Obfuscated Code Conversion

This is freakin awesome... http://www.stunnix.com/prod/cxxo/overview.shtml

I don't like it.

lol why not?

its like distributing binaries. Probably equally reliable too...

I'm an open source kinda guy :)

I'm not and I don't want my game engine source exposed. I just might use it...

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Bazzy (6281)

I can write "by hand" more obfuscated code LOL

It is kinda stupid. Just apply a proprietary license to your code and nobody can create derivative works

rocketboy9000 (562)

Exactly. My game is up on a web page for free, source and all, but there's a big ol' copyright notice, so people can't steal my code and claim I gave them permission. :P.

Maybe if your c++ writing style is bad enough you won't need code obfuscation at all :)

Conclusion: bad programmers will save on your obfuscation costs.

rocketboy9000 wrote:
Exactly. My game is up on a web page for free, source and all, but there's a big ol' copyright notice, so people can't steal my code and claim I gave them permission. :P.

It's not realistic to think that for a second anyone will respect a license/copyright. If they can read your code, they can reproduce bits and pieces of it if needed. The only way to catch someone is if they release a competing application.

Hey Return 0, what are you working on? (I remember you working on a 3d game, is this correct? On what aspect of the game do you work?)

Someone remembered :). I work on all of the subsystems of the engine, but at the moment my main focus is on game mechanics and some core decision logic. Experimenting with a talent/ability tree very similar to Final Fantasy X if anyone remembers. The big challenge at the moment is ensuring the system can be easily unhooked from the engine. I'm trying to avoid hard coding modules and locking the engine for just rpgs as it will be released publicly one day... which is why I'm interested in protecting my source from replication.

Bazzy (6281)

Just so you know, that sort of obfuscation is easily revertible. You only loose symbol names

Is it simple enough that just using GNU indent would fix it?

Bazzy (6281)

Here is what obfuscator does vs how you can revert that.

Replacing symbol names with non-meaningfull ones
Replacing numeric constants with expressions
Replacing characters in strings with their hex escapes
Removing or obfuscation of comments
Removing spaces and tabs in the lines of code
Joining all lines in your code

Can't be fixed (but if you do know what their name should be, becomes a trivial fix)
Trivial fix
Trivial fix
Can't be fixed
Fixable with some sourcecode formatter
Fixable with some sourcecode formatter

I guess that any average IDE could do much of that
You only loose symbols and comments

BTW the animation on their website produces a non-standard C++ main

Bazzy wrote:
Just so you know, that sort of obfuscation is easily revertible.

hmm... how easily? Easy for you or the average programmer?

Edit: It took 15 minutes for this damn message to post!

Edit2: So how long do you think it would take 1 average programmer to unobfuscate 50,000 LOC?

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An average programmer can't easily steal your work. He simply wouldn't be able to make all of your code work properly.

You need an exceptional programmer to steal your work. As Bazzy explained, you will do 95% of the work with a source code formatter, which is one menu click on my code::blocks IDE (which in turn is a one-click install on Ubuntu).

I don't see the point in obfuscating your source. Where are you going to be putting it that it might get taken anyway?
Edit: It just seems like another security-through-obscurity measure. Assuming obfuscating your source makes it safe to post it anywhere is like assuming that because I can't read the source code of some closed-source program, I won't find its security flaws.

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closed account (1yR4jE8b)

I don't see the point in obfuscating either...if you don't want it to be used...don't put it somewhere where people can have access to it...or am I just missing something?