PERL Miscellaneous - Compiling or Hiding Perl

Author

Compiling or Hiding Perl

daniel kaplan

2004-10-26, 3:57 pm

This was actually something that came up for my old company in terms of
"turnkey" solutions, a way to hide the Perl code and just be able to give
someone an installable CD of our product while protecting our "oh so
precious" code.

Ok, I did find two results in FAQ3 and read the two sections:

How can I hide the source for my Perl program?
How can I compile my Perl program into byte code or C?
(the second section I have no regards to speed, or size wise, but how it
applied to the first)

And they pretty much answer my question, "Not today".

What I was curious was, does anyone know of any "planned or organized"
efforts to make such a beast? Part of me thinks that large companies
selling their solutions would put an effort to hide their code, but then
again, who knows?

Thanks ahead.

Paul Lalli

2004-10-26, 3:57 pm

"daniel kaplan" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:1098811220.291400@nntp.acecape.com...
> This was actually something that came up for my old company in terms
of
> "turnkey" solutions, a way to hide the Perl code and just be able to
give
> someone an installable CD of our product while protecting our "oh so
> precious" code.
>
> Ok, I did find two results in FAQ3 and read the two sections:
>
> How can I hide the source for my Perl program?
> How can I compile my Perl program into byte code or C?
> (the second section I have no regards to speed, or size wise, but how
it
> applied to the first)
>
> And they pretty much answer my question, "Not today".

Read it again. (specifically the fourth paragraph of the first FAQ you
mentioned). The answer is not "Not today". The answer is "That's the
wrong method".

> What I was curious was, does anyone know of any "planned or organized"
> efforts to make such a beast? Part of me thinks that large
companies
> selling their solutions would put an effort to hide their code, but
then
> again, who knows?

No, because hiding or obfuscating source code is not the correct way to
protect your company's IP. The way to do that is with proper
trademarks, copyrights, and patents. That is, it's the job of the
company's legal department, not the engineering department. If you sell
a product that uses your company's new fashioned screws, you don't try
to hide the screws - you take out a patent to prevent anyone else from
making the same screws.

Paul Lalli

daniel kaplan

2004-10-26, 3:57 pm

> Read it again. (specifically the fourth paragraph of the first FAQ you
> mentioned). The answer is not "Not today". The answer is "That's the
> wrong method".

well i read it as "not today" because someone does seem to be working on one
in the experimental stage.

> No, because hiding or obfuscating source code is not the correct way to
> protect your company's IP. The way to do that is with proper
> trademarks, copyrights, and patents.

it is however the first step in a very complicated steps of defense. i've
written three software patents, and as you may know they take years to
approve and cost money to file, and cost money to defend. and by defend i
meant answering back when the PTO comes back with their first rejection.
which they almost always do.

the great thing about software is that you and i as a two man company could
come up with the next killer app, and launch with not much money. and yes,
the first defense is, don't let them see your code. of course you MUST
follow it up with patents, and the likes, as you described above and in the
FAQ.

since you didn't mention it in your reply, i take it however, that there is
no such beast forthcoming that anyone knows about. which sorta sucks
because while many "sensitive" firms (Nasa, Gruman, and the likes) will only
run software on their "internal" networks, these are the last companies that
behave improperly.

but there are those mid-companies who want it internally, but you just never
know who is working there and what might happen....

thanks

Chris Barts

2004-10-26, 3:57 pm

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Hash: SHA1

Paul Lalli wrote:

| No, because hiding or obfuscating source code is not the correct way to
| protect your company's IP. The way to do that is with proper
| trademarks, copyrights, and patents. That is, it's the job of the
| company's legal department, not the engineering department. If you sell
| a product that uses your company's new fashioned screws, you don't try
| to hide the screws - you take out a patent to prevent anyone else from
| making the same screws.

