Any MSFT plans to prevent reverse engineering or license hacking?

[Dave]

Does Microsoft have ANY plans for .Net to allow developers to protect their
software from decompilation of the intellectual property or easily hacking
an otherwise secure licensing scheme by simply removing it with readily
supplied tools?

Obfuscation doesn't seem to be the answer and licensing schemes are so
easily gotten around by simply editing the MSIL.

Is there any reasonable way to protect my software without buying a complex
obfuscation/encryption scheme that can still be pretty easily hacked?

Are the new versions of NGEN still requiring the MSIL to be present? Seems
like if this requirement could be gotten rid of then good old compiled code
would help a lot toward IP protection as well as licensing.

I love .NET and want to publish some software that will be pretty
inexpensive but it would be nice to protect it from being easily stolen. I
can do the licensing OK but its trivial to just remove it.

Thanks for any and all suggestions and comments,
Dave

 

[Dave]

Anyone have any suggestions if there is any decnet way to protect your IP?

Or if NGEN can compile to machine code where the MSIL is no longer required?

Does MSFT recognize these as problems or issues?

Thanks, Dave

 

[Arunkumar Keserla]

You should look into obfuscators, check out http://www.howtoselectguides.com/dotnet/obfuscators/
for more information.

-Arun

 

[Dave]

Thanks. All very expensive. Am looking into the Salamander stuff as seems to
have the widest offering including a native compiler and linker which seem
interesting. Some of these, esp. Dotfuscator are outrageously expensive and
cannot be afforded by a small scale developer.

MSFT should allow building executables that can only be run by the CLR and
cannot be decompiled into working source or licensing schemes easily patched
around.

Really the only deficeiency in .NET as far as I'm concerned.

Would still like to know if MSFT has any plans in this area...

Dave