.NET Question

[Region3]

Sorry if this appears to be junk to most, but I have a question regarding .NET programming and thought I'd ask here before I go to the hassle of finding a specific forum for it and signing up.
I know there's a few here that use it so I'm hoping someone might be able to help.

I'm using VB.NET but I guess this might apply to all .NET versions.

I've written something to be distributed and used at work. There are a couple of text files included with the solution that the program reads from when it starts up.

I'm being asked to restrict data to certain types of end user which I'm ok with doing via the software, but I can't think of a way to prevent anyone viewing the text files that the software reads from (if they know where to look for them).

If anyone knows how I can achieve this I'd be very interested.

All help gratefully received

Thanks.

 

[Jimbooo]

Sorry if this appears to be junk to most, but I have a question regarding .NET programming and thought I'd ask here before I go to the hassle of finding a specific forum for it and signing up.
I know there's a few here that use it so I'm hoping someone might be able to help.

I'm using VB.NET but I guess this might apply to all .NET versions.

I've written something to be distributed and used at work. There are a couple of text files included with the solution that the program reads from when it starts up.

I'm being asked to restrict data to certain types of end user which I'm ok with doing via the software, but I can't think of a way to prevent anyone viewing the text files that the software reads from (if they know where to look for them).

If anyone knows how I can achieve this I'd be very interested.

All help gratefully received

Thanks.

You could encrypt them, and get your program to decrypt them when it reads them in.

Otherwise I'd suggest it's down to general system security - user permissions and the like.

:thup:

 

[Region3]

You could encrypt them, and get your program to decrypt them when it reads them in.

Otherwise I'd suggest it's down to general system security - user permissions and the like.

:thup:

Thanks.
Nothing I can do about security at their end unfortunately.

Writing an encryption routine sounds like fun

They wouldn't be paranoid if the whole world wasn't against them!

 

[Jimbooo]

Thanks.
Nothing I can do about security at their end unfortunately.

Writing an encryption routine sounds like fun

They wouldn't be paranoid if the whole world wasn't against them!

NP, I reckon you'll be able to find a .net library for common encryption - you shouldn't be writing one yourself. Do a search for blowfish encryption. In fact I'd be surprised if .net doesn't have something like that already built in.

Good luck!

 

[Region3]

NP, I reckon you'll be able to find a .net library for common encryption - you shouldn't be writing one yourself. Do a search for blowfish encryption. In fact I'd be surprised if .net doesn't have something like that already built in.

Good luck!

Thanks :thup:

 

[GreiginFife]

Not sure if .NET allows for binding where you can incorporate the text files as a "release" and the release notes (text files) are part of the installer.
As Jimbooo said above though data obfuscation is probably the easiest and most time effective way.
You can get open source obfuscation programs like datamask but I'm not 100% sure how good open source versions are.

 

[CMAC]

is this the foreign language thread

t'is another world you fellas speak of :lol:

 

[ScienceBoy]

My rule is never write anything yourself, always "borrow" code from someone else

 

[Region3]

Problem solved.

They have decided the data isn't so secret after all.

Thanks for all the replies :thup:

 

[Region3]

Another question, sorry.

I know I don't need to worry about this any more, but I had a thought this morning...

Instead of bundling the text files with the software, I could dump them in a folder on our web space and have the program read them in from there. The added advantage is that I wouldn't have to send an update to the software every time I updated the text files.

But what I'm wondering, is how safe is it? They have decided the data isn't so secret as far as our staff is concerned, but it definitely doesn't want to reach our opposition.

Obviously there wouldn't be any links to the files from our website, only the software would know where it was, but if someone knew the files were there somewhere, how easy/hard would it be for them to get to them?

Thanks.

 

[GreiginFife]

Another question, sorry.

I know I don't need to worry about this any more, but I had a thought this morning...

Instead of bundling the text files with the software, I could dump them in a folder on our web space and have the program read them in from there. The added advantage is that I wouldn't have to send an update to the software every time I updated the text files.

But what I'm wondering, is how safe is it? They have decided the data isn't so secret as far as our staff is concerned, but it definitely doesn't want to reach our opposition.

Obviously there wouldn't be any links to the files from our website, only the software would know where it was, but if someone knew the files were there somewhere, how easy/hard would it be for them to get to them?

Thanks.

I wouldn't want to trust a general webspace with data that may be "handy" to any opposition.
Rather than a webspace could you not upload them to an internal LAN folder and use a prefetch over SFTP to call them?
That way the source is kept in house and therefore as secure as all other LAN data and the transmission of the files is kept secure via the SFTP?

 

[Region3]

I wouldn't want to trust a general webspace with data that may be "handy" to any opposition.
Rather than a webspace could you not upload them to an internal LAN folder and use a prefetch over SFTP to call them?
That way the source is kept in house and therefore as secure as all other LAN data and the transmission of the files is kept secure via the SFTP?

Unfortunately, this sort of stuff isn't my job and most of the above has passed way over my head. What I do is just a hobby that's proved useful at work.

I appreciate the help though. Just the info that it isn't very safe on our web server is useful. Thank you.

 

[Jimbooo]

Unfortunately, this sort of stuff isn't my job and most of the above has passed way over my head. What I do is just a hobby that's proved useful at work.

I appreciate the help though. Just the info that it isn't very safe on our web server is useful. Thank you.

You can put the files on the same physical (web)server... but not advisable to be in the webroot folder (i.e. accessible from a browser). You could limit its access with a .htaccess file (pretty simple), but really you should put the files outside of webroot then they generally won't be accessible from a browser. It all depends what administrative access you have to the server.