I am not sure if anyone has wondered about this as well, or maybe I am just being overly paranoid (Do let me know if you think I am), but has anyone worried about the security of their source code templates in a shared hosting environment? Is this what CFcompile is for or am I just worried about nothing?
I mean, do web developers who design and code their own websites and than host these pages on some hosting company worry about protecting the Intellectual Property of their work?
You are being overly paranoid for multiple reasons.
Your code isn’t that cool! I mean honestly, what are you so worried about that someone can’t look through your code.
shared hosting has nothing to do with this, only people with FTP access to your files can view the code so encrypting the files doesn’t do any good if you are the only one using FTP.
You can decrypt coldfusion templates with a program that is floating around the interwebs so again, this goes back to # 1. You’re code isn’t that cool that it needs to be encrypted
This was something that was cool back in the early days but no one cares anymore. I know I don’t. If someone finds a use for my code after I leave a project, more power to them!
I have only recently started out in coding again in coldfusion and had this question asked of me by my friends who were not coders.
I know that the code I write is not earth-shattering in its revelation, but I was just curious about the issue of Intellectual property in the web development world.
I now understand that web code is not really cared as an IP and will treat it as such when I reply to questions about it.
You can decrypt coldfusion templates with a program that is floating around the interwebs …
Perhaps you are thinking of CfEncrypt? Because cfcompile does not have to encrypt the files. It can also be used to simply compile them. In which case you’d need a decompiler (not decryptor). Some people use it to simplify deployment, which is perfectly valid IMO.
While ultimately I agree that is probably not worth the hassle to try and “encrypt” the source code, some of the responses were a little … dismissive
IP is very important in code, just as important as a logo design or web template.
There’s no reason why you couldn’t encrypt your source code, but I think that’s probably going a little overboard. Generally speaking the only people who do that are companies that want to sell an installable product written in ColdFusion, but don’t want others to turn around and resell their code.
As for someone gaining access to your code via a shared hosting environment, that’s unlikely enough that it’s not really worth worrying about.
Finally, even if someone did get access to your code, unless they also had access to your development environment, and your database, your code wouldn’t be of much use to them.
I agree all of this is unlikely. But in a shared hosting environ., security is a legitimate concern because it’s only as good as the host makes it. Most hosts are diligent about security, but what with it being shared hosting, you basically have to accept that you have no control over that area. If someone ever did get so far as to access your code, there’s a reasonable possibility they could get to other resources too. But like I said it is possible, but does not usually happen.
