RE: Block the debugger from seeing values of variables

From: Shawn Farkas (shawnfa_at_online.microsoft.com)
Date: 03/18/04 

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 00:12:40 GMT

Hi Chris,

        The short answer: Yes, they can see this information.

        The longer answer: Running a debugger is a highly privileged operation on Windows. Under a debugger you can do things such as
modify and change arbitrary memory, change registers, play with data structures, etc. Even if the framework didn't support showing private
variables to managed debuggers (Which would make debugging your own classes much much harder), all the third party would have to do would
be to attach an unmanaged debugger to your process and look at the memory space, where they could very easily read your private variables.

-Shawn
http://blogs.msdn.com/shawnfa 

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--------------------
>From: "C P" <nospam@nospam.com>
>Subject: Block the debugger from seeing values of variables
>Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 15:44:40 -0500
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>I'm creating some classes that will use a strongly-typed DataSet that I'm
>going to load from an XML file that I've encrypted.  A 3rd party will be
>using my classes, but I'd like to keep them from seeing the contents of this
>DataSet.  I will be sending the 3rd party my classes in a pre-compiled
>assembly.  What I'm not clear on is if they will be able to see the values
>of the private fields of my classes in their debugger?  If they can, is
>there any way to prevent this?  The unencrypted version of my dataset will
>only be available via private/internal fields, so if I can ensure the
>debugger can't read this info I think I'll be set.  (BTW, I'm using C#).
>
>Thanks,
>Chris
>
>
>

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