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Best solution to protect PHP code without encryption
(11 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I was thinking of making a commercial application to sell to customers to install on their servers but I wanted to do it with PHP & MySQL.
what should i do to ensure that the source code (& Database) will not be opened nor copied.
The most important thing is the code will be hosted on the customer server.
And also how to ensure that the customer will not resell the web application (like copying the code & Db to other people)
Thank you
There's a lot of question around PHP code obfuscation / encryption / compilation on SO. Check them out.
There is a number of products to protect PHP code like Zend Guard, ioncube encoder and others.
Related SO questions:
Minify / obfuscate PHP code
Best solution to protect PHP code without encryption
PHP Source Encryption - Effectiveness and Disadvantages
How can you make a PHP application require a key to work?
Can I encrypt PHP source or compile it so others can’t see it? and how?
How to prevent resale of PHP source?
As long as the software is distributed in source code form (versus binary), there are no way to prevent the customer opening / altering it. Even binaries can be more or less reverse-engineered by decompiling them.
One can obfuscate the code in order to make it difficult to read / understand how it works, but as every countermeasure, it won't stop piracy – sooner or later someone with enough motivation will bypass it.
You have few options:
Sell your software as a service (SAAS).
Just don't care about piracy, high-profile / most users will probably pay anyway if the price is reasonable.
Licence it as free (libre) and profit by selling support etc.
You can use Zend Guard and some controls inside your applications to try to mitigate piracy on your PHP WEB applications.
DataBase will probably remain open.
I think the most you could do is encode it but if they are savvy enough to notice they can just decode it... PHP is a scripting language that is interpreted at run time.
Your customers should be signing a contract saying they won't be handing it out, you could work some sort of licensing check into the software to verify that no one is using it illegally... vbulletin is an example of a commercial PHP web app, you may look into the way they go about business.
Not possible, IMO, without a fully hosted environment. Once on the customer's server, they have access, then it is a matter of determination and resources. I say this because even powerful, native code licensing protectionss are subverted all the time, just Google to see all of the cracked keys.
If you DO want to protect your code, use of native languages or obfuscated verions (at least) will only change the magnitude of difficulty, but not alleviate the risk.
Protecting the database is even tougher. Even engines that allow full DB encryption require the key to start / connect to the db. If that is part of your web app, or in the customer's hands, they have full access. DB Encryption is really for protection against hackers, not against your customers.
Piracy becomes a legal issue, not a technical issue.
Related
First of all, I'm not looking for miracle... I know how PHP works and that there's not really way to hide my code from the clients without using encryption. But that comes with the cost of an extension to be installed on the running server.
I'm looking for something different though... I'm not looking to encrypt my code or even obfuscate it. There are many PHP scripts without encrypted/obfuscated code but they are commercial applications. For instance, vBulletin and/or IP.Board forum applications.
I just want to know what approach do these guys use for their applications...
I'm also open to any other suggestions.
Please note that I'm a single person and not working for a company. My product is also very specific, it won't sell that much. I just want you guys to know that I can't afford to consult a legal professional either to sue someone or prepare a commercial license. I'm just looking for a simple way to protect my simple product, if it's indeed possible, somehow...
Obfuscating things can only inconvenience your legitimate, law-abiding customers, while the people who would would rip you off are not your target paying customers anyway. (edited out other thoughts about obfuscation)
Another suggestion for protecting your software: create a business model in which the code is an incomplete part of the value of your offering. For example, sell product licenses along with access to some data you manage on your site, or license the product on a subscription model or with customer support.
Designing a EULA is a legal matter, not a coding matter. You can start by reading some EULA text for products and websites you use. You might find some interesting details!
Creating a proprietary license is is highly flexible, and probably a subject beyond the intended scope of StackOverflow, since it's not strictly about coding.
Some parts of a EULA that come to mind:
Limiting your liability if the product has bugs or causes damage.
Spelling out how the customer can use their licensed software, for how long, on how many machines, with or without redistribution rights, etc.
Giving you rights to audit their site, so you can enforce the licenses.
What happens if they violate the EULA, e.g. they lose their privilege to use your software.
You should consult a legal professional to prepare a commercial EULA.
edit: If this project can't justify the expense of a lawyer, check out these resources:
"EULA advice" on joelonsoftware
"How to Write an End User License Agreement"
You need to consider your objectives:
1) Are you trying to prevent people from reading/modifying your code? If yes, you'll need an obfuscation/encryption tool. I've used Zend Guard with good success.
