.NET assembly Watermarked by Skater Obfuscator
Traditionally, a watermark was a mark or design placed on paper that was produced by the creation of a variation in the thickness of the paper. Watermarks were only visible only when the paper was held up against light. Watermarks can be used to identify the manufacturer, or the grade, of paper. Today, watermarking has gone digital. Digital watermarks can be added to image or video files, so that the information contained in the file can be identified and copyright protected [source: Britannica].
Skater .NET Obfuscator provides Watermark interface. Your .NET assembly can also be watermarked.
Skater Watermark is one more protection layer that would be provided to your .NET distributed software product. By applying your personal watermark into assembly source code, you will be able to check that mark within suspicious third-party assemblies, DLLs or EXEs. Just open such assembly in Skater GUI and check ‘Skater Watermark’ property value.
Why we need the Watermark and how does that work?
You obfuscate your DLL or EXE before the product distribution so hackers won’t be able to still your source codes. However, they may use the whole distributed software product by renaming it and incorporate within their own projects. But burglars cannot remove Skater Watermark or modify it. It is not possible because Skater produce obfuscated assemblies that are not re-compileable.
To specify your personalized Watermark you have to open 'Account Settings' page within Skater .NET Obfuscator interface.
Click 'LogIn On-line' link to access your personal Skater on-line account and locate the Skater Watermark generation interface as shown below.
Benefits of watermarking .NET assemblies
.NET Developers who distribute their assemblies online and choose to use a watermark usually do so for the following main reasons:
∙ Partial theft protection. This one is obvious: by applying a watermark to your DLL/EXE, you can prevent some of the people from using your assemblies wrongfully.
∙ They do not want their clients utilizing their own assemblies as part of their packages may include that DLLs or EXEs.
∙ They take pride in their hard work, and do not want their assemblies reproduced/stolen, and incorporated into other commercial software products without their consent.
∙ Branding. They feel that a watermark will allow users to more easily find and quickly identify their .NET software (especially DLLs). This can be highly beneficial for marketing purposes.