[AccessD] Re: Hiding Back End Design

It also makes it a pain in the anatomy to maintain!

Charlotte Foust

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert L. Stewart [mailto:rl_stewart at highstream.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 9:57 AM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Cc: bchacc at san.rr.com
Subject: [AccessD] Re: Hiding Back End Design


Rocky,

Or you could take a cue from commercial software like Remedy (Help Desk 
Tickets using Oracle) and do something like this:

CREATE TABLE H181 (
ENTRYID VARCHAR2(15) NOT NULL,
T0 NUMBER(15) NULL,
U0 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
T1 NUMBER(15) NULL,
U1 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
T2 NUMBER(15) NULL,
U2 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
T3 NUMBER(15) NULL,
U3 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
T4 NUMBER(15) NULL,
U4 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
T5 NUMBER(15) NULL,
U5 VARCHAR2(30) NULL
);

OR

CREATE TABLE T181 (
C1 VARCHAR2(15) NOT NULL,
C2 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
C3 NUMBER(15) NOT NULL,
C4 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
C5 VARCHAR2(30) NOT NULL,
C6 NUMBER(15) NOT NULL,
C7 NUMBER(15) NOT NULL,
C8 VARCHAR2(128) NOT NULL,
C20000998 VARCHAR2(10) NULL,
C20000999 VARCHAR2(10) NULL,
C200000003 VARCHAR2(50) NULL,
C200000004 VARCHAR2(50) NULL,
C200000005 VARCHAR2(50) NULL,
C200000006 VARCHAR2(50) NULL,
C200000007 VARCHAR2(40) NULL,
C200000012 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
C230000009 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
C230000010 CLOB NULL,
C240000000 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
C240000001 VARCHAR2(128) NULL,
C240000002 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
C240000003 VARCHAR2(70) NULL,
C240000004 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
C240000005 VARCHAR2(30) NULL,
C240000006 VARCHAR2(128) NULL,
C240000007 CLOB NULL,
C240000008 CLOB NULL,
C240000009 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C240000010 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C240000011 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C240000012 CLOB NULL,
C240000015 VARCHAR2(128) NULL,
C240000016 VARCHAR2(128) NULL,
C536871560 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C536871562 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C536871564 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C536871570 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C536871572 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C536871589 VARCHAR2(50) NULL,
C536871604 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C536871618 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C536871621 NUMBER(15) NULL,
C536871649 VARCHAR2(50) NULL
);

They use an ODBC driver they developed to show the English names for the

columns.  And it actually does a join on some of the tables to get the 
information to display.

Personally, I have not found a system that I could not reverse engineer
if 
I had the database table structure.  But the "Remedy method" makes it 
extremely difficult.

Robert

At 12:15 AM 22/06/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 20:02:02 +0200
>From: Gustav Brock <gustav at cactus.dk>
>Subject: Re: [AccessD] Hiding Back End Design
>To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
>         <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
>Message-ID: <19542148406.20040621200202 at cactus.dk>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>Hi Rocky
>
>No, you cannot open or attach tables from the BE without the correct 
>password. But as stated from several already, you can google up at 
>least three password crackers.
>
>Next step would be Access security as mentioned by Drew, and the next 
>would be to apply field encryption which is a major step.
>
>By why not turn it completely around: make the design open and 
>documented as "this is the way to build a database for an application 
>like this"? Then you are the master and everyone else is the replicant 
>- following the "Rocky" standard. Personally, I think the time for 
>proprietary systems has passed - customers need systems they can drag 
>data from to be used elsewhere.
>
>Also, I really doubt someone can figure out the intelligence of your 
>app just by watching the table design. One can watch what is going on 
>when data have been entered or updated but not _how_, and if someone 
>can figure it out, he will already know how to build a similar app 
>without knowing your table design.
>
>/gustav


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