Is there a way to prevent Reflector from being abl

Question

Is there a way (reliable and preferably not commercial) to prevent from Reflector to reflect my source code???

Thanks, Adi

Answer 1

Not so long ago there was Anti reflector trick which was effective because .NET reflector couldn’t translate one particular IL instruction into c# code , but they've released patch and fun is over.

Answer 2

There is no way to prevent decompiling of .net code, with that said a good obfuscator will make reflected code harder to read, some of them like dotfuscator will prevent reflector from showing the C# code; however, you will always be able to see the IL.

One of the options in Dotfuscator is to use non-printable names (Reflect on reflector) This makes decompiling extremly difficult IMHO.

Microsoft used to sell a Software Proctection and Licensing Service which would encrypt the IL and use a custom VM that was tied to an encryption key which preventing reflecting using the conventional tools. This had a huge performance cost however it was good if you wanted to protect critical algorithims or for example your licensing code.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/slps/default.aspx

Answer 3

try dotfuscator. 2005/2008 comes with a community edition. Failing that re-architecture your code (painful) i.e. ATL/COM objects(private) called by the .NET components (public).

Choice is yours.