Software patents are evil:
* They kill competition and stretch what little sanity exists at the
USPTO beyond the breaking point. Companies can use patents on obvious
methods to turn whole fields of endeavor into minefields, and the USPTO
has no clue about what is obvious in the software realm, or what the
state of prior art really is.
* Software is speech, and you cannot patent speech. Copyright is the
correct branch of IP law for protecting the ownership of your speech.
* Copyright is all you need anyway: In addition to judicious use of
licenses and other contracts, it gives you more control over the use of
your software than patents do, and for a longer time.

http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html
- -- The League for Programming Freedom's take on the issue.
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Samik Raychaudhuri

2004-10-26, 3:57 pm

Check the section titled 'Using bytecode and the compiler back ends' at the following link:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwor...ml?ca=dgr-lnxw0
This is actually from one of the recent posts titled 'Optimize Perl..'. Thanks OP.
HTH.
-Samik

On 10/26/2004 1:01 PM, daniel kaplan wrote:
>
>
> well i read it as "not today" because someone does seem to be working on one
> in the experimental stage.
>
>
>
>
> it is however the first step in a very complicated steps of defense. i've
> written three software patents, and as you may know they take years to
> approve and cost money to file, and cost money to defend. and by defend i
> meant answering back when the PTO comes back with their first rejection.
> which they almost always do.
>
> the great thing about software is that you and i as a two man company could
> come up with the next killer app, and launch with not much money. and yes,
> the first defense is, don't let them see your code. of course you MUST
> follow it up with patents, and the likes, as you described above and in the
> FAQ.
>
> since you didn't mention it in your reply, i take it however, that there is
> no such beast forthcoming that anyone knows about. which sorta sucks
> because while many "sensitive" firms (Nasa, Gruman, and the likes) will only
> run software on their "internal" networks, these are the last companies that
> behave improperly.
>
> but there are those mid-companies who want it internally, but you just never
> know who is working there and what might happen....
>
> thanks
>
>

--
Samik Raychaudhuri
University of Wisconsin, Madison
http://samik.freeshell.org/

To email me, replace 'K' with 'e' in the 'From' field.

daniel kaplan

2004-10-26, 8:56 pm

> Check the section titled 'Using bytecode and the compiler back ends' at
the following link:
> http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwor...ml?ca=dgr-lnxw0
> This is actually from one of the recent posts titled 'Optimize Perl..'.
Thanks OP.

thanks for posting the link

daniel kaplan

2004-10-26, 8:56 pm

> Software patents are evil:
> * They kill competition and stretch what little sanity exists at the
> USPTO beyond the breaking point. Companies can use patents on obvious
> methods to turn whole fields of endeavor into minefields, and the USPTO
> has no clue about what is obvious in the software realm, or what the
> state of prior art really is.
evil? i don't know to be honest with you. but i fully agree that the USPTO
has no idea how to properly handle software patents.

> * Software is speech, and you cannot patent speech. Copyright is the
> correct branch of IP law for protecting the ownership of your speech.
> * Copyright is all you need anyway: In addition to judicious use of
> licenses and other contracts, it gives you more control over the use of
> your software than patents do, and for a longer time.

all i can say on this is (IMHO)...software is art, not speech. you do
something that fills a need, and people need it. do it in the "proper way"
and they want to use "your interpretation". there's a reason we all use
"ms word (insert your app of choice here)" instead of notepad, or wordpad,
or even other higher end apps. and once you do it well, and right, you have
every right to give it away, or every right to sell it. it's your hard
work, and you should take whatever steps you can to protect.

which by the way is one problem with patenting something. you just look at
the patent and devise a different way to do it. i am sure we will all be
dead and buried before they figure out the right way to protect works like
this..

A. Sinan Unur

2004-10-26, 8:56 pm

Samik Raychaudhuri <samik@frKKshKll.org> wrote in
news:clm7to$7n1$1@news.doit.wisc.edu:

First off, don't top -post. If you have not yet read the posting
guidelines for this group, please go read them.

> Check the section titled 'Using bytecode and the compiler back ends'
> at the following link:
> http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwor...html?ca=dgr-lnx
> w0 This is actually from one of the recent posts titled 'Optimize
> Perl..'. Thanks OP. HTH.

Second, did you actually _read_ the original post?

