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Re: obviscating python code for distribution

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On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Littlefield, Tyler <tyler@tysdomain.com> wrote:
> Here's kind of what I want to prevent. I want to write a multi-player online
> game; everyone will essentually end up connecting to my server to play the
> game. I don't really like the idea of security through obscurity, but I
> wanted to prevent a couple of problems.
> 1) First I want to prevent people from hacking at the code, then using my
> server as a test for their new setups. I do not want someone to gain some
> extra advantage just by editing the code.
> Is there some other solution to this, short of closed-source?

1) If you're worried about people getting hold of the code that's
running on your server, that's a server security issue and not a
Python obscurity issue (if they get the code, they can run it no
matter how obscured it is).

2) Was there a problem 2? :)

As James Mills said, just leave it on the server and then you don't
have to give out the source (and by "don't have to", I mean ethically,
legally, and technically).

You may want to give some thought to scaleability of your code; Google
told their staff to avoid Python for things that are going to get
hammered a lot (although it's possible that Google's idea of "a lot"
is five orders of magnitude more than you'll ever get!!). But if your
game world puts a hard limit on its own load (eg if players are on a
50x50 board and you know you can handle 2500 simultaneous players),
you won't have a problem.

Also, Python doesn't really cater to servers that want to have their
code updated on the fly; I'm sure you could work something out using a
dictionary of function objects, but otherwise you're stuck with
bringing the server down to do updates. That's considered normal in
today's world, but I really don't know why... downtime is SO last
century!

Chris Angelico
happily running servers on fully open source stacks

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Thread

obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-15 20:04 -0600
  Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-16 13:29 +1000
    Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-15 21:36 -0600
      Re: obviscating python code for distribution harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-05-15 22:48 -0500
      Re: obviscating python code for distribution Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-16 04:03 +0000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 14:40 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-15 23:41 -0600
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-16 08:49 +0000
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 19:10 +1000
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-05-16 14:40 -0500
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-05-16 13:05 +0100
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution James Mills <prologic@shortcircuit.net.au> - 2011-05-16 16:00 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 16:12 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-16 00:17 -0600
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-16 00:20 -0600
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-17 10:22 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution James Mills <prologic@shortcircuit.net.au> - 2011-05-16 16:24 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution geremy condra <debatem1@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 00:27 -0700
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmichel@sequans.com> - 2011-05-16 11:36 +0200
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-16 08:44 -0600
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-17 10:30 +1000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 20:45 -0700
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Dotan Cohen <dotancohen@gmail.com> - 2011-05-17 09:16 +0300
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-17 16:39 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy@druid.net> - 2011-05-17 09:36 -0400
      Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-16 14:10 +1000
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2011-05-16 13:52 +0000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-17 10:27 +1000
    Re: obviscating python code for distribution Disc Magnet <discmagnet@gmail.com> - 2011-05-20 14:49 +0530

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