Detecting code theft via a static instruction trace birthmark for Java methods

A software birthmark is an inherent program characteristic that can identify a program. In this paper, we propose a static instruction trace birthmark to detect code theft of Java methods. Because the static instruction traces can reflect the algorithmic structure of a program, our birthmark can be used to detect algorithm theft which existing static birthmarks cannot handle. Because the static instruction traces are extracted by static analyses, they can be applied to library programs which previous dynamic birthmarks could not. We evaluate the proposed birthmark with respect to two criteria: credibility and resilience. Experimental result shows that our birthmark is more resilient than and at least as credible as the existing Java birthmarks.