[JCB]

I have been researching various tools like XenoCode, Wise Owl, 9Rays.net spices.net, and most of the others that come up with a Google search. Some seem promising like Xenocode which has a pro edition for 399.00 which appears to have some pretty good protection for .NET applications. It seems the best is the ones that have native code generation like Salamander .NET Linker but all are somewhat expensive for a hobby project (for now). Hopefully one day it may progress into more than a side project.

My .NET application is tied to a specific piece of external hardware so it is of little use to anyone without the hardware so I am not too worried about it going all over the internet. I am mainly concerned with my IP that is tied to the hardware. I have a good bit of confidential information that I used to communicate with the hardware and as it is now anyone with a simple decompiler can see the code logic almost 100% intact. I am mainly interested in just making it difficult for someone with a .NET reflection tool/decompiler.

My other option is to re-write the sensitive portions in C++ and call them from VB.NET and use some of the native x86 protection tools on the DLL. This would be my least favorite method as the product is very close to being ready to ship.