Isn't this trivially (for some definitions of trivially) defeated by running it inside a virtual machine?
You don't need an expensive JTAG device when the virtual machine gives you that ability for free.
You don't need an expensive JTAG device when the virtual machine gives you that ability for free.
People have been hiding crypter variables in debug registers since… the early 90s was the first I saw it? Sure it might have tripped up those who thought SoftICE was the bee's knees, but those of us who had access to (or wrote) emulating debuggers - which had "debug registers" and a functioning "MMU" just fine - sailed right through this sort of thing and could just read the obfuscation code and adapt it to dump the unencrypted code right out.
Hell, with this, we wouldn't even have to translate/recompile bytecode, the MMU did all the work.
Competitive advantage from tool exclusivity.