What stops people from stealing or killing? Easy - nothing, except the law (and morals).

I use to work in the hosting business. What you are basically describing amounts to "stealing trade secrets" and is prosecutable under the Economic Espionage Act. As mater of fact it's one of those acts that gives the U.S. Attorney General some huge, sweeping power. Fines can be up to $500,000 for an individual and $5,000,000 for a corporation. Having said that, when people are hired on at a reputable hosting provider, they are made very aware of it and even sign agreements.

So the penalties are in some cases worst than murder. That's a pretty good protection. Mainly just stick with a reputable host.

But you are using Drupal, which is open source, meaning the source code (minus any custom modules) is available.

There are always ways to reverse engineer code, so even obfuscating the code isn't a real protection.

Another consideration. Drupal does come out with security releases. Compiling the source code takes extra time and means it will take longer to update your site. I would rather be able to update my code quickly to protect my customers then worry about someone taking the source code.

As far as HipHop, some people have had success and some not. It depends on the modules and custom code you use. For research on this, I suggest Google.

Jamie Holly
http://www.intoxination.net 
http://www.hollyit.net

On 12/25/2012 10:26 AM, Austin Einter wrote:

Thanks all for your kind responses.

I am new to web world.

I am worried for few things. Lets say I will be taking a dedicated server say from rackspace or doster or godady and host my site as a commercial one.

I would not doubt the companies like rackspace or godady ..., but difficult to believe admin engineers who may take the source code and give it to somebody else for few dollars..,

How do we protect such things.., please guide me..., thats the reason I would like to obfuscate the code or build the exe by using hiphop or phc.

Again.., not sure if it is feasible to build drupal using hiphop or phc.., has anybody tried and running as commercial site...

Thanks

Austin
On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 6:53 PM, Jamie Holly <hovercrafter@earthlink.net> wrote:
Those aren't errors. They are notices.

Since the errors only occur when using PHC, then the problem lies in PHC. I would ask on their mailing list.

I doubt you would find much help from the Drupal Community since obfuscating is generally frowned upon (and even consider a violation of terms by some) by the open source world and therefor not really used.

Jamie Holly http://www.intoxination.net http://www.hollyit.net

On 12/25/2012 5:26 AM, Austin Einter wrote:
Dear All

I compiled phc in ubuntu 10.04 lts.

Next I am trying to obfusace some php code (which is part of a drupal based code). I just tried obfuscating a single file using phc. It did work.

But when I am trying to access my site, I get bunch of below errors.

Notice: Undefined variable: TSa200978216 in doc_search_my_form() (line 475 of /var/www/example.com/sites/all/modules/doc_search/doc_search.module).
Notice: Undefined variable: TSa1454652404 in doc_search_my_form() (line 482 of /var/www/example.com/sites/all/modules/doc_search/doc_search.module).

Mostly these are variable undefined errors. When the file is in normal mode (having normal php code), it does not throw any error. When the file is in obfuscated mode , when I access my site I get lots of variable undefined error. Any idea what's wrong here.

Thanks
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