Matija Papec <perl@my-header.org> wrote in
news:6fkln0t3vrrmn8h985e7f1s53mi915jvn1@
4ax.com:

> http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwor...html?ca=dgr-lnx
> w06OptPerl
>
> Usually they have good articles but this one isn't nearly there, and I
> doubt that author is just making jokes in it?

That is a retarded article that is not worth the bits it is printed on.
That is the consensus from the discussion regarding that IBM article.
Please don't go around spreading misinformation. Go read that thread
again.

While you are at it, go ahead and read the answer to the following FAQ:

perldoc -q hide

Sinan.

PS: Xho, I guess your nightmare is going to come through in a few days.

daniel kaplan

2004-10-26, 8:56 pm

> First off, don't top -post.

not sure this was aimed at me, don't think so, but hey precidents have been
set

> That is a retarded article that is not worth the bits it is printed on.
> That is the consensus from the discussion regarding that IBM article.
> Please don't go around spreading misinformation. Go read that thread
> again.

are you saying this is bunk? the one thing that made me question it was
when we examined this avenue over a year ago we were told NOPE. am now
re-examing the subject since i am personaly getting involevd with Perl. i
did find it hard to believe that something that everyone said NOPE to, would
have such an easy answer.

but since you seem quite up-to-date, i will re-ask "you" directly if that's
ok....do you know of any "organized effort" to try and make this a reality?

thanks in advance again

William Ahern

2004-10-26, 8:56 pm

daniel kaplan <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
> which by the way is one problem with patenting something. you just look at
> the patent and devise a different way to do it. i am sure we will all be
> dead and buried before they figure out the right way to protect works like
> this..

The more pressing dilemma is how to protect us from the boogey man. In the
mean time, you keeping sarching for the man who failed to become a
millionaire because some people illegally redistributed his software.

You bought your lotto ticket today, right? Any day now, dude... any day....

(Yes, I'm being an ass, but I can't help it today. Don't take it
personally.)

Scott Bryce

2004-10-26, 8:56 pm

William Ahern wrote:

> In the
> mean time, you keeping sarching for the man who failed to become a
> millionaire because some people illegally redistributed his software.

As opposed to a certain resident of Redmond, Washington who made his
millions BECAUSE people pirated his software.

Michael Carman

2004-10-27, 3:56 am

daniel kaplan wrote:
>
> do you know of any "organized effort" to try and make this a reality?

If you search the archives of this group you'll uncover many threads
discussing this, including a few posts from people who thought that they
had "solved" this problem. There's also at least one commercial product.
That said, the general consensus of this group (which includes quite a
few people with *lots* of knowledge about Perl) is that any attempts to
do this are a wasted effort. The FAQ goes into more detail, but the
bottom line is that most methods of hiding your source code are
trivially defeated by any clueful Perl programmer.

I suggest saving your tuits for a less futile endeavor.

-mjc

Samik Raychaudhuri

2004-10-27, 3:56 am

On 10/26/2004 4:34 PM, A. Sinan Unur wrote:
>
>
> Second, did you actually _read_ the original post?
>

> That is a retarded article that is not worth the bits it is printed on.
> That is the consensus from the discussion regarding that IBM article.
> Please don't go around spreading misinformation. Go read that thread
> again.
>

Hello,
I *did* read the thread .. and while you and bunch of knowledgeable folks think it is a retarded article, I think in the contrary. I learnt quite a few things, however bad they are, and I pointed out something that I thought might be relevant to this thre
ad. What you think as misinformation might be just an information to some other people. Why don't we leave it onto themselves whether to take the idea, do more research on it, and finally reject it as a lame idea?
Don't take this personally, but this is a newsgroup, and as along as it is not off-topic, don't police.

--
Samik Raychaudhuri
University of Wisconsin, Madison

To email me, replace 'K' with 'e' in the 'From' field.

Tad McClellan

2004-10-27, 3:56 am

Michael Carman <mjcarman@mchsi.com> wrote:
> daniel kaplan wrote:

> the general consensus of this group (which includes quite a
> few people with *lots* of knowledge about Perl) is that any attempts to
> do this are a wasted effort.

Then the OP should write programs in C instead of Perl.

C is a much more powerful and attractive language than Perl anyway.

