Professional Visual Studio® 2008

29.3. Obfuscating Your Code

So far, this chapter has highlighted the need for better protection for the logic that is embedded in your applications. Obfuscation is the art of renaming symbols in an assembly so that the logic is unintelligible and can't be easily understood if decompiled. Numerous products can obfuscate your code, each using its own tricks to make the output less likely to be understood. Visual Studio 2008 ships with the Community edition of Dotfuscator, which this chapter uses as an example of how you can apply obfuscation to your code.

Obfuscation does not prevent your code from being decompiled; it simply makes it more difficult for a programmer to understand the source code if it is decompiled. Using obfuscation also has some consequences that need to be considered if you need to use reflection or strong-name your application.

29.3.1. Dotfuscator

Although Dotfuscator can be launched from the Tools menu within Visual Studio 2008, it is a separate product with its own licensing. The Community edition contains only a subset of the functionality of the Standard and Professional versions of the product. If you are serious about trying to hide the functionality embedded in your application, you should consider upgrading.

After starting Dotfuscator from the Tools menu, it prompts you to either create a new project or use an existing one. Because Dotfuscator uses its own project format, create a new project that will be used to track which assemblies you are obfuscating ...