2) Are you trying to prevent unauthorized redistribution of your code?? A EULA/proprietary license will give you the legal power to prevent that, but won't actually stop it. An key/activation scheme will allow you to actively monitor usage, but can be removed unless you also encrypt your code. Zend Guard also has capabilities to lock a particular script to a particular customer machine and/or create time limited versions of the code if that's what you want to do.
I'm not familiar with vBulletin and the like, but they'd either need to encrypt/obfuscate or trust their users to do the right thing. In the latter case they have the protection of having a EULA which prohibits the behaviors they find undesirable, and the legal system to back up breaches of the EULA.
If you're not prepared/able to take legal action to protect your software and you don't want to encrypt/obfuscate, your options are a) Release it with a EULA so you're have a legal option if you ever need it and hope for the best, or b) consider whether an open source license might be more appropriate and just allow redistribution.
I have not looked at the VBulletin source code in some time, but the way they used to do it around 2003 was to embed a call to their server inside the code. IIRC, it was on a really long code line (like 200-300+ chars long) and was broken up over several string concatenations and such.
It did nothing "bad" if you pirated it - the forum still worked 100%. But your server's IP was logged along with other info and they used that to investigate and take legal action.
Your license number was embedded in this call, so they could easily track how many IPs/websites a given licensed copy was running on.
If you can't create a "cloud app" that you host yourself and they access via the Web, then you could look into creating a virtual appliance using a virtual server (from VMWare, Parallels, Sun, etc) and install a "lite" version of Linux on that. Put your PHP code in the virtual environment and install the virtual machine on their server. Make sure to create a way to prevent loading into root. Of course, this would involve physically visiting the client yourself.
They distribute their software under a proprietary license. The law protects their rights and prevents their customers from redistributing the source, though there is no actual difficulty doing so.
But as you might be well aware, copyright infringement (piracy) of software products is a pretty common phenomenon.
The only way to really protect your php-applications from other, is to not share the source code. If you post you code somewhere online, or send it to you customers by some medium, other people than you have access to the code.
You could add an unique watermark to every single copy of your code. That way you can trace leaks back to a singe customer. (But will that help you, since the code already are outside of your control?)
Most code I see comes with a licence and maybe a warranty. A line at the top of the script telling people not to alter the script, will maybe be enought. Self; when I find non-open source code, I won't use it in my projects. Maybe I'm a bit dupe, but I expect ppl not to use my none-OSS code!
in my opinion is, but just in case if your php code program is written for standalone model... best solutions is c) You could wrap the php in a container like Phalanger (.NET). as everyone knows it's bind tightly to the system especially if your program is intended for windows users. you just can make your own protection algorithm in windows programming language like .NET/VB/C# or whatever you know in .NET prog.lang.family sets.
Zend Guard does not support php 5.5 and is easy to reverse, go for http://www.ioncube.com for obfuscation. http://wwww.phplicengine.com can license the scripts remotely or locally.
See our SD PHP Obfuscator. Handles huge systems of PHP files. No runtime requirements on PHP server. No extra runtime overhead.
[EDIT May 2016] A recent answer noted that Zend does not handle PHP5.5. The SD PHP Obfuscator does.
I have created a library for this purpose. It uses OPCache only, in order to covert php to op codes. The library compiles your PHP code to opcodes and removes code from all php files included in your project. All produced opcode files are saved on the server's filesystem and used by OPcache!
https://github.com/notihnio/php-cactus
So let me see, we want to show adam and eve there's some forbidden fruit in a tree, adn we 'd like a way to prevent them from eating...
How about having an angel with a flaming sword?
Might sound naive, and I dunno what your application does actually, but what about the extensive use of includes?
For the legitimate user, is all the software that should be visible or only parts of it?
Because you could obfuscate and give a copy of source code to legitimate
You could wrap the php in a container like Phalanger (.NET)
Perhaps your concerned with external theft, meaning your code freely visible over the web as customers uses it. This could be worth investing in a cheap web site hosting, for $50 a year, registering your legit customers with a serial in their code and have your app posting info to your web site regularly. At least, you'd detect when code has been compromised. You could push it with a self destruct after n days, giving you enough time to contact your customer and change the serial. This could be the only obfuscated include() of the whole code
I am thinking about selling Magento modules on my website and need your advise what would be the best way to do it.