Perl sucks, he should stop using it immediately and switch to
a more appropriate programming language. Even Python would be
better than Perl.

--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
tadmc@augustmail.com Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas

Tad McClellan

2004-10-27, 3:56 am

[ Please limit your line lengths to the conventional 70-72 characters. ]

Samik Raychaudhuri <samik@frKKshKll.org> wrote:
> On 10/26/2004 4:34 PM, A. Sinan Unur wrote:
>
[color=darkred]
> and while you and bunch of knowledgeable folks think it is a
> retarded article, I think in the contrary.

It is everybody's right to be wrong.

> I learnt quite a few things, however bad they are,

Why would you want to learn bad things when it is just as easy
to learn good things? Do you have a lot of extra time on your
hands or something?

> What you think as misinformation might be just an information
> to some other people.

No, wrong information is wrong information.

Facts are not opinions.

> Why don't we leave it onto themselves whether to take the idea, do
> more research on it, and finally reject it as a lame idea?

Why lead them off into the woods learning a bunch of stuff that
they will then have to UNlearn?

Sounds like an unproductive method of learning to me...

> Don't take this personally, but this is a newsgroup, and as along as
> it is not off-topic, don't police.

Telling people that a piece of crap is not crap is doing them a disservice.

You are not a very nice person.

--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
tadmc@augustmail.com Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas

daniel kaplan

2004-10-27, 3:56 am

> Don't take this personally, but this is a newsgroup, and as along as it is
not off-topic, don't police.

boy are you barking up the wrong tree...i tried to be free form here a few
days ago and i have lost three pints of blood so far. you either goose-step
to the fuehrer...i mean FAQ, or you are wrong...

daniel kaplan

2004-10-27, 3:56 am

>but the
> bottom line is that most methods of hiding your source code are
> trivially defeated by any clueful Perl programmer.

thanks

daniel kaplan

2004-10-27, 3:56 am

> It is very easy to tell to whom I am referring because I do not, unlike
> you, snip attributions. So, I am asking you not to snip attributions.

ok, still totally lost...

>
> Read the FAQ on this topic.

i DID read the FAQ as i mentioned in the ORIGINAL post....i am clear that
there is no magic bullet, but there is nothing in the faq, other than an
experimental version by one individual, if these are future goals in an
organized effort....

daniel kaplan

2004-10-27, 3:56 am

> (Yes, I'm being an ass, but I can't help it today. Don't take it
> personally.)

read all threads related to me, and you bet i'll take it personally....but
on the off chance you really couldn't help it...sometimes, it's company
policy, sometimes it's shareholders, etc. etc.

in the end you have to research every possibilty....also as i said in an
earlier post, when i researched this a year ago or so, i got my answer, but
since am now looking into Perl i had to re-check. afert all things change

daniel kaplan

2004-10-27, 3:56 am

> As opposed to a certain resident of Redmond, Washington who made his
> millions BECAUSE people pirated his software.

usually a defender of his, but not a topic of this thread....but you got to
give it to him...don't make a GUI computer...make GUI OS for the smae
computers everybody is buying, and already making....

Tintin

2004-10-27, 8:56 am

"daniel kaplan" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:1098854700.79485@nntp.acecape.com...
>
> ok, still totally lost...

An attribution is what you'll see as the first line of this post, ie: the
line that tells everyone else that the last comments were made by "daniel
kaplan".

Arndt Jonasson

2004-10-27, 8:56 am

"daniel kaplan" <nospam@nospam.com> writes:
>
> ok, still totally lost...

What he is telling you is that you should keep (or tell your news
posting software to start inserting) the attribution lines that look
like "Foo bar <somewhere.net> wrote:", so that one can easily see who
wrote what.

Ben Morrow

2004-10-27, 8:56 am

Quoth "daniel kaplan" <nospam@nospam.com>:
> which by the way is one problem with patenting something. you just
> look at the patent and devise a different way to do it. i am sure we
> will all be dead and buried before they figure out the right way to
> protect works like this..

