Antipiracy techniques for a .Net DLL?

Question

What sort of antipiracy techniques are available for implementation in DLLs? What restrictions might they imply on somebody who legally obtained the DLL?

Answer 1

This might depend on the technology used in the DLL

• Sign it to prevent tampering
• Obfuscate it to prevent reverse engineering
• Then I guess you are left to weigh up the cost vs benefit - license registration and activation, call home over the 'net, dongles (remember them ;)

Answer 2

License it using a license provider.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fe8b1eh9.aspx

Of course you can obfuscate it. I use eazfuscator.

http://www.foss.kharkov.ua/g1/projects/eazfuscator/dotnet/Default.aspx