arXiv:2604.12407 · v2
Tamper-Proofing with Self-Modifying Code
摘要
Classical computability theory tells us that self-modifying code (SMC) on a deterministic universal Turing machine can be simulated by non-SMC code on the same model. That abstraction, however, omits the external timing inputs, concurrency, and microarchitectural state that dominate practical execution on modern processors. We argue that once timing, ordering, and self-introspective effects are treated as observables, a practically faithful non-SMC reproduction of timed SMC becomes detectably expensive on commodity systems. We present a tamper-proofing model that combines introspective and polymorphic SMC, reliable clocks, and runtime timing predicates to bind integrity checks to execution behavior. We distinguish static and dynamic SMC generation, characterize the timing semantics needed to avoid catastrophic pipeline clears, and give x86-64 design primitives for checksum-driven self-patching. We also report timer measurements, performance comparisons, and performance-monitoring counter evidence showing that careful engineering - especially loop unrolling and cross-page modification - substantially reduces the overhead of SMC while preserving its tamper-detection value. The paper concludes with an efficiency analysis, a threat model, and deployment guidance for trusted code executing in untrusted environments. The threat model is formalized in Lean 4, relative to an explicit platform contract: the security theorem, the necessity of each assumption and which assumptions each adversary level satisfies or breaks are machine-checked, and the development is registered with the Palomar registry.
作者备注：14 pages, 5 figures, 6 tables. Lean 4 formalization (Palomar entry PALOMAR-2026-10-18-000004 v1): https://github.com/GregoryMorse/SelfModTamper , tag palomar-v1