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Erlang Binary and Source Code Obfuscation

arXiv Security Archived Apr 16, 2026 ✓ Full text saved

arXiv:2604.13675v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: This paper studies obfuscation techniques for Erlang programs at the source, abstract syntax tree, BEAM assembly, and BEAM bytecode levels. We focus on transformations that complicate reverse engineering, decompilation, and recompilation while remaining grounded in the actual behavior of the Erlang compiler, validator, loader, and virtual machine. The paper categorizes opcode-level dependency tricks, receive-based loop encodings, irregular contro

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Computer Science > Programming Languages [Submitted on 15 Apr 2026] Erlang Binary and Source Code Obfuscation Gregory Morse, Tamás Kozsik This paper studies obfuscation techniques for Erlang programs at the source, abstract syntax tree, BEAM assembly, and BEAM bytecode levels. We focus on transformations that complicate reverse engineering, decompilation, and recompilation while remaining grounded in the actual behavior of the Erlang compiler, validator, loader, and virtual machine. The paper categorizes opcode-level dependency tricks, receive-based loop encodings, irregular control-flow constructions, mutability-oriented performance obfuscation, and self-modifying code enabled by dynamic module loading. A recurring theme is that effective obfuscation in BEAM often arises not from arbitrary corruption, but from exploiting representational gaps between high-level Erlang semantics and the lower-level execution model accepted by the toolchain and runtime. Comments: 15 pages, 15 figures Subjects: Programming Languages (cs.PL); Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) MSC classes: 68N20 (Primary) 68M25, 68N19 (Secondary) ACM classes: D.2.7; D.3.4; D.4.6 Cite as: arXiv:2604.13675 [cs.PL] (or arXiv:2604.13675v1 [cs.PL] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.13675 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Gregory Morse [view email] [v1] Wed, 15 Apr 2026 09:54:04 UTC (20 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.PL < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cs cs.CR References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)

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