This is not a problem with patents, it's the *whole* *point*. Unlike
copyright, which is there to protect the interests of the creator,
patents are there for the public interest. Look up the word: 'patent'
comes from the Latin 'patere' meaning 'lie open', and originally meant
'open to general knowledge or use; public'; compare 'patently obvious'.

They were invented at a time when reverse-engineering was extremely hard
and unlikely to happen, and many useful ideas were being lost to
posterity through their inventors keeping them secret. The solution was
to make a deal with the inventor: you tell the public how to do whatever
it is you've invented, and we'll agree to give you free reign with it
for enough time to make your fortune. That's why they're only for (IIRC)
17 years, instead of the 'life of the creator plus however many years
have expired since Walt Disney died' [:)] that copyright is for.

In this day and age when reverse-engineering is the norm rather than the
exception, and especially in the realm of software, I would say there is
an *extremely* good case for dropping the concept altogether; but
particularly the USPTO is so tied up to big business that I don't see as
this is that likely to happen <sigh>.

Ben

--
The cosmos, at best, is like a rubbish heap scattered at random.
- Heraclitus
ben@morrow.me.uk

Anno Siegel

2004-10-27, 8:56 am

daniel kaplan <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
> not off-topic, don't police.
>
> boy are you barking up the wrong tree...i tried to be free form here a few
> days ago and i have lost three pints of blood so far. you either goose-step
> to the fuehrer...i mean FAQ, or you are wrong...

These Nazi silmiles do nothing but play down Nazism. Nazism is
about power. Nobody on Usenet has any power over anyone. You are
disqualifying your own argument.

Anno

Peter Hickman

2004-10-27, 8:56 am

daniel kaplan wrote:
>
>
> read all threads related to me, and you bet i'll take it personally....but
> on the off chance you really couldn't help it...sometimes, it's company
> policy, sometimes it's shareholders, etc. etc.
>
> in the end you have to research every possibilty....also as i said in an
> earlier post, when i researched this a year ago or so, i got my answer, but
> since am now looking into Perl i had to re-check. afert all things change
>
>

When I started programming perl, around the time version 4 was released, there
was talk of a tool to hide the Perl code. There has probably been talk of a tool
to hide Perl code since version 1.

We are on the threshold of version 6 and it is still not here and to be honest I
don't ever think it will exist. Lets face it this has never been a requirement
of the language and never will be. There are many more productive things for the
developers to undertake than hiding the code.

It will never happen.

Anno Siegel

2004-10-27, 8:56 am

Peter Hickman <peter@semantico.com> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
> daniel kaplan wrote:
>
> When I started programming perl, around the time version 4 was released, there
> was talk of a tool to hide the Perl code. There has probably been talk
> of a tool
> to hide Perl code since version 1.
>
> We are on the threshold of version 6 and it is still not here and to be
> honest I
> don't ever think it will exist. Lets face it this has never been a requirement
> of the language and never will be. There are many more productive things
> for the
> developers to undertake than hiding the code.
>
> It will never happen.

It may already have happened. If it's proprietary software, how
would we know? Neither the tool itself, nor the products treated
with it would be recognizable as Perl programs.

No, I don't really think such a product exists, but there is a
certain contradiction in expecting the open-source community to
provide the tools for hiding sources.

Anno

Peter Hickman

2004-10-27, 8:56 am

Anno Siegel wrote:
> It may already have happened. If it's proprietary software, how
> would we know? Neither the tool itself, nor the products treated
> with it would be recognizable as Perl programs.
>
> No, I don't really think such a product exists, but there is a
> certain contradiction in expecting the open-source community to
> provide the tools for hiding sources.
>
> Anno

Actually a thought just hit me about version 6. Maybe Perl could use the Python
convention of compiling to byte code (py to pyc) and then distributing only the
pyc files to run the program. Not ideal but makes things much harder to reverse
engineer.

It would probably be too much to retrofit onto pre 6, but 6 could possibly take
that path.

I will go off and post to perl6-internals.

