How would you program this? (not just program-related; philosophical topic)

[Kyriakos]

As a metaphor for the mind, an ongoing (and expanding) code is generally as good as any, in my view. So, if you had a code that apparently had as one of its core ends to keep being seamless/not visible, how would you program it?


For example imagine a program that does various stuff, but a major goal of the programmer is to keep those secret. So if some other coder opens the program, they should have great difficulty in moving past the surface. On the surface (again presenting a metaphor here) the program might just seem to mirror parts of the room the person who runs it has in their sight.


Of course there is another catch in this parallelism: the only actual "second" programer who would try to find what the program is, is the person whose mind the program is a metaphor of.


Anyway, in my view there always are ways to go beneath the surface, when a vast process is running it can remain invisible for only so long.

[Sir Adrian]

Look up polymorphic virus writing techniques.

[TerryLewis]

As a metaphor for the mind, an ongoing (and expanding) code is generally as good as any, in my view. So, if you had a code that apparently had as one of its core ends to keep being seamless/not visible, how would you program it?

For example imagine a program that does various stuff, but a major goal of the programmer is to keep those secret. So if some other coder opens the program, they should have great difficulty in moving past the surface. On the surface (again presenting a metaphor here) the custom writing program might just seem to mirror parts of the room the person who runs it has in their sight.

Of course there is another catch in this parallelism: the only actual "second" programer who would try to find what the program is, is the person whose mind the program is a metaphor of.

Anyway, in my view there always are ways to go beneath the surface, when a vast process is running it can remain invisible for only so long.

It's all about advanced code evolution techniques. Virus writers can produce metamorphic malware both on low level and on high level, knowing the programming language pitfalls. If anyone is interested, here's a list of the most common techniques: Garbage Code Insertion, Permutation Techniques, Register usage exchange, etc.
From a linguistic point of view, it's more likely to be a relation between perspective and focalization - the object and the subject of the event (in this case a written program).

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

Can't you just put in tons of GOTOs to make the code illegible?