From: Josh Charles <josh.charles@...>
Date: 2005-08-20T02:23:38+09:00
Subject: Re: Protecting commercial ruby code with public/private key encryption

The mono project allows you to create machine executable code by
embedding the runtime intrepreter together with your code.  Perhaps
something like that can be done with Ruby as well.  I don't know how
difficult it is, but the algorithms are probably transferable from the
mono project.

On 8/19/05, John Wells <lists@sourceillustrated.com> wrote:
> Derek Wyatt said:
> > If the code is encrypted, how are you going to decrypt it?
> >
> > I think you have your key types mixed up.  It's the public
> > key that can encrypt and the private key that can decrypt.
> 
> You're absolutely right...I did flub that in my description, didn't I?  I
> suppose the point here is question the viability of packaging a key (the
> private key) in the ruby executable to allow decryption of code the
> encrypted with the public key.  Public/private is a little confusing in
> this scenario, so I'd prefer a locking key and unlocking key.  I would
> still keep the public key private and secret, so it's truly not "public".
> 
> Now, how easy it would be to retrieve the unlocking key from the ruby
> executable, I have no idea.  I've been led to believe by Lothar's comments
> that it's possible to conceal it or the actual decryption point well
> enough that anyone would have a very difficult or impossible time getting
> at it, but that's possibly (probably?) naive.
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> 
> 
>