I wrote a small application a while back that I thought might be of interest to some people.
I'll present it here in-case anybody finds it interesting and wants to use it. It's completely free so try it out.
Ligare is basically a small Win32 utility which takes a single input file and binds it to an 'extractor' executable, which contains a copy of the input file after it has been encrypted using an RC4 derivative encryption algorithm.
The idea behind
Ligare is for allowing the safe hosting of a file no matter where it is. Think of it as password protecting any file. It's main personal goal was for me to be able to host source code or programs on a webserver and know that only people I give the password to could actually access it.
Another possible use of
Ligare could be for licensing on small utility programs. The encryption key could just be a serial number that could be generated for each separate copy. (Just an idea though)
Ligare
This particular example binds & encrypts the file
Main.cpp and produces the output file
Main.ligare.exe.
Please note: data is only bound, no compression is used and so the resulting executable size will be the size of the original source data + the 'extractor' executable.
Ligare
On running the output file
Main.ligare.exe, the extractor program appears allowing you to enter the encryption key and extract the original file:
Ligare
Assuming the correct key was entered, the original file will be extracted and decrypted and should work as normal. If an incorrect key is entered, the actual output file will be another level of encryption with the newly entered key.
I hope someone can find use for it and feel free to leave your comments and suggestions, I may still make small changes if people need me to.
Thanks, Martin.
