如何在PHP软件上实现API密钥？

Question

I am distributing a PHP created plugin like a Wordpress plugin but I want to implement an API key for it and users would need to enter an API key to unlock it for it to work.

How can that be done? And yes I already know it could be easily bypassed since PHP is not compiled but atleast it will deter some people with no PHP knowledge.

Thanks..

Answer 1

You can scramble the actual source code with the API key. Encrypt some essential part of the source code (e.g. using libmcrypt), and have the script load and decrypt the source. Of course, somebody finding the relevant routine could then easily dump the source to disk and use that instead, but it won't be as trivial as removing a check.