Robert Sedlacek

2004-10-27, 8:56 am

daniel kaplan wrote:

> boy are you barking up the wrong tree...i tried to be free form here a few
> days ago and i have lost three pints of blood so far. you either goose-step
> to the fuehrer...i mean FAQ, or you are wrong...
^^^^^^^
while (1) { *PLONK* }

g,
Robert

--
http://www.dunkelheit.at/

Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people.
-- Aleister Crowley

Peter Hickman

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

Right I asked this on the perl6-internals and it would seem that compiling Perl
6 source to parrot bytecode and than loading the bytecode instead of the source
was doable, with some possible caveats.

Here's the message:

Dan Sugalski wrote:

> At 12:00 PM +0100 10/27/04, Peter Hickman wrote:
>
without access to the source (the py).[color=darkred]
load the ??c version if it was available and newer than the source?[color=darkred]
>
> Yeah, that's doable. Probably will be done.
>
>
> Given that the bytecode will probably have a segment with the original source
in it, this isn't likely to get you much of a win there.
>
> There should be a performance win, though. There won't be a need to compile
the source, which saves some time. Bytecode files on-disk are shared across all
the processes in the system, so you only get one in-memory copy of a file, which
saves both RAM and load time if you're using a file that another process is using.
>
> On single user or small machines this probably won't be a big win in most
cases. It should, however, make a pretty big difference in server systems.
> --
> Dan
>
> --------------------------------------it's like this-------------------
> Dan Sugalski even samurai
> dan@sidhe.org have teddy bears and even
> teddy bears get drunk

So probably yes, but we will have to wait and see what it looks like.

Tad McClellan

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

daniel kaplan <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:

> you either goose-step
> to the fuehrer...i mean FAQ, or you are wrong...

What daniel calls "goose-stepping" most other folks would
call "good manners".

You either practice good manners...I mean check the FAQ before posting,
or you are wrong.

In article <1995Nov9.193745.13694@netlabs.com>, lwall@netlabs.com
(Larry Wall) wrote: ...

[snip] I view a programming language as a place to be
explored, like Disneyland. You don't need to have a lot of preparation
to explore a theme park. You do have to go along with the crowd
control measures, though. In a sense, each ride has its own
prerequisites--if you cut in line, you risk getting tossed out of the
park.

What we have here in this newsgroup is a failure in crowd control.
Reading the FAQ is like staying in line--it's something you should
learn in kindergarten. Usenet needs a better kindergarten.

--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
tadmc@augustmail.com Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas

Laura

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

daniel kaplan wrote:

>
> well i read it as "not today" because someone does seem to be working on
> one in the experimental stage.
>
>
> it is however the first step in a very complicated steps of defense. i've
> written three software patents, and as you may know they take years to
> approve and cost money to file, and cost money to defend. and by defend i
> meant answering back when the PTO comes back with their first rejection.
> which they almost always do.
>

The nature of the Perl culture is to be open in sharing source code as is
the nature of the much of the open source community. To understand the
nature of differing software communities, you must follow the money trail
because nobody does this much hard work for free no matter how much they
love it. Microsoft and Apple and like minded corporations attempt to make
software that is easy to use but difficult to hack into. They make their
money selling software, but they lose money on the support end when the
support is included in the price of the software and they lose money on
copyright infringement. Therefore, they protect their investment with all
possible resources, particularly compilation and obfuscation of code. The
open source community makes its money on support and service of freely
distributed code. It is no accident that products like Linux, Perl and
others are free, yet so difficult for the beginner to learn and use.
Whether it is conscious or unconscious, the programmers of free software
build into their work an innate difficulty for the absolute novice. Of
course, code is well organized and occasionally well documented as a matter
of pride, but little effort is made to make it accessible to the beginner
or even the user who wants to use the software without dedicating a
substantial amount of time to becoming a "hacker". Again, follow the money
trail. Do a survey of how often you read the response "hire a programmer."
There is nothing wrong with this philosophy. Why should programmers invest
so much time, money and effort into their own education and work and then
give it away for free? Unless of course the person asking for help shows
some desire to become a programmer themselves by putting a little work and
effort in before asking their question. It makes sense to give a little
free help to this person in the hopes that someday, they may evolve into a
competent hacker who will contribute something useful for the community.

Just see that "Antitrust" movie to get a better understanding of the issue.

