Security of program's content files

[Scott Rossi]

Recently, "Barry Levine"  wrote:

> I am developing a program that will utilize many pictures, audio, and
> video files. In order to minimize memory requirements, I'm using Image
> objects and Player objects, then populating those objects with a "set
> fileName..." command. There are a number of reasons why it would not be
> wise to import all of those resources into the program.
> 
> What will be a worry, however, is the "vulnerability", so to speak, of
> the Resources folder which is where all of the files will be stored.
> I'm not particularly concerned about the folder being tossed as there
> will be an original on the distribution CD which can be copied over to
> the HD. The worry, rather, is that the "content" can be copied and used
> for other purposes by people who are not authorized to do so.
> 
> So my question is: How can I encrypt (if that's the right word) the
> files so that they are useless to anyone -except- when running my
> program?

One way to protect sounds and images is to place them in stacks and then
reference them from your display stack.  If necessary you can password
protect your resource stacks.  Not sure if this method would work with
movies though since I've never tried to set the fileName of a player to
movie media in another stack.  If this doesn't work, you could import the
movie data into a user property of a stack and then write it out before you
play it, but this might be more trouble than it's worth.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Multimedia & Design
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E: scott at tactilemedia.com
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