PHP Classes

PHP Code Buster: Obfuscate PHP code with the tokenizer functions

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phpcodebuster 1.0.0GNU General Publi...Tools, Text processing, Code Generation
Description 

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This class can be used to obfuscate PHP code making it unreadable to humans.

It uses the PHP tokenizer functions to parse PHP source code and rewrite it eliminating comments or white space, and replacing the variable names with names that do not hint the variables original purpose.

Picture of Martijn Loots
Name: Martijn Loots <contact>
Classes: 2 packages by
Country: The Netherlands The Netherlands
Age: 62
All time rank: 55115 in The Netherlands The Netherlands
Week rank: 206 Up2 in The Netherlands The Netherlands Up

Details

LICENSE ======= Copyright (C) 2005 Martijn Loots, Cosix Automatisering, NL PhpCodeBuster is a PHP code obfuscator, written in PHP. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA. A copy of the GNU General Public License is available at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html DISCLAIMER ========== PhpCodeBuster is based on the ideas of PhpTrasher from Setec Astronomy. PhpCodeBuster is a work in progress, but mature enough to publish. The first time I published, I only suggested a version number of 0.9. All later versions will return their name and version number by referring to the class function "PhpBustVersion()". I would like to add any useful contributions to the package that you might have, in order to present a better obfuscator to the world. Or you publish better revisions yourself, whatever you like best under GPL conditions. HISTORY ======= I am developing a PHP/MySQL driven website for one of my customers, with all kinds of bells and whistles. Last time I checked, it was over 21000 lines of PHP code; apart from that, it contains a little JavaScript and HTML code. It is the result of some 600 hours of coding effort, during which time the specifications sometimes changed (brrrrr)... Well worth calling it "a baby of my brain" I think. This website using this code is fully oprational, though it is still developing very much, even now. It lives on two secure webservers, so, upto now at least, I had no real need to scramble te PHP code as it was for my eyes only. But now it appears that the site has to move to "some hosting provider". As I now seem to lose control over who can see or obtain the code, I definately want to obfuscate it before moving it to the new location. I cannot (customer order) and will not (too many private hours spent in the creation process and it might be usable for new customers..) make it an open source product, although I'm a big fan of Open Source. That said, I tried locating a suitable open source obfuscator. I found two different ones, that seemed to do the job, but both corrupted my code all the same... :( To make a long story short: the one called PhpTrasher caught my eye, as it is based on KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), what I always favor as the way to go... I decided to write my own obfuscator, based on the principles used by PhpTrasher. This became PhpCodeBuster (what's in a name ?) and yes: available under GPL :) PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS ====================== Before one can start obfuscating any code, there are some hurdles to jump over. A KISS based obfuscator needs reasonably clean code as input or you end up with "rubbish in = rubbish out". Use the tips below if necessary and it will probably improve the quality of your code. At least, that was my own experience. Problem: A code obfuscator *has* to parse the Code To Be Obfuscated (CTBO from now on), before it can do anything at all. In my humble opinion, code parsing is a ridiculous complex job using a language packed with features such as PHP. Even if you *like* creating code parsers, it is very likely that there are many problems to solve before you can start obfuscating... Solution: Enter PHP Zend extension called Tokenizer. The tokenizer parses the entire CTBO and returns it as an array of tokens. Neat eh ? You definately need it, PhpCodeBuster won't work without it. I use Mandriva 2005 Limited Edition as my development platform and needed to install the extension separately (it comes with the php-devel packages). Your mileage may vary. ------- Problem: PHP has some nice features to do variable substitution and function name creation at run time (i.e. $$varname, call_user_func()). This is deadly using a KISS based code obfuscater that only has a compile time scope. At run time it results in creating names that are *not* obfuscated that try to refer to names that *are* obfuscated before... Bad, bad, baaaad. Solution: The simple solution: *don't* use run time variable substitution... Yeah, this bothered me too. I had some really ingenious tricks in my CTBO :-( So I started rewriting the affected parts in the CTBO and in doing so, discovered that the net result was cleaner, more robust and more readable code. Not so bad after all, I learned again what I once knew: tricks are mostly nice to have, but are hazard prone in real life. I write better code now. ------- Problem: The old-fashioned way to obtain HTML form variables as input for your script, by referring to them as variable with the same name as in the HTML form, will be broken by PhpCodeBuster (and by any other obfuscator for that matter). By example: HTML: ... <input name="myvariable" ... PHP: ... if ( isset($myvariable) ) ... Solution: The only good solution: *don't* use this style of parameter passing. Never. It is bad practice, creates insecure websites and delivers badly readable code (variables just pop up from nowhere...). Use the standard $_COOKIE, $_PRE, $_POST and $_REQUEST globals instead. And yes, I had to rewrite two of the oldest scripts in my CTBO, I confess... ------- Problem: Using PHP to process PHP code is "The Way To Go", as it is all in the package already (tokenizer). That said, the PHP environment can also lead to unwanted interference with the CTBO. To minimize this is a problem for the person developing the obfuscator, but you as the user *can* experience interference problems. In my view, there are a few possible problems: 1) A native PHP function name gets scrambled. 2) A function defined in the CTBO won't get scrambled. 3) Namespace conflicts between the CTBO and the PhpCodeBuster 4) Namespace conflicts between the CTBO and the code calling PhpCodeBuster 5) ? Solution: To differentiate between native PHP functions and a function belonging to the CTBO is necessary. Only the latter need to be changed ! The solution I use is to check the function name with "is_callable()". Only native PHP functions should be resolved as "callable". Even function names in the CTBO that are equal to function names in the PhpCodeBuster class will not be recognized as function, because it would need "this->" prepended to the name. This solves 1) and 2). Only a broken PHP environment can end up in 1). If it ever occurs, 2) should not be a real problem, as long as it occurs consequently. 2) is about forgetting specific names in the obfuscation process. It is not harmful: it only shows the affectted names in plain text as they were before. The best way to isolate namespace in PHP is by using a class method. PhpTrasher did that, as does PhpCodeBuster. This solves 3), but be aware about 4) ! ** Don't use PhpCodeBuster from within complex PHP programs: chances ** are that your function names are present as function names in the ** CTBO. It is no disaster: the result will work as expected, but the ** affected names will not get obfuscated. I cannot help myself: I think this is Very Good (TM) solution of the interference problem, but somewhere in the back of my mind it 5) keeps nagging me... USEABILITY AND PRECONDITIONS ============================ - I already mentioned this: you need the PHP Tokenizer extension on your favourite platform. It is a standard extension to PHP as of version 4.3.0, so that should prove not to be difficult. - Rewrite your code before obfuscating. Look for $$ variables, call_user-, create_function et al and old fashioned form parameter passing. There are probably many more hazardous constructs that I did not mention or am aware of. In my view, they all have in common that the name space differs at run time. Be prepared if you use PhpCodeBuster and let me know if you discover new problems. I'd be happy if you have the solution to go with it... - The 3 files presented in this package (bust.php, phpbuster and phpcodebuster.class.php) are used as a command line tool in a Linux environment. They are probably good for any UNIX, xBSD or Linux developer, but need some rework to be usable on Windows.

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  • bustit_example
  Files folder image Files (7)  
File Role Description
Plain text file bust.php Example PHP implementation that uses PhpCodeBuster
Plain text file bustit.php Example Simple web based implementation of the class
Plain text file phpbuster Example UNIX commandline utility to obfuscate PHP sources
Plain text file phpcodebuster.class.php Class Obfuscator class
Plain text file README Doc. Class documentation
Plain text file RELEASE Doc. Release notes

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