As an embedded systems consultant, I spend a substantial part of my work time working on your typical embedded systems projects. However I also spend a significant amount of time working as an expert witness in legal proceedings. While the expert witness work is quite varied, one of the things I have noticed in the last few months is an increase in the number of cases related to source code theft. Typically these cases involve the plaintiff claiming that the defendant has stolen their source code and is using it in a competing product. These claims are often plausible, because as we all know, it’s trivial to walk out of a company with Gigabytes of information in your pocket. Even in companies with strong security measures, it’s normally the case that the engineers are smart enough to work out how to bypass the security systems, so the ‘there’s no way I could have got the code out of there’ defense isn’t usually very plausible.
Thus given how easy it is to steal source code, why shouldn’t you do it? Well let’s start with the obvious – it’s wrong. if you don’t understand this, go and have a chat with your mother – I’m sure she’ll spell it out for you. Notwithstanding the morality (and legality) of the issue, here’s another reason why you shouldn’t do it – there’s a great chance you’ll be found out. If that happens, you can find yourself in serious legal jeopardy.
So just how easy is it to show that someone has stolen your code?
Typically the first step is for the (future) plaintiff to have their suspicions aroused. If half the engineering department leaves and starts up a company with a competing product, then it’s hardly surprising that your ex-employer will be suspicious. Of course suspicions aren’t grounds for a lawsuit. The plaintiff needs at least some evidence of your malfeasance. Now sometimes this can be done purely by the functionality / look and feel of a product. However in other cases it’s necessary for the plaintiff to get at your code’s binary image. You can make this very hard (and hence expensive) to do. However for your typical microprocessor, this step is surprisingly easy. Indeed there are any number of organizations around the world that are quite adept at extracting binary images from processors. So what you may ask? I took the code, moved stuff around, used a different compiler and compiled it for a different processor, so good luck with showing that I used your code. Well the trouble with this, is that using tools such as Ida-Pro, it’s easy to count the number of functions in the code, and the arguments they take. These metrics are a remarkably good signature. [BTW, there are other metrics as well, but I really don’t want to give the whole game away]. Thus if the original code base and the stolen code base have a very similar function call signature, then there’s an excellent chance that the plaintiffs have enough evidence to file a lawsuit.
It’s at this point that you are really in trouble. As part of the lawsuit, the plaintiffs are allowed to engage in discovery. In a case like this, it means quite simply that the court will require you to turn your source code over to an expert that has been retained by the plaintiffs (i.e. someone like yours truly). At this point, I can use any number of tools that are available for comparing code bases. Some of the tools are designed expressly for litigation purposes, while others are just some of the standard tools we use as part of our everyday work. Anyway, the point is this: these tools are really good at finding all sorts of obfuscations, including things such as:
- Renaming variables, constants functions etc.
- Changing function parameter orders
- Replacing comments
- Adding / deleting white space
- Splitting / merging files
In many cases, they can even detect the plagiarism (theft) even if you have switched languages. In other words, if you have indeed stolen the source code, then the chances of it not being conclusively proven at this stage are pretty slim. In short, life is about to get very unpleasant.
Having said the above, I like to think that the readers of this blog are not the type that would engage in source code theft. However I suspect that some of you have been tempted to go into business competing against your current employer. If this describes you, then what should you do to ensure that you don’t get hit with a lawsuit a year or two after starting your own business? Well clearly the best bet is not to go into a competing business. However if you must do this, then get some legal advice (please don’t rely on what is written here – I’m just an engineer!) before you start. You will probably be advised to do a ‘clean room’ design, which in a nutshell will require you to demonstrate that the code in your competing product was designed from scratch, using nothing from your former employer. Be advised that even in these cases, if you adopt the same algorithms, then you may still be in trouble.