Here is what I thought:
Install Magento store on my website
When client purchase the module from my store - he is required to enter his domain name
If order is successfully processed and payment is received - Magento or standalone script encode purchased module using ionCube or Zend Guard "On-The-Fly" and generates license to work on provided domain name only.
Is there a script that can do all of this? Or should I write my own code? What do you think about encoding scripts in order to protect your work?
Any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
This is really a matter of opinion and debat-able, however below is my feeling towards such:
Disadvantages of encrypting your code:
Obviously: It is (almost) impossible to modify or extend for custom
needs, without having to contact the original developer which adds
more cost to your end user as well as causing more time for “custom”
development.
3rd party server software like Zend Optimizer is needed
in order to execute the encrypted code. Which can be a headache by
itself.
Confusion during transfer for binary and text data, ultimately
corrupting your binary encrypted data.
It is impossible to have others
contribute to your code to improve it, and/or help with bug finding
and fixes.
As a store owner or maintainer I’m less confident you are
not utilizing any of my data collected from my stores.
Maintenance
becomes chaotic. Having to re-encrypt every release, can be quite
pain staking. This is especially true if you have a bug fix that
needs to be offered to all of your customers using it – however, the
ones with “Custom” versions will require re-encryption for all.
Unless your using some kind of release management that handles this
automatically for you. Most don’t I’m sure.
Full article: http://www.molotovbliss.com/magento-module-developers-stop-encrypting-and-domain-jailing
With that said, I've changed my mind on phone home calls. Since I've posted this article.
I'm okay with modules making phone calls home to a developers site to check for licensing, if you have a simple observer that did such and was done properly (By properly I mean don't break my site because your phone home server is down, and don't make my end users wait for the validation), I wouldn't see any problem with obfuscating this portion of code as long as it didn't interfere with the modules overall functionality, i.e., it is strictly there for checking a license, no module functionality encrypted. I believe Boris (unigry) does such and works well, even though I've had to jump through many hoops at times to get ionCube loader working on different environments, so this still something to consider not doing, and just having hope in peoples integrity and honesty to not pirate.
With that said, domain wide acceptance should be standard, I shouldn't need to send in support requests to get my subdomain added to your white list of domains. Personally if you can obfuscate and encode without the need of an apache/php module is a huge plus. General end users won't know where to remove such code at times.
To answer your question, a home brew script and process would be ideal, as using a cookie cutter solution would be easier to reverse engineer.
I'm thinking of protecting my script to the mass majority of users (non-web dev savvy) and I came across an online service to encode php script. I'm not sure about it though.
Is it safe to encrypt php script? What if the encoded code has something fishy in it?
If you intend to distribute the PHP file then I would suggest that you do not do this. It's only going to irritate those that want to tinker with it.
If for some reason you don't want them tinkering with it, then don't distribute the PHP file.
If you need to distribute the file AND you don't want them tinkering with it, then I would highly suggest you not do this in PHP and instead write the functionality using C as an extension to PHP.
You'll notice that at no point do I suggest you actually go ahead and "encode" the php file. That's not going to buy you anything.
If you are looking to obfuscate your server-side PHP, the best bet would be to use a commercial product such as Zend Guard (http://www.zend.com/en/products/guard/). Any home-brew encryption is not secure in the slightest - your code can be easily reverse-engineered with fairly trivial effort. The page you link to does not have any credibility, it is just someone's side project. They have no accountability or stake in protecting your information.
Even these commercial products (Zend Guard, ionCube, phpShield, SourceGuardian) can be decrypted if someone really, really wanted to. No tool or technique in any language can make absolutely secure obfuscation, there is no "unhackable" system. Everything boils down to effort over time.
If it isn't important enough to bother doing it right, then you're probably wasting your time on the issue. Further, if it is absolutely vital that some information or code remain private, you should simply not put it out into the public purview.
[edited for clarity]
Ultimately, you need to trust the encrypting party. If you don't trust them (apparently you don't), then don't give them access to your server (through executing their decryption code/your obfuscated code, possibly with who-knows-what else inside). Simple as that, albeit possibly inconvenient.
php is usually running on the server where the users have no access to the code(neither source nor any other representation) anyways. No reason to obfuscate it there.
Obfuscating php is only useful in the rare cases where you give the php code to clients. For example if you want clients to be able to run their own server but not give them full access to the code.
