ProtO-BUF serialization using Obfuscation

 _
 Friend Class DMailer

 Private _Lic As Cert
 Private _Sys As Sys
 Private _LList As List(Of LItem)

 ..
. .
End Class

Property Foo As String

Public Sub Add(ByVal Key As T, ByVal value As Object)
 If _col.ContainsKey(Key) Then
 _col.Remove(Key)
 End If

 _col.Add(Key, New TValue(value))

 End Sub

 Public Function GetTItem(Of TT)(key As T) As TT
 If _col.ContainsKey(key) Then< br /> Return CType(_col(key).TValue, TT)
 Else
 Return Nothing
 End If
 End Function

I am looking for confusion about using bands Some guidance on what happened during the prototype bufnet (Dotfuscator). Half of the project is a DLL, and the other half is an EXE elsewhere. Using proto-buf NET, they can exchange data perfectly. Until I confuse the DLL.

At this time, P-BN fails without raising an exception, and returns a 0-length byte array or a shortened number of bytes differently, depending on what I am fiddling with. This class is very simple (VB ):

 _
Friend Class DMailer

 Private _Lic As Cert
 Private _Sys As Sys
 Private _LList As List(Of LItem)

 ..
 ..
End Class

All modified with ProtoMember Props have 3 props to get/set composing class objects. For the sake of brevity.

Again, it works well until I obfuscate the DLL. Then, Dotfuscator renamed each of these to null, obviously because they are all friends, which seems to kill the proto-buff. If I exempt the class from renaming (just the class name, not the props/members), it seems to work again. It makes sense that P-BN You can only operate on objects with the correct name, but when asked to serialize an empty named object, it seems that the exception may be ordered.

On the other hand, many of the charms of PB-N should be Serialization independent of .NET properties-at least according to my understanding. But in this case, it seems to only work for classes with names. I tried using Name qualifiers or parameters as shown above, but to no avail-it obviously Didn’t do what I thought was possible.

So, I’m very curious, if:

a)…I have basically guessed the problem correctly

b)…There are some other attributes or flags that may help serialize
a null named object

c)… If you have any other insights that can help.

An alternative method I consider It is to store the Serializer output of Cert and Sys as byte arrays or Base64 strings in DMailer instead of classes, instead of exempting 3 or 4 classes from renaming. Then let the receiver deserialize each object individually. Very happy It’s good to be able to unlock one thing and make your toy, just like magic.

(Multi)TIA

Because of Some interest rises, this seems to work:

a) Any form of reflection can’t get a list of attributes of confused types.
I try to find all types with ProtoContract Type, I can I found them
but the property names are all changed to a,m,b,j,g.

I also tried Me.GetType.GetProperties, the result is the same.

You can Implement a mapping from the output to indicate that Employee.FirstName is now a0.j, but distributing it would defeat the purpose of obfuscation.

b) What works to some extent is to make the NAME class free from obfuscation Since PB-N looks for the ProtoMember attribute to get the data, you can obfuscate the attribute/member name instead of the CLASS/type name. If the name is similar to FederalReserveLogIn, then your class/type has a bullseye.

I initially achieved the following success:

1) Build a simple class to store attribute tokens and values. Use ConvertFromInvariantString to store everything as a string. Get the hint from PBN, I An integer is used as the token:

Property Foo As String

Enumeration helps Combine everything together later. Store them in Dictionary(Of T, NameValuePair)

2) Add some visitors. These can perform type conversion for you:

< /p>

Public Sub Add(ByVal Key As T, ByVal value As Object)
 If _col.ContainsKey(Key) Then
 _col.Remove(Key)
 End If

 _col.Add(Key, New TValue(value))

 End Sub

 Public Function GetTItem(Of TT)(key As T) As TT 
 If _col.ContainsKey(key) Then
 Return CType(_col(key).TValue, TT)
 Else
 Return Nothing< br /> End If
 End Function

T is any key type you wish to use. Integers produce minimal output and still allow subscription code to use enums. But it may be String. < /p>

TT is the original type:

myFoo = props.GetTItem(Of Long)(propsEnum.Foo)

3) The list (dictionary) is exposed to PBN and bingo games, and it’s all done.

It’s also easy to add converters for points, rectangles, fonts, sizes, colors, and even bitmaps.

HTH