dotnet 2 Obfuscation

[James S]

Does version 2 of the framework have any facilities/features that makes
obfuscuation better than working with version 1/1.1 of the framework?

Or more specifically are dotnet V2 files easier or harder to unobfuscate?

From what I've seen I can't see anything specific, but I was wondering if
using things like generics can make things harder or easier to figure out
whats going on?

Many thanks

JS

 

[VJ]

Not that I know of ....

After close to 4 years of development in .NET, I figured the best
obfuscation technique will be to have cryptic names to your public functions
and public variable names, and a very good internal documentation and
comments as a follow-up, is the best way. All the obfuscation tools have
some problem or the other.... This is just a personal opinion..

From the market tools, the only tool I have not tried is from www.xheo.com
which claims to be really good. I have tried their License tool and its very
good. Other tools are good to a extent, but have some problem or the other,
we do use one tool that has limitations and we have to work around it...

VJ

 

[James S]

Thanks for the advice on the framework VJ.

Yes, I use Xheo's Licensing Tools, and they appear very good. I've no
experience of the Protector they sell though, being a Dotfuscator Pro user
instead.

You are quite right about using obscure public variables and functions in
conjunction with the overall obfuscation to help raise the bar a little
more.

Cheers,

James

 

[Mattias Sjögren]

Or more specifically are dotnet V2 files easier or harder to unobfuscate?

I don't think there's any significant difference, the file format
itself is mostly the same. The v2 C# compiler produce more compiler
generated types to implement features such as iterators and anonymous
delegates. But I don't think that should cause any problems for a
decent decompiler.


Mattias

 

[Henrik Erlandsson]

I recommend the a cheap alternate for obfuscation, .NET Reactor. I have
used in many projects with success.

http://www.eziriz.com

 

[James S]

Thanks Mattius

I don't think there's any significant difference, the file format
itself is mostly the same. The v2 C# compiler produce more compiler
generated types to implement features such as iterators and anonymous
delegates. But I don't think that should cause any problems for a
decent decompiler.


Mattias