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'Protecting' Perl Code?

Posted by Cliff on from the security-through-obfuscation dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "Ok, so here is the scenario: my company has some software that is used internally and it is written in Perl. We now need to put this code on a server that has 'public' access (it's a university machine). We provide root access to the system for the purpose of learning, but we need to keep the code from being viewed or edited. Is there anything to do besides the 'perl2exe' and the ActiveState compiler? How effective are those really at protecting code?"

6 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. I know chmod! by Cyclone66 · · Score: 2, Funny

    CHMOD?

    1. Re:I know chmod! by Johnno74 · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Or he could try a Perl obfuscator"

      People have written perl obfuscators? Why? I've never seen perl code that needed an obfuscator.

    2. Re:I know chmod! by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Funny
      People have written perl obfuscators?

      Comes standard with every unix install.

      man 1 cat

  2. Perl comes with an obfuscator by default.. by mkavanagh2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..and it's called "Perl". You don't need to do anything at all for your code to be unreadable.

  3. MOD PARENT DOWN by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's nonsense, don't listen to this guy.

    Look, just to show how nice we are, why don't you upload it to my FTP server, give me the root password and IP of this machine, and I'll take care of the rest.

    --
    <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
  4. Tolkienized? by rpresser · · Score: 2, Funny

    Perl is already Tolkienized -- just look at the start of every source file!

    What, do you have to run it on a Tolkien Ring network instead of Ethernet?

    "One Ring to rule them all,
      One Ring to find them,
      One Ring to bring them all
      And in the darkness bind them."