From: Bill Kelly Date: 2004-06-02T12:18:44+09:00 Subject: Re: Obfuscating Ruby Code. Hi, From: "Gregory Millam" > > How does obfuscating solve your problem? How is that even > a problem? Just include a compiled ruby interpreter for > your target platform, and have a link in your code that > says "For more info about ruby and to download the > interpreter, go to www.ruby-lang.org" ... > > Obfuscaters serve no real use - as long as somebody can pass > your code through a lexer, it's instantly unobfuscated. I imagine the obfuscation would include translation of once- meaningful identifiers (variable names, method names, ...) into meaningless gibberish. A lexer would not help much there. Such an obfuscator sounds really tough to write for Ruby though... I presume the string form of eval() would have to be disallowed from referring to any code subject to obfuscation... I would be very interested in a working Ruby code obfuscator, even given certain restrictions like that. I'm writing an application in Ruby that will likely be heavily pirated, like a video game, as soon as a cracked copy of it becomes available. As with video games, which i used to do for about 9 years professionally, we're just trying to delay the time it takes for someone to produce a cracked version. At least, I'm presuming anyone needing a Ruby code obfuscator is probably coming from the same situation. That's why I'd like one anyway. I'm developing in Ruby because I want to add features faster than the competition. (Not to mention how much fun programming in Ruby is. :) But I've gone into writing this app in Ruby knowing I'm going to need *some* solution to delaying the (inevitable) appearance of a cracked version of my app. So I'm very glad to hear Ken is working on such a technology, and grateful he'd be willing to share it. Regards, Bill