have used an example of accessing the private components of a C++ object in my classes, and now I will be dong something similar in my Java classes. Chapter 7, "Manipulating Java Security", which demonstrated how easy it is to bypass security checks, was fascinating, another demonstration of the level of vigilance needed to keep our computers safe from the malicious entities. The remaining chapters are: * Chapter 5 Replacing and patching application classes. * Chapter 6 Using effective tracing. * Chapter 8 Snooping the runtime environment. * Chapter 9 Cracking code with unorthodox debuggers. * Chapter 10 Using profilers for application runtime analysis. * Chapter 11 Load-testing to find and fix scalability problems. * Chapter 12 Reverse engineering applications. * Chapter 13 Eavesdropping techniques. * Chapter 14 Controlling class loading. * Chapter 15 Replacing and patching application classes. * Chapter 16 Intercepting control flow. * Chapter 17 Understanding and tweaking bytecode. * Chapter 18 Total control with native code patching. * Chapter 19 Protecting commercial applications from hacking. There is no doubt that there is enough knowledge in this book to allow you to hack Java applications. Therefore, there will be those who consider it dangerous. My opinion is that someone with the hacker mentality will find the knowledge and use it. To criticize a book because it concentrates the knowledge misses the point of how hackers should be battled. To defeat hackers you must learn how to hack code and perform due diligence by making all the changes that will make it hard to do. I learned a great deal from this book. Some of it was general, in that I had not realized how unsecure Java bytecode is. Most of my new knowledge was specific; I learned many different things that can be done to fix bad code, whether the problems are in code failure or in lack of security.
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Covert Java: Techniques for Decompiling, Patching, and Reverse Engineering
List Price: $29.99
Available from Amazon
Price: $29.99
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