Expert Advisor Decompilation Protection

Hi,

I understand that there are tools out there that allow one to decompile a compiled ex4 file. Does anyone know of a method that can prevent this from happening?

Thanks in advance.

Jason

nope. even if you hide everything in a DLL, the DLL can be decompiled.

Thats a bummer. Anyway, thanks for you reply

Jason

If the expert is really worth that much, you probably won't be distributing it anytime soon.

It is my real experience. Someone with codename LionForex or forexlion( I forgot) had decompile my EA before. That's why I dont post EA even in .ex4 in any forum anymore.

It's not because of the EA much valuable or what, but the act of decompile someone else work without permission is very very bad.

Software piracy is an unfortunate fact of life. The only way to protect against it now is not to distribute the software.

That's not true.

The reason EX4 (compiled MQ4) files are easy to decompile is that it's an interpreted language. i.e. the source code is compiled into "p-code". All a hacker has to do is figure out what the p-codes are for the various MQL statements and you can go backwards from EX4 files. There are (expensive) commercial tools available that will decompile EX4 files. The only information that's lost in the compilation process is variable names.

DLL files are x86 machine language, not p-codes. Yes, you can "decompile" them to assembly language but that's an almost completely useless exercise. High level languages such as C++ are relatively succinct and easy to read; assembly language is *much* larger in terms of lines of code and much more obscure. If the DLL file were generated by compiling C++ for instance, there's no way to decompile the DLL file back to the original C++ code.

Hiding proprietary algos in a DLL is actually a good way to thwart reverse-engineering them.

Ronald Raygun is right about piracy. It's a reality you have to accept and deal with.

You can build the .DLL file and encrypt it.

Try decompiling this .DLL with built in runtime encryption/compression.

Scoobs.

If the algo is worth anything at all it will be reversed engineered. Will take a while, and will require specialized people, but again, if it's worth it it will be done. Think of how crackers reverse engineer software protections of key generation algorithms or how the Linux guys reversed engineered the NTFS file format (ok, not quite the same thing).

You need what's known as an "unpacker". There are many out there, with various capabilities.

These guys can probably do it (freely or for money) http://www.reteam.org/board/forumdisplay.php?f=27

But what state will the original code be in ?

All you need is the logic/math/whatever from inside it. A good programmer will rewrite the decompiled code in a nice way. Then a good trader will try to understand the system behind it - SR, indicators, statistics, ....

You are also right. If the system is full of math (numerical analysis, integrals, statistics, ...) it will be very hard to extract the high level math from the low level machine code.

I don't believe it's possible to buy a good EA (in the long run). While it can make sense to sell it (ie, if I have $50K in my account, my risk parameters will only allow me to make let's say $5K a month with it, but selling it could bring $10K a month), the fact that it truly works will make many people use it and then it will start moving the market against it (either by trading in low liquidity at night, or by encouraging stop hunting)

Hello,
Below I have on my Crogram FilesFXDD Malta - MetaTrader 4expertsindicators folder in Public Folders. I use the system setup and I got paid and sent automatically uploaded to ex4 files. zip files in the folder is now encrypted by the vendor, see the indicator does not turn, but the system can run in them

Thanks

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1614/dosyaiiningrnm1.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I think the expert is performing the image protection

#import "ServerValidate.dll"
int IsValidUser(string a0, string a1);
string ValidateStatusText();
void ExtractArchiveFour(string a0);
void Deactivate();
#import

extern string Username = "";
extern string Password = "";
bool gi_92 = FALSE;
int g_datetime_96;
int gi_100 = 60;

int init() {
Comment("");
CheckStatus();
return (0);
}

void deinit() {
Deactivate();
}

int start() {
bool li_0 = TRUE;
while (li_0 == TRUE) {
if (TimeCurrent() - g_datetime_96 >= 7200) CheckStatus();
if (gi_100 >= 1) {
for (int l_count_4 = 0; l_count_4 < gi_100; l_count_4++) {
Sleep(1000);
if (IsStopped() == TRUE) break;
}
} else Sleep(1000 * gi_100);
}
return (0);
}

void CheckStatus() {
gi_92 = FALSE;
if (Username == "") {
Alert("Username not set. This variable needs to be set.");
gi_92 = TRUE;
}
if (Password == "") {
Alert("Password not set. This variable needs to be set.");
gi_92 = TRUE;
}
if (gi_92 == FALSE) {
if (IsValidUser(Username, Password) != 1) {
Comment(ValidateStatusText());
Alert(ValidateStatusText());
} else {
ExtractArchiveFour(TerminalPat h() + "\experts\indicators");
Comment("Connected and validated at server");
}
}
g_datetime_96 = TimeCurrent();
}