Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Computer programs--Execution; Academic theses;

Abstract

In general, users are isolated from the inner-workings of software. The behavior of software is analogous to a "black box," performing user-directed tasks in a predictable way. But this isolation of the inner-workings can foster both curiosity and suspicion of the goings-on "under the hood," especially when the software is closed-source, as is the case with a majority of commercial software. When talking about behaviors of software from the outside perspective of the end user, concerns are raised about issues including memory leaks, data integrity, confidential, etc. This paper discusses several techniques for scrutinizing and eliciting covert behavior of applications at run-time. The procedures presented herein are demonstrated in the context of several specific scenarios, and can be generalized to the more general-purpose exploration of software behavior.

Year of Submission

2012

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Computer Science

First Advisor

Paul Gray

Second Advisor

John McCormick

Third Advisor

Eugene Wallingford

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2012

Object Description

1 PDF file (42 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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