So, it looks like all it does is obfuscate the code so it's not human-readable. The only way this would really be useful is to prevent lazy people who have access to the code from reading it. However, it uses simple functions to encode/decode, so it would be trivially easy for someone to decode it if they have access.
Which brings me to my point... PHP security works by not allowing anyone to have access to the source file. If someone who shouldn't have access gets it, then this "encoding" thing isn't going to do you any good.
The OP mentioned an interest in protecting database connection details, and it should be kept in mind that no matter what protection system is used for the code itself, the PHP engine and component libraries being opensource sets some absolute limits on what can be achieved. If MySQL connection details, for example, are hidden in a script then these details could be trivially revealed without going near the PHP scripts themselves simply by running the scripts with a PHP build that had slight modifications to the MySQL library or the associated PHP module wrapper. Even hiding the details in a C module as suggested by Chris L. would afford no extra protection in this case. Good protection can certainly be given to source code with compiled code systems such as ionCube and Zend, but wherever data hits routines in the PHP core then it can be exposed.
Obviously for any online service where you may be sending sensitive details, you should use due diligence and make best efforts to ensure that it has a good pedigree. Apart from anything else, not having a working https URL for the site the OP questioned should immediately warn that it's a no-no, and not just for the lack of connection encryption but showing that they are not offering a service that they consider to be serious.
If you want to implement licensing module in downloadable php application that need:
to allow application to run only on specified domain(s)
to be impossible to remove or go around
to work without Zend Optimizer or Ioncube loader (i.e. without encoding whole application)
what you think is best way to do it? If encoder is needed, do you see solution that encoding is used only for licensing module related logic i.e. allowing application to be altered without compromising licensing?
Cheers
Anti-copy schemes just don't work. See numerous previous posts on this site & elsewhere.
You cannot stop people from copying your code.
You could, I supose obfuscate it, mkaing it very difficult for them to change. And, maybe buried in there (or as a necessary .exe, without whcih your code won't function0, you could 'phone home and gradually build a database of IP addresses that are using your code - although I am not sure what that would get you.
Give up on the idea, plan to erly on lawyers if necessary, and put your efforts into developing your product.
I have taken advantage of the latest version of PHP 5.6 which has some new features that can be leveraged in to a licensing and distribution trialware. You can now distribute password protected files and demo applications.
Since there are some best practices to doing this correctly. I am distributing a demonstration website application showing how to setup your apps so they can be launched and checked in real-time for licenses codes just like a desktop application. As a matter of fact the protection extends to the desktop. I am selling the initial code to developers via binpress.com at fhqk.binpress.com. The online demo is http://fhqk.com/informationtechnology/ssl (Simple Secure Licensing)
First of all, I'm not looking for miracle... I know how PHP works and that there's not really way to hide my code from the clients without using encryption. But that comes with the cost of an extension to be installed on the running server.
I'm looking for something different though... I'm not looking to encrypt my code or even obfuscate it. There are many PHP scripts without encrypted/obfuscated code but they are commercial applications. For instance, vBulletin and/or IP.Board forum applications.
I just want to know what approach do these guys use for their applications...
I'm also open to any other suggestions.
Please note that I'm a single person and not working for a company. My product is also very specific, it won't sell that much. I just want you guys to know that I can't afford to consult a legal professional either to sue someone or prepare a commercial license. I'm just looking for a simple way to protect my simple product, if it's indeed possible, somehow...
Obfuscating things can only inconvenience your legitimate, law-abiding customers, while the people who would would rip you off are not your target paying customers anyway. (edited out other thoughts about obfuscation)
Another suggestion for protecting your software: create a business model in which the code is an incomplete part of the value of your offering. For example, sell product licenses along with access to some data you manage on your site, or license the product on a subscription model or with customer support.
Designing a EULA is a legal matter, not a coding matter. You can start by reading some EULA text for products and websites you use. You might find some interesting details!
Creating a proprietary license is is highly flexible, and probably a subject beyond the intended scope of StackOverflow, since it's not strictly about coding.
Some parts of a EULA that come to mind:
Limiting your liability if the product has bugs or causes damage.
Spelling out how the customer can use their licensed software, for how long, on how many machines, with or without redistribution rights, etc.
Giving you rights to audit their site, so you can enforce the licenses.
What happens if they violate the EULA, e.g. they lose their privilege to use your software.
