How can I protect LabVIEW created application from having vi's extracted?

[aj6789]

It seems that when you compile an exe with LabVIEW, an outside party can connect to it with VI Server and extract vi's from it.   There is a secret property you can enable in LabVIEW by adding "SuperSecretPrivateSpecialStuff=True" to the LabVIEW ini file which allows you to convert a VI Ref to a binary buffer. You can write that binary file to disk as a VI.

Presumably you can extract any VI within the EXE from any LabVIEW created exe which allows you to access VI server via TCP.  

We can disable VI server in the INI file, but, of course a hacker could just turn it on again before launching our application.

So our only plan at this point is to have the application look at its environment and see if VI Server over TCP/IP is enabled and if so turn it off or shut down the application. Furthermore we would continue to do so as the application runs.

Anyone have any better ideas?

[RTSLVU]

Remove the block diagram from the vi.

https://www.ni.com/docs/en-US/bundle/labview/page/removing-block-diagrams-from-vis.html

[crossrulz]

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@RTSLVU wrote:

Remove the block diagram from the vi.

https://www.ni.com/docs/en-US/bundle/labview/page/removing-block-diagrams-from-vis.html

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That has nothing to do with built executables.

My advice is to disable the debugging.  All that should be in the executable then should be the compiled code.

[RTSLVU]

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@crossrulz wrote:

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@RTSLVU wrote:

Remove the block diagram from the vi.

https://www.ni.com/docs/en-US/bundle/labview/page/removing-block-diagrams-from-vis.html

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That has nothing to do with built executables.

My advice is to disable the debugging.  All that should be in the executable then should be the compiled code.

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If you buid the exe with vi's that have their block diagrams removed would this not remove the block diagrams from the exe?

[Dennis_Knutson]

The default for an exe has the block diagram automatically removed so the link does not apply.

You can also use the third-party license toolkit - https://www.ni.com/en/support/downloads/tools-network/download.third-party-licensing-and-activation-...