Hi Davide, Thanks for the thorough response, but I think you're over dimensioning, and to some extent missing, my initial purpose and intention.
I don't want to protect from somebody attempting to reverse engineer my application, that's impossible (more so given your references). I simply want to disable the option to open the IDE, even with all tool menus disabled. In Java if I deliver a .jar or .war anybody could reverse engineer it, but launching it won't open the development environment. For comparison with other Smalltalks I've used: * VisualWorks enables the distribution of a "headless" IMAGE (and parcels) without sources, if you revert that image to be headful all source code will be decompiled using meaningless variables. * Dolphin has the concept of SessionManager that is the entry point to the image startup, if you save your image with a Headless Session manager, then no GUI loop will start, same thing if you deploy as a COM component. * VAST produces its own ICX file where you can choose what to include in it, it's not simply saving the image but building a new one from within the development image, it's one step further. * VSE had the SLL (similar to DLLs), if you don't bind the IDE's SLLs then there is no way to start the IDE (I never built a headless VSE app though). So what I'd like is an always Pharo headless image or Pharo headless vm, instead of being controlled by a parameter in the VM. Regards, Esteban A. Maringolo On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 12:04 PM Davide Grandi <davide.gra...@email.it> wrote: > > Ok, I'll give you a result, meanwhile fixing some imprecisions. > > The "class" is CogVmSimulator but it's use is very far from my knowlegde, > I recalled having seen a picture of Pharo-in-Pharo (or Squeak-in-Squeak) > running under this simulator. > It lives near the Cog side (or the OpenVM side) of Squeak/Pharo > (If I'm not wrong Squeak ran into an emulator, before walking on his > legs-his VM). > > There are many of these simulator, for other Smalltalk : > - Hobbes and others for Xerox (thanks to files of Mario Molczko and/or > Bitsavers > - Dan Ingalls Apda Smalltalk + old Smalltalk -72 /-76 > and maybe others I don't yet know about > > The reason is quite simple : the object memory is written to disk > and the spec of executing Smalltalk are known either from the books > or by the source. > > The root is Xerox's SystemTracer, a class that wrote a running image > to disk, optionally changing object format (see the Green Book). > > So : > - if you can read the image > - you can run into a simulator > - or decode it without to much effort (5 emulators for Xerox V2 image, > so far). > (try to open an image with a text editor : intriguing !) > > I don't know how Cincom or Instantiations protect the released st code, > but for Pharo and Squeak this is not a point : they are all open. > > So, as if you wanna "protect" names and methods of a running image ... > ... you have to (IMHO) : > - encrypt executable and image (and modify the VM) > - or obfuscate your classes and methods renaming it to > C1, C2, ..., m1:p1:p2: and so on (keeping a map for debugging) > > Sorry to be imprecise about names and locations > apart from suggest to see 4 emulators 4 running in a squeak image > running ... in javascript in your browser (so total is 5) at : > https://smalltalkzoo.thechm.org/HOPL-Squeak.html?earlyst80 > (thanks to Vanessa Freudemberg & Dan Ingalls). > > Sorry again & best regards, > > Davide Grandi > > On 06/09/2020 23:51, Esteban Maringolo wrote: > > If somebody gets to open the image and loads it with an Smalltalk > > Emulator to execute it I'll ask him/her to start working together, and > > even teach me how to do it. > > > > I don't want to shield the image from being accessed, just want to > > make it harder than simply removing the '--headless' parameter to the > > VM executable. > > Of course removing sources is a plus (I do for a VW deployed image), > > but even for this particular piece of software that I'm asking for, I > > don't need it. > > > > If I wanted to make the source public, I'll publish it in > > Github/Gitlab, otherwise I'd rather keep the code private. > > > > Regards, > > > > Esteban A. Maringolo > > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2020 at 6:29 PM Davide Grandi <davide.gra...@email.it> wrote: > >> I mean that with SmalltalkEmulator, the Smalltalk interpreter > >> written in Smalltalk, one can execute an image looking at > >> classes, methods and maybe executing code at will. > >> > >> And the only practical form of protection I see in Squeak/Pharo > >> is to obfuscate code. > >> > >> Maybe I'm wrong. > >> > >> Davide Grandi > >> > >> On 06/09/2020 22:27, Esteban Maringolo wrote: > >>> On Sun, Sep 6, 2020 at 12:52 PM Davide Grandi <davide.gra...@email.it> > >>> wrote: > >>>> Does "competition" has SmalltalkEmulator ? > >>>> A Smalltalk-written VM will defeat any simple obfuscation scheme. > >>> Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean. > >>> > >>> Best regards, > >> -- > >> Ing. Davide Grandi > >> email : davide.gra...@email.it > >> mobile : +39 339 7468 778 > >> linkedin : http://linkedin.com/in/davidegrandi > > -- > Ing. Davide Grandi > email : davide.gra...@email.it > mobile : +39 339 7468 778 > linkedin : http://linkedin.com/in/davidegrandi > >