You should consult a legal professional to prepare a commercial EULA.
edit: If this project can't justify the expense of a lawyer, check out these resources:
"EULA advice" on joelonsoftware
"How to Write an End User License Agreement"
You need to consider your objectives:
1) Are you trying to prevent people from reading/modifying your code? If yes, you'll need an obfuscation/encryption tool. I've used Zend Guard with good success.
2) Are you trying to prevent unauthorized redistribution of your code?? A EULA/proprietary license will give you the legal power to prevent that, but won't actually stop it. An key/activation scheme will allow you to actively monitor usage, but can be removed unless you also encrypt your code. Zend Guard also has capabilities to lock a particular script to a particular customer machine and/or create time limited versions of the code if that's what you want to do.
I'm not familiar with vBulletin and the like, but they'd either need to encrypt/obfuscate or trust their users to do the right thing. In the latter case they have the protection of having a EULA which prohibits the behaviors they find undesirable, and the legal system to back up breaches of the EULA.
If you're not prepared/able to take legal action to protect your software and you don't want to encrypt/obfuscate, your options are a) Release it with a EULA so you're have a legal option if you ever need it and hope for the best, or b) consider whether an open source license might be more appropriate and just allow redistribution.
I have not looked at the VBulletin source code in some time, but the way they used to do it around 2003 was to embed a call to their server inside the code. IIRC, it was on a really long code line (like 200-300+ chars long) and was broken up over several string concatenations and such.
It did nothing "bad" if you pirated it - the forum still worked 100%. But your server's IP was logged along with other info and they used that to investigate and take legal action.
Your license number was embedded in this call, so they could easily track how many IPs/websites a given licensed copy was running on.
If you can't create a "cloud app" that you host yourself and they access via the Web, then you could look into creating a virtual appliance using a virtual server (from VMWare, Parallels, Sun, etc) and install a "lite" version of Linux on that. Put your PHP code in the virtual environment and install the virtual machine on their server. Make sure to create a way to prevent loading into root. Of course, this would involve physically visiting the client yourself.
They distribute their software under a proprietary license. The law protects their rights and prevents their customers from redistributing the source, though there is no actual difficulty doing so.
But as you might be well aware, copyright infringement (piracy) of software products is a pretty common phenomenon.
The only way to really protect your php-applications from other, is to not share the source code. If you post you code somewhere online, or send it to you customers by some medium, other people than you have access to the code.
You could add an unique watermark to every single copy of your code. That way you can trace leaks back to a singe customer. (But will that help you, since the code already are outside of your control?)
Most code I see comes with a licence and maybe a warranty. A line at the top of the script telling people not to alter the script, will maybe be enought. Self; when I find non-open source code, I won't use it in my projects. Maybe I'm a bit dupe, but I expect ppl not to use my none-OSS code!
in my opinion is, but just in case if your php code program is written for standalone model... best solutions is c) You could wrap the php in a container like Phalanger (.NET). as everyone knows it's bind tightly to the system especially if your program is intended for windows users. you just can make your own protection algorithm in windows programming language like .NET/VB/C# or whatever you know in .NET prog.lang.family sets.
Zend Guard does not support php 5.5 and is easy to reverse, go for http://www.ioncube.com for obfuscation. http://wwww.phplicengine.com can license the scripts remotely or locally.
See our SD PHP Obfuscator. Handles huge systems of PHP files. No runtime requirements on PHP server. No extra runtime overhead.
[EDIT May 2016] A recent answer noted that Zend does not handle PHP5.5. The SD PHP Obfuscator does.
I have created a library for this purpose. It uses OPCache only, in order to covert php to op codes. The library compiles your PHP code to opcodes and removes code from all php files included in your project. All produced opcode files are saved on the server's filesystem and used by OPcache!
https://github.com/notihnio/php-cactus
So let me see, we want to show adam and eve there's some forbidden fruit in a tree, adn we 'd like a way to prevent them from eating...
How about having an angel with a flaming sword?
Might sound naive, and I dunno what your application does actually, but what about the extensive use of includes?
For the legitimate user, is all the software that should be visible or only parts of it?
Because you could obfuscate and give a copy of source code to legitimate
You could wrap the php in a container like Phalanger (.NET)
Perhaps your concerned with external theft, meaning your code freely visible over the web as customers uses it. This could be worth investing in a cheap web site hosting, for $50 a year, registering your legit customers with a serial in their code and have your app posting info to your web site regularly. At least, you'd detect when code has been compromised. You could push it with a self destruct after n days, giving you enough time to contact your customer and change the serial. This could be the only obfuscated include() of the whole code