Laura

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

TOP POSTER!

Reason for not top posting:

They have not yet written a decent Perl filter to turn top posting into
bottom posting as your post is submitted. If anyone figures out how to do
it and puts it on cpan, we could all use it on the client side for now to
fix top posts as they come in.

Samik Raychaudhuri wrote:

> Check the section titled 'Using bytecode and the compiler back ends' at
> the following link:
> http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwor...ml?ca=dgr-lnxw0
> This is actually from one of the recent posts titled 'Optimize Perl..'.
> Thanks OP. HTH. -Samik
>
> On 10/26/2004 1:01 PM, daniel kaplan wrote:
>

Ron Parker

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 01:26:58 -0400, daniel kaplan wrote:
>
> in the end you have to research every possibilty....also as i said in an
> earlier post, when i researched this a year ago or so, i got my answer, but
> since am now looking into Perl i had to re-check. afert all things change

I don't think we'll be seeing any changes anytime soon to the cryptographers'
maxim that says it's impossible, on an untrusted system, to hide code while
making it executable. Whatever method you have in place to make it possible
for the processor to read and interpret your opcodes can be subverted to make
it possible for a potential "attacker" to read and interpret your opcodes.
The best you can do is make it difficult. Many people would tell you that
the mere fact that the code is written in Perl makes it sufficiently difficult
to read. If that's not good enough for you, consider porting your code to
APL.

This isn't a problem unique to Perl, either: I took a class in C# from one
of the more knowledgeable people in the .NET field, and when he introduced us
to one of the many available decompilers for the .NET bytecode, a lot of
people in the class got their panties in a bunch over the impossibility of
hiding code in .NET. His answer was that as soon as Microsoft has total
control over our computers, that problem will go away. Personally, I'm not
particularly overjoyed at that prospect, but at least it made the other
students happy enough to let him go on with the class.

--
#local R=rgb 99;#local P=R-R;#local F=pigment{gradient x}box{0,1pigment{gradient
y pigment_map{[.5F pigment_map{[.3R][.3F color_map{[.15red 99][.15P]}rotate z*45
translate x]}]#local H=pigment{gradient y color_map{[.5P][.5R]}scale 1/3}[.5F
pigment_map{[.3R][.3H][.7H][.7R]}]}}}camera{location.5-3*z}//only my opinions

Uri Guttman

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

>>>>> "L" == Laura <lwt0301@bellsouth.net> writes:

L> distributed code. It is no accident that products like Linux, Perl
L> and others are free, yet so difficult for the beginner to learn and
L> use. Whether it is conscious or unconscious, the programmers of
L> free software build into their work an innate difficulty for the
L> absolute novice. Of course, code is well organized and
L> occasionally well documented as a matter of pride, but little
L> effort is made to make it accessible to the beginner or even the
L> user who wants to use the software without dedicating a substantial
L> amount of time to becoming a "hacker". Again, follow the money
L> trail. Do a survey of how often you read the response "hire a

like i said, i was just waiting for more of your tripe. please stop
posting FUD like this. there are plenty of commercial proprietary
programs that are very difficult to learn. and programming in general,
regardless of the language (and none are really proprietary, you can get
free versions of almost any lang) is hard. so you blabbering about perl
being hard to learn is meaningless. perl is just as accessible
to beginners if you just use the right resources. usenet is not a
resource for most beginners in any area. books and tutorials and classes
are what beginners should be using. this is a PERL DISCUSSION GROUP, not
a teaching forum. but you won't get that as you seem to just want to
blather inane verbiage and just fill up distributed usenet disk space
with random noise.

eagerly awaiting your next worthless post,

uri

--
Uri Guttman ------ uri@stemsystems.com -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs ---------------------------- http://jobs.perl.org

Alan J. Flavell

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Ron Parker wrote:

> This isn't a problem unique to Perl, either: I took a class in C# from one
> of the more knowledgeable people in the .NET field, and when he introduced us
> to one of the many available decompilers for the .NET bytecode, a lot of
> people in the class got their panties in a bunch over the impossibility of
> hiding code in .NET. His answer was that as soon as Microsoft has total
> control over our computers, that problem will go away. Personally, I'm not
> particularly overjoyed at that prospect, but at least it made the other
> students happy enough to let him go on with the class.

