Is it possible to protect poker programs from decompiling?

RiverFenix · #1 04-12-2007, 01:26 PM

Ive written a few basic ahk scripts for my own use but I'm working on something that I may want to eventually make commercial. Is using afk viable for this? The language certainly makes the coding easier but I dont want write something new that someone else can just decompile and steal. I know you can lock afk scripts - if I do that and then throw it into the exe compiler is that sufficent protection? I'm sort of lost on this end of it and any help would be appreciated.

MSPChris · #2 04-12-2007, 01:41 PM

Disclaimer: I'm not a programmer -- I do a lot of database work and a lot of design work, but my coding skills are pretty limited.

That's one of the reasons I like AHK so much -- ease of use.

One of the more experienced AHK programmers can comment also, but I think the ease of use leads to trade-offs with sophistication and the amount of functionality you can put into a script.

Not slamming AHK at all -- but depending on what you have in mind there is only so much that you can do with AHK.

So if you're planning a commercial product, imo I think you'd want to use something besides AHK.

MSPChris · #3 04-12-2007, 01:42 PM

I really hope Juk or Roland comment. I'd love it for them to tell me I'm wrong -- I'll start studying AHK more seriously myself!!!

jukofyork · #4 04-12-2007, 01:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Ive written a few basic ahk scripts for my own use but I'm working on something that I may want to eventually make commercial. Is using afk viable for this? The language certainly makes the coding easier but I dont want write something new that someone else can just decompile and steal. I know you can lock afk scripts - if I do that and then throw it into the exe compiler is that sufficent protection? I'm sort of lost on this end of it and any help would be appreciated.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've never tried with compiled AHK scripts, but compiled AutoIt EXEs are very easy to rip the source from. Basically AutoIt just includes the plain-text source along with a run-time interpreter and if you break-point the interpreter at the point where it is just about to start executing the script you can dump it.

You can try to protect it as best you can yourself or you could invest in something like Armadillo, but when it comes down to it then however hard you try to protect your software somebody will be smart enough to crack it.

On the other hand, I doubt anybody would be too interested in cracking your software though, and if you are regularly updating it because of changes in poker sites then it makes cracking it less worthwhile.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

TheIrishThug · #5 04-12-2007, 01:47 PM

ahk2exe
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If you plan to distribute your EXE and don't want anyone to be able to view the source code of your script, you get the maximum protection by compiling at the command line with the /NoDecompile switch, and also specifying a long, elaborate password. A password's maximum length is 64 characters.

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jukofyork · #6 04-12-2007, 01:51 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I really hope Juk or Roland comment. I'd love it for them to tell me I'm wrong -- I'll start studying AHK more seriously myself!!!

[/ QUOTE ]
Roland knows much more about AHK than I do, but it was his scripts that convinced me that AHK could do alot more than I realized and is pretty much a fully fledged language.

I think if you wanted to do anything computationally expensive or create a very large project then it might not be a good choice, but again Roland has been creating some pretty nice modular scripts lately (eg: TableNavigator) and it looks like good coding practices can allow you to create large scripts without ending up in a real mess (ala BASIC name-space nightmares).

Where AHK really comes into it's own is when you want to interact with other applications, as otherwise you have to spend hours reading through the MSDN docs to do what could be done easily in 1/2 AHK commands...

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

RiverFenix · #7 04-12-2007, 02:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
ahk2exe
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If you plan to distribute your EXE and don't want anyone to be able to view the source code of your script, you get the maximum protection by compiling at the command line with the /NoDecompile switch, and also specifying a long, elaborate password. A password's maximum length is 64 characters.

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Yeah I tested this program on some ahk exes and it works really well which is what concerned me about all of this.

I know someone will be able to always crack it and i think itll take only once since the benefit of the script lies in some gui improvements, new interactions, and overlay stuff which would all be pointless if cracked once. I havent written them yet but it would be something that Id like to at least make some $ off of before I released a library or anything like that.

Thanks for the help so far. And yeah, looking through your scripts Juk and some of rolands AHK is capable of a lot more than I thought which spurred all of this.

Roland · #8 04-12-2007, 02:35 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
ahk2exe
[ QUOTE ]
If you plan to distribute your EXE and don't want anyone to be able to view the source code of your script, you get the maximum protection by compiling at the command line with the /NoDecompile switch, and also specifying a long, elaborate password. A password's maximum length is 64 characters.

[/ QUOTE ]

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Yeah I tested this program on some ahk exes and it works really well which is what concerned me about all of this.

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]
What works really well? Ahk2Exe? Why would that concern you?

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I know someone will be able to always crack it

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I really don't know anything about cracking passwords etc... how much safer would it be if you write it in some other language?

RiverFenix · #9 04-12-2007, 02:46 PM

Opps, I misread that. There is an exetoahk program which is what concerns me!

Roland · #10 04-12-2007, 02:50 PM

Obviously AHK has it's limitations. Like Juk pointed out, if for instance you wanted to do some simulations or something, AHK isn't the language you're looking for. And then of course, it will only run on Windows...

However, I can't see why that means that you can't use it for a commercial product?

Also,

[ QUOTE ]
I think the ease of use leads to trade-offs with sophistication and the amount of functionality you can put into a script.

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Why? If by ease-of-use you mean that it's easier to use AHK's convenient window- and control-manipulating commands than, to quote Juk again, 'spending hours reading through the MSDN docs', the opposite should be true?