A method is provided for protecting a software program from copying. The method includes providing a first implementation of the software program. A second implementation of the software program is then provided. The second implementation provides a same functionality as the first implementation, and wherein the second implementation includes a plurality of dummy operations to increase a number of operations and an execution time of the second implementation compared to the first implementation. The dummy operations are encoded. The second implementation may then be compared to another software program to determine if the another software program is a copy of the first implementation of the software program. This allows a copy of the first implementation to be detected without disclosing the first implementation.