python obfuscate

[alister]

On Thu, 10 Apr 2014 18:29:21 -0700, Wesley wrote:

> Hi all,
>   Does python has any good obfuscate?
> 
> Currently our company wanna release one product developed by python to
> our customer. But dont's wanna others see the py code.
> 
> I googled for a while but mostly just say using pyc. Any better one?
> 
> Our product is deployed on Linux bed.
> 
> Thanks.
> Wesley

As already highlighted obfuscation is probably pointless, what do you 
expect it to achieve anyway? i can see a number of reasons all of which 
can be proved futile.

1) you want to stop the customer copying the program to other computers:-
obsfucation wont help here they already have the executable file & can 
just run it anyway Many copy protection schemes have been tried in the 
past none have been sucsesull

2) you don't want the customer to be able to modify your code & pass it 
of as their own:-

This is what Copyright is for. Also if they are that poor a programming 
shop that they are desperate to steel for your code they probably wont be 
in business long anyway.

3) to stop them modifying the code to suit their own requirements:-

What on earth is the problem here, that just makes the software more 
valuable to them. As long as they are paying for your software (assuming 
it is not freeware) then everyone wins. if they are not paying then it is 
another example of Copyright breach.

4) your software is a driver for some exotic piece of hardware & reading 
the code will help produce a competing product:-

A reasonable justification but in that case it is probably still worth 
the time & effort of fully decompiling the code & reverse engineering the 
hardware and the best you will do will be to slow them down


it is my opinion that attempting to obfuscate the code is akin to 
Microsoft's improvements to the BSOD in windows 8 (Adding a frowning 
emotion) the effort would have been better spent ensuring it wasn't 
displayed in the first place. 
Concentrate on making the product (even) better rather than trying to 
hide the unhideable.

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