Freeze/Source Code Question?

[Tim Peters]

[David Lees]
> I am taking an initial look at Python (total novice) and am puzzled
> about the existence of Freeze.  If you do not wish to show your source
> code to the world, I gather the byte code in the form of *.pyc files can
> be executed.

Disguising source is not the purpose of freeze tools.

> If the Freeze stuff, just embeds the byte code into a C program
> (interpreter?) what is the difference from the viewpoint of
> hiding the code?

None.

> I assume the C might be easier to run, because everything is in one
> executable,

Bingo.  It's a convenience for the end user.

> but is the byte code still not easily viewed with an octal or hex
> dump, just as in the .pyc files?

The standard library module "dis" supplies a symbolic disassembler for
Python bytecode -- no need for binary dumps.

> Are there really good decompilers that translate byte code into source
> for Python, so that nothing is really hidden?

"dis" is a start, and others have built fancier disassemblers on top of it.
I don't know what "really good" means to you.  Certainly good enough to
extract whatever it is you hope to hide, but see below.

> If so, is it really much different that Java or Visual Basic, where
> presumably the same thing can be done?

Very different:  Python code works <wink>.

BTW, if you think you're more secure distributing, for example, compiled C
or Fortran code in binary form, you're mistaken:  if my machine can execute
it, I can trace the machine instructions, and they tell me everything your
program does as well as how it does it.  Python bytecode is less work to
decipher, but a reasonably talented hacker can effectively "reverse compile"
anything.

hence-the-restriction-against-doing-that-in-all-the-software-licenses-
    you-accept-without-reading<wink>-ly y'rs  - tim