Question

How can I protect my PHP code by scrabbling the source

Asked by: jwfranklin

Hello

I've written a site in PHP and my client is worried that the source code could be accessed/modified by their clients. I suggested that we could scrabble the source code so it still functions the same way but when you look at the code most of the variables, custom function names, etc are changed to prevent a PHP programmer from understanding the code well enough to make changes.

Does anyone know of a way or an existing piece of software to do this.

Regards

Jonathan

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Asked On
2008-10-30 at 09:54:00ID23862458
Tags

PHP

,

Firefox 3.0

Topic

PHP Scripting Language

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: alain34Posted on 2008-10-30 at 09:57:26ID: 22842905

Hello jwfranklin,

You should use a php obfuscator. Use your favorite search engine and pick one. Free and commercial obfuscator are available.

http://www.semdesigns.com/Products/Obfuscators/PHPObfuscator.html

Regards,

alain34

 

by: MattKenefickPosted on 2008-10-30 at 10:02:21ID: 22842959

@alain34

Can he find it if he uses his least favorite search engine?

:) Kidding!

 

by: hankknightPosted on 2008-10-30 at 11:16:59ID: 22843739

The most fool-proof way to do this is to use Zend Gaurd or IonCube:
   http://www.zend.com/en/products/guard/
   http://www.ioncube.com/

Unfortunatly both these products cost money and require hosting companies to provide support.

All other options can be hacked to some degree.

However you can use a combination of tricks to achieve good protection.

Take a look at PHP's native tokenizer support:
http://www.php.net/tokenizer

This can be used to break your code into such small pieces (very close to compiled) that it would be nearly impossible to get the original source code.

PHP Trasher uses this and other methods to obfuscate code:
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/file/7000.html

 

by: hankknightPosted on 2008-10-30 at 11:29:01ID: 22843897

Also, before you obfuscate your code you should first add something in your code to prevent it from working on unauthorized websites.

The following code will cause your application to fail unless it is run from example.com or any sub-domain of example.com such as:
         www.example.com
         subdomain.example.com
         www2.example.com

If some one tries to run this from www.hacker.com it would fail.

<?php
 
$domainName = "example.com";
if ($domainName != substr($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'], 0 - (strlen($domainName))))
   {
   echo "This application will not work on this website.";
   exit;
   }
 
?>

                                              
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