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How to protect python code ?

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Tue Apr 8 10:04:39 EDT 2003 
>   I count half a dozen responses to my post, not one of which
provided
> any detail into protecting source code.

Why would you expect different?  People who think their code is
valuable enough to *actually* pay the price to code up a source code
protection method probably also think their source code protection
code to be valuable enough to also keep secret!  Breaking any
protection method is usually a *lot* easier when you know which
protection method was used.

So freely shared answers to questions like this are most likely to
come from people who are not doing it.  The very question is a
contradiction: "Will someone please freely share with me methods that
will enable me to *not* share freely with others?"  People who want
protection code to get more money from customers should either figure
it out themselves or take the hints given or offer to pay for help.

Consider cryptography in general.  Try asking any security/spy agency
for details on their cryptography methods.  Now notice that
publications in the field mostly (all?) come from academics who do not
actually do cryptography!  The science of keeping secrets secret is
generally keep secret, as much as possible, by its practitioners.

Terry J. Reedy
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