How can I hide a hard coded username and password from a savvy user with a decompiler?

Question

I want to create a simple C# application that uploads a text file to my web server. But to do this I need to have my username and password included in the code. I've tried using the obfuscator that's included in Visual Studio, but after decompiling with a free decompiler I was still able to find them.

Is this possible?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Put it this way - if the username and password reside on the user's computer, and some program has to operate on that data in unencrypted form at some point, it is logically impossible to guarantee they are unable to view it. So the answer is no. It's a logical impossibility.

Perhaps you could create a separate user on your web server with very restricted permissions and use that instead? Then you'd have less to worry about if the user was able to retrieve the credentials from your application.