Can they see the source code?

11 replies
A hypothetical situation...
Let's say that YOU are a Huge company, with Lots of available money to pay programmers for Anything.
I am a little guy, and I have a Python script that scrapes data from Your website.
You do Not want me to do that scraping.
Is there a way for You to see the source code of my Python script, as it is running?
(Hypothetically, of course...)
Thanks.
WFmark51
#code #source
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  • Profile picture of the author ClarityDesigns
    Sure they can find a way if they really want to.
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  • Profile picture of the author WFmark51
    Crap. Not what I wanted to hear, but... Thanks for the reply, Clarity.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by WFmark51 View Post

      Crap. Not what I wanted to hear, but... Thanks for the reply, Clarity.
      No reason to be alarmed Clarity design is wrong. A scraper is NOT like a HTML page. The script can be blocked but it CAN NOT be read.

      Thats like saying because you send an email from an email program like Outlook the receiver can see the source code of the email program.

      There are ways a site can tell if you are using a script but thats because of how the script works NOT because the source code is accessible.

      generally to avoid these red flags your scraper should be able to use different IP proxies, use timers - have the right headers and use the rght browser mode.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeffrey Joson
    it cannot be read unfortunately
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  • Profile picture of the author dgi
    The scraper just requests an html from their servers (like a browser) and reads the data.
    They can ban you if they feel that you post too many requests.If they have ways to determine bot like behavior they can ban you.Bot not more than that.
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  • Profile picture of the author saki
    I don't think there's any way for them to know. Unless they physically get access to your computer.
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  • Profile picture of the author hometutor
    I actually downloaded my own PHP page one time and I could not see the source code.

    Rick
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  • Profile picture of the author alberto7
    In PHP, there is none thing that can be hidden, if someone really wants to know the source code yet it can't be an easy task for anyone to see the source code neither matter how professional or knowledgeable able he was.
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  • Profile picture of the author roboscripts
    With PHP you encode it with IonCube or Zen, but there always ways to decode it. Will work will the normal end user but not with someone who knows what it is doing
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  • Profile picture of the author hometutor
    When I wrote my first ClickBank affiliate script I was very concerned about theft. So I put it in an iframe and then I encrypted the iframe link with JavaScript.

    Now as I've gotten better with PHP I'm not as concerned about security because my scripts keep improving anyway.

    Rick
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  • Profile picture of the author Alian
    no python code can not be read
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