I looked at using python for the AI in a security application for hobby-business but apparently you either release it as source code or it can be easily decompiled. Of the new machine learning languages/packages, which can be kept confidential?
Likely I would use it to identify between good and bad traffic and content for a network intrusion prevention system and content filtering. The language I would use for all the network programming would be C/C++. That can’t change.
By business I mean selling it for a dollar eventually… maybe. I’m basically choosing what I’m going to program in my free time and would be learning(I’m new) both C++ and the AI language. Thank you for taking the time.
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You can use architectural design to make sure your code remains confidential. If possible, you could create a web service that holds the AI logic. You would then write a client to ask your web service if the given traffic is good or bad etc. This way your algorithm is never on the clients computer. You can add authentication to your service so the client must pay you to use it.
Any software can be decompiled, and given enough time and desire can be reverse engineered and understood. The best way to maintain confidentiality is by not allowing the software to leave your hands at all.
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Of
the new machine learninglanguages/packages, which can be kept confidential?
None. All.
Which language you use is irrelevant. If someone has control over the hardware your software is running on, they can convert it from whatever format it’s in into a more readable one. Not necessarily the original form, but certainly something they can use.
If they don’t have access to the hardware, and are restricted to interacting with the software through a remote API, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s interpreted source code or compiled machine code, they won’t be able to tell either way. It could be a bunch of well trained monkeys for all they know. Assuming, of course, you’re not unintentionally leaking information via your API.
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So here’s the issue. There really isn’t any language you can write something in and expect that someone out there wont try and decompile it/get access to your code. Its just impossible. Look at games, people spout off the DRM they use is unbreakable yet its broken days later.
You can take precautions to protect you and your IP, so for example releasing it with the proper licenses, registering copyright etc. Or better yet keep your source code secure. But in the long run this is a hard one.
Also, if your looking for a language to use, pick whichever. Honestly if its partly as a hobby, you can use it as a learning tool, and heck maybe you’ll surprise yourself at what you can do with the language. Though if i had to pick, since your already doing C/C++, id say go with that.
You cannot give someone your software and not give it to them at the same time. Your options:
- Treat this as a social problem rather than a technical one, and solve it with social means (licensing). Technical means such as watermarking can help enforce these means, but they’re still social means.
- Allow people to use your software without actually giving it to them. This means that you will have to run all the valuable logic on a server you control, and grant people access through well-defined interfaces. In other words, don’t sell the software, sell the service.