How protect proprietary Python code? (bytecode obfuscation?, what better?)

[Ben Sizer]

bruno at modulix wrote:
> Let's rephrase it:
> "do you really think that native code is harder *enough* to
> reverse-engineer ?"

I don't know. In terms of copy protection, popular off-the-shelf
software is going to get cracked whether it's written in Python or x86
ASM, that much is true. But in terms of perhaps protecting innovative
algorithms from competitors, or something similar, compilation into
native code does a great job of hiding your work. Not a perfect job,
but a good enough job.

I know some people talk a lot about using web services to keep the
proprietary data behind a secure server, but there is a large number of
applications where this is not practical - eg. image/audio processing,
computer games, artificial intelligence, or several other applications
with heavy real-time or cpu-intensive requirements, or embedded systems
that don't have web access.

Perhaps the inclusion of ctypes will make it more practical to migrate
any sensitive code into native code libraries.

-- 
Ben Sizer