Programming

Yes, it makes sense, but did you consider using utilities like SHC - shell script compiler?

Won't work.

strings executablefile

try shc.

i tried shc but the bash script i have is too big for shc.

Why is it so big? Have you embedded data in it?

If you don't want anyone to know what your code does, you can't let them have any access at all to it.

If you distribute a binary to run on another's computer(s), anyone who really wants to is going to be able to figure out everything it does.

Although I will admit that there can be value in obfuscating what's going on, if only to prevent those just smart enough to be dangerous from damaging things....

yes. i just followed the instructions. my bash script is over 10MB in size. so when u run shc on it, it aborts complaining about the bytes.

i really believe this can be done. we just need to put heads together.

It would be better to put the data in the C part. If you make it a global array, they can be quite large. You could write it into the script's standard input with popen.

Code:

const unsigned char bytes[]={ 0x00, 0xab, ... };

int main(void)
{
        FILE *fp=popen("programname", "w");
        fwrite(bytes, 1, sizeof(bytes), fp);
}

you might want a decryption step between that and writing it of course, since people may be peeking in your file.

By definition your program includes complete instructions for decrypting itself. How could you possibly hope to hide it? At best you can obfuscate it. A truly determined person will find the contents.

If you could force people to login to your sever to use it, that could be made secure. the program wouldn't need to run on their machine, they wouldn't have access to the file.