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Protect

Tag Info
Tag Number: 
24
Tag Type: 
Define
Tag Flash Version: 
2
Brief Description: 

Disable edition capabilities of the given SWF file. Though this doesn't need to be enforced by an SWF editor, it marks the file as being copyrighted in a way.

WARNING: this tag is only valid in Flash V2.x, V3.x, and V4.x, use the EnableDebugger instead in V5.x and EnableDebugger2 in V6.x and newer movies.

Tag Structure: 
struct swf_protect {
	swf_tag			f_tag;		/* 24, 58 or 64  */
	if(version >= 5) {
		if(tag == ProtectDebug2) {
			unsigned short	f_reserved;1
		}
		/* the password is optional when tag == Protect */
		string		f_md5_password;
	}
};
  • 1. f_reserved must be set to zero.

The protection tag is totally useless. The SWF format is an open format, otherwise how would you have so many players and tools to work with SWF movies? Thus, you can pretend to protect your movies, but anyone with a simple binary editor can transform the tag and make it another which has no such effect. Also, swf_dump and some other tools (such as flasm) can read your movie anyway.

For the sake of defining what you have in each tag, there are the protection tags fully described.

According to Macromedia, you can find some free implementation of the MD5 algorithm by Poul-Henning Kamp in ...

Adobe Flash Animation by Made to Order Software

Making a great thing even better!

The letters SSWF in a curly font with dots on the ends.

Using our robust open-source C++ library and scripting language, ScriptSWF (SSWF), you can create Adobe Flash animations on the fly.

Since it's initial release in 2002, SSWF has been extremely popular. Despite never being advertised, it has been downloaded more than 77,250 times just on SourceForge.net, has been converted to work on several Unix platforms not initially ...

Change the encoding of a Postgres database

Ever wondered how you could change the encoding of one of your Postgres database?

I have had that problem several times, and in most cases people tell you to:

  1. Dump your database, may have to use –encoding on the command line
  2. Drop the existing database (or rename it)
  3. Create a new database with the proper encoding
  4. Restore the database

The problem is that there is no support for altering the encoding of a database. The ALTER DATABASE does not include that option. And since it should be really rare, it makes sense.

Now, there is an easier way ...