Protecting proprietary app data

From: C P (nospam_at_nospam.com)
Date: 02/27/04 

Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 19:48:16 -0500

I want to build some classes and a couple of ASP.NET web controls that I
will sell to others. My controls/classes will need to refer to some sort of
data file for various things they need to do (my web controls will have a
data-drive UI based on the data file I include). The information in this
data file is proprietary, and I am currently thinking I'll use an encrypted
XML file for the file format. Only my controls should be able to decrypt
this file. How can I ensure that only my assemblies can access (decrypt)
this data file? I had looked at DPAPI, but that doesn't seem helpful in
this case. The best it seems I can do is include the key to decrypt my file
in my assembly (generally a bad idea, I know), and use dotfuscator on my
assembly. Or, is there a better way to handle this? No one that I ship my
components to should be able to read my proprietary data, regardless of
whether or not they're the administrator for the machine where my code is
installed.

Thanks,
Chris

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