Safe guarding scripts

webwired

Hi, I was wanting professional opinions on whether or not to use encryption/obsfucation on php scripts...

I have written a program and hired programmers to help, and now I have a php program that targets a specific need... it sells for around $50 ... For those of you who have written programs in php and sold to the public, what are your thoughts on whether or not to encrypt/obsfucate them?

NogDog

A couple things to look at:
http://www.sourceguardian.com/
http://www.zend.com/en/products/guard/

dougal85

Just a quick note to say, most of these methods can be decrypted very easily. You can find tools to do it in a quick google search.

However - you may stop 90% of people... so that may be good enough.

benracer

If possible i would have have an include that is on your server that the script cannot run without. Currently i am not 100% how this could be forced and not replaced by the end user.

dougal85

At the end of the day, unless you add something to the PHP engine. The code you give it must be at some point converted into native PHP code so it can be run.

Therefore, anything you add could eventually be read. Yeah, you can obfuscate it and make it hard but there isn't really a foolproof way.

Weedpacket

benracer wrote:
If possible i would have have an include that is on your server that the script cannot run without.

Yeah, it's called the script. 😃