Re: obfuscating source code

[diotalevi]

You can't encrypt the source because you'd also have to dstribute the decryption key so the program will run. You can obfuscate your source but that won't prevent people from deobfuscating it. You could compile your source but that won't prevent people from decompiling it. You'll need to decide what an acceptable levels of veils are required. Nothing is going to protect you from someone who wants to modify their source but you can at least force them to work a few minutes on it.

[cog]

In fact, obfuscating code will prevent *you*, in the future, from being able to change that code.

Sure, you could obfuscate, give them the obfuscated version (which could always be deobfuscated) and make changes in your original version but once you'd do those changes you would have to obfuscate everything again to deliver it... that's not a good option :-|

[diotalevi]

I don't generally believe that because anyone going to obfuscate their source is more likely to use an automated method than doing it manually. Heck, you could even use my B::Deobfuscate module to do this. I meant to write a complementary obfuscating module but its quite a bit more of a pain since B::Deparse includes a lot of explanatory white space that's difficult to remove. The B::Deobfuscate module trivially renames things by subclassing B::Deparse and overriding some of the functions related to naming things.

[Aristotle]

…but only the first one who feels so inclined.