From: Lothar Scholz <mailinglists@...>
Date: 2004-06-02T21:31:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Obfuscating Ruby Code.

Hello Michael,

MN> Hm, but you could replace all "method_name" methods with
MN> "obfuscated_method_name" (e.g. using a SHA1 hash function) and if you
MN> know all method names a priori, then you could use a perfect hash.  Or
MN> if there should be a collision, then fall back using plain method names.

The main problem comes with the dynamic nature of ruby. Other people
already mentioned some of this. The node tree only gives you a nice
readable syntax representation, but it does not solve any of the
problems.

Of couse if you have a "clean" program then it shouldn't be so difficult, but
writing a generic obfuscator is an almost impossible way. For example
look at "tk.rb" - its a really ugly ruby code using all kind of tricks
that are possible with an interpreted ruby.

So to repeat myself the best way is to add some kind of decryption
into the ruby.exe and make the modified ruby source code as closed
source.


-- 
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 Lothar Scholz                        http://www.ruby-ide.com
 CTO Scriptolutions                   Ruby, PHP, Python IDE 's