Hmmm, why is my irony detector making wild swings to and fro?

If that last remark carries even a grain of truth, then surely the
asylum is indeed being run by the inmates.

Laura

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

[deleted to save usenet disk space]
this is a PERL DISCUSSION GROUP, not
> a teaching forum. but you won't get that as you seem to just want to
> blather inane verbiage and just fill up distributed usenet disk space
> with random noise.
>
> eagerly awaiting your next worthless post,
>
> uri
>

cost of maintaining my post on usenet: $00.00 (rounded down to nearest
penny)
cost of my time for composing and posting it: $00.00
cost of your time to read and compose response: estimated $00.00
value of your entertaining response: priceless!

Ron Parker

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:02:48 +0100, Alan J. Flavell wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Ron Parker wrote:
>
>
> Hmmm, why is my irony detector making wild swings to and fro?

If you think that's ironic, I can't imagine what would happen if I told you
who paid for the class.

> If that last remark carries even a grain of truth, then surely the
> asylum is indeed being run by the inmates.

There's a bit of truth-stretching going on there, but there were those who
were mollified, at least a little, by the prospect of the Trusted Computing
Initiative solving all their problems. I guess going out of business solves
a lot of such problems.

--
#macro R(P)z+_(P)_(P)_(P+1)_(P+1)+z#end#macro Q(C,T)bicubic_patch{type 1u_steps
6v_steps 6R(1)R(3)R(5)R(7)pigment{rgb z}}#end#macro _(Y)#local X=asc(substr(C,Y
,1))-65;<T+mod(X,4)div(X,4)9>-2#end#macro O(T)Q("ABEFUQWS",T)Q("WSXTLOJN",T)#
end O(0)O(3)Q("JNKLCGCD",0)light_source{x 1}// ron.parker@povray.org

daniel kaplan

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

"Tintin" <tintin@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:2u944dF28akduU1@uni-berlin.de...
> An attribution is what you'll see as the first line of this post, ie: the
> line that tells everyone else that the last comments were made by "daniel
> kaplan".

ah, i've just been "quoting" will make sure i do BOTH from now on
thanks

daniel kaplan

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

"Laura" <lwt0301@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:10nvd9q7ss5j660@news.supernews.com...
> TOP POSTER!
>
> Reason for not top posting:
>

as i said, i had misundertood it earlier and was just QUOTING....now someone
actually explained it, and will make sure i d it

daniel kaplan

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

"Laura" <lwt0301@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:10nvc4is88hqfac@news.supernews.com...

>Microsoft and Apple and like minded corporations attempt to make
> software that is easy to use but difficult to hack into. They make their
> money selling software, but they lose money on the support end when the
> support is included in the price of the software

have you ever had to go to microsoft for tech support? credit card first!
even when it's a bug (most times) and they end up not putting through the
charge, but you go through the whole process anyway.

daniel kaplan

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

"Peter Hickman" <peter@semantico.com> wrote in message
news:417f796c$0$11938$afc38c87@news.easynet.co.uk...

We are on the threshold of version 6 and it is still not here and to be
honest I
> don't ever think it will exist. Lets face it this has never been a
requirement
> of the language and never will be. There are many more productive things
for the
> developers to undertake than hiding the code.
>
> It will never happen.

thanks

Uri Guttman

2004-10-27, 3:57 pm

>>>>> "L" == Laura <lwt0301@bellsouth.net> writes:

L> cost of maintaining my post on usenet: $00.00 (rounded down to nearest
L> penny)

cost of wasting other people's time with your crap: priceless

L> cost of my time for composing and posting it: $00.00

your time isn't worth much from what you display of your perl skills
here.

L> cost of your time to read and compose response: estimated $00.00
L> value of your entertaining response: priceless!

nah, i entertain all of perldom and exact my fees. part of my job is
pointing out clowns like you. that i do for free as a public service.

now, please post more inanities. i will have to collect them into a page
in your dishonor if you keep it up.

uri

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