DashO-GameOfLife

A sample Android™ app that demonstrates using PreEmptive Protection™ DashO™ with the DashO Gradle Plugin for Android on an application with libraries and product flavors.

This sample is a Game of Life simulation application. This project consists of the app itself and a library that it uses. The app is coded in Java™. The library is coded in Kotlin™.

The application has two flavor dimensions: view and monetization. The view dimension determines if the application launches a menu with a list of two views or just launches a single view. The monetization dimension determines whether the application is interactive (paid) or non-interactive (free). This interaction allows the user to give life to a cell by tapping.

These dimensions are ultimately combined to create four applications:

	paid	free
menu	menuPaid - Shows a menu of two interactive views.	menuFree - Shows a menu of two non-interactive views.
single	singlePaid - Shows a single interactive view.	singleFree - Shows a single non-interactive view.

The library is used by all four applications. The menu flavors use the library's code directly and reference the library's GameOfLifeView class via XML. The single flavors only use the library's code directly.

These instructions will demonstrate protecting the application with variant-specific configurations.

Note: DashO can protect both debug and release builds. This sample will be protecting release builds. Debug builds can be protected by configuring enabledBuildVariants.

Prerequisites

• Java™ 8
• PreEmptive Protection DashO v12.0.0 (or later)
• Android Build Environment
  • Platform v30

Note: The Android-specific settings can be changed by editing the build.gradle files.

Code Layout

This sample uses a standard layout for an Android project.

• library - The library project.
• app - The application project.
• app/src/main - The majority of the application source.
• app/src/free - Code which does not allow user interaction with the GameOfLifeView.
• app/src/paid - Code which allows user interaction with the GameOfLifeView.
• app/src/menu - The AndroidManifest.xml for all menu flavors.
• app/src/single - The AndroidManifest.xml for all single flavors.
• app/src/menuFree - Resources for the menuFree flavor.
• app/src/menuPaid - Resources for the menuPaid flavor.
• app/src/singleFree - Resources for the singleFree flavor.
• app/src/singlePaid - Resources for the singlePaid flavor.

Set Up Protection

Setting up protection involves the following steps:

1. Run the DashO New Project Wizard.
2. Configure DashO Home (if needed).
3. Customize the configuration.

Note: You can preview the final configuration by switching to the obfuscated branch.

Run the DashO New Project Wizard

The wizard will guide you through the process of integrating the DashO Gradle Plugin for Android into your build.

1. Launch the DashO GUI.
2. Launch the New Project Wizard by going to File > Project Wizard..., if it is not started automatically.
3. Select Next, select Android (Most projects), and select Next again.
4. To enter the project directory, select DashO-GameOfLife/app (or DashO-GameOfLife/app/build.gradle), and select Next.
5. After reading the Summary, select Finish to have the wizard do the integration.

At this point the initial integration is complete.

Configure DashO Home (If Needed)

The DashO Gradle Plugin for Android will automatically find DashO if it is installed in the default location. Otherwise, the plugin needs to know where DashO Home is so it can run DashO to protect the code. There are multiple ways to configure DashO Home.

The wizard will have already added a dasho { } closure in build.gradle with a home line commented out. Uncommenting this line will set DashO Home to the location of the current DashO installation.

Customize the Configuration

Since this sample demonstrates product flavor support, we need two different configuration files. One to handle the free variants and one for the paid variants.

These two configurations will start with the same information. The paid variants will use app/project.dox.

Configure the 'free' Variants

To further encourage users to "buy" the paid version, an Emulator Check will be added to the free variants. If the application is run on an emulator, the entire view will be covered by oscillating blinkers.

1. Copy app/project.dox to app/free.dox. This file will be used by the free variants.
2. Launch the DashO GUI (if not already opened).
3. Open app/free.dox.
4. If it prompts you to run a build:
   1. Click OK.
   2. Run gradlew clean assembleSingleFreeRelease from the command line.
   3. Click the refresh button once it is highlighted.
5. Go to the Checks->Emulator page in the GUI.
6. Click Add and choose Emulator Check...
7. Under Locations, check checkTheLock() under AbstractGameOfLifeActivity. (You will need to scroll down past the androidx packages and expand AbstractGameOfLifeActivity under com.preemptive.dasho.example.gameoflife.)
8. Set the Action to setLocked() and click OK.
9. Save the file.

Run the Application

Because of the Emulator Check, the application will respond differently based on where it is run.

	Paid Variants	Free Variants
Device	Interactive views. Tapping a cell brings it to life.	Non-interactive views. Tapping tells user to "upgrade".
Emulator	Interactive views. Tapping a cell brings it to life.	Non-interactive views with blinker patterns. Tapping tells user to "upgrade".

The first two screens are the starting pages for the menu and single variants. The last screen shows what to expect when running a free variant on an emulator.

Build

Run gradlew clean assembleRelease to compile and protect all the release variants.

Install

The four different variants can be simultaneously installed:

• gradlew installMenuFreeRelease - Installs MF Game Of Life.
• gradlew installMenuPaidRelease - Installs MP Game Of Life.
• gradlew installSingleFreeRelease - Installs SF Game Of Life.
• gradlew installSinglePaidRelease - Installs SP Game Of Life.

Uninstall

You can uninstall all the variants by running gradlew uninstallAll.

Everything at Once

Run a custom task to just do all of it: gradlew doAllTheThings.

Verify Protection

You can validate the build is using the appropriate configurations and that it is protecting the application.

Review DashO's Protection

The output from the Gradle build will show when DashO is run.

Verify the Flavor-specific Configuration

If you add -DSHOW_DASHO_CMD when building (e.g. gradlew doAllTheThings -DSHOW_DASHO_CMD), the information being passed to DashO will be printed to the console as the transformClassesAndResourcesWithDashOFor... tasks are run. This will include a Running: line where you can see the full arguments used to run DashO including which .dox configuration file is passed.

Verbose Output

If you want to see more information on what DashO is doing, you can configure verbose true inside the dasho closure in app/build.gradle. This will provide you with the verbose output from the protection process.

Decompile the APK

To further investigate you can use the following tools to look at the final protected APK:

• Apktool
• dex2jar
• Bytecode Viewer

About DashO

PreEmptive Protection DashO is an obfuscation and application protection solution from PreEmptive. DashO's obfuscation, hardening, and runtime check features make your application much harder to reverse engineer, pirate, or steal data from. World-class technical support for DashO is available through our website and/or our support request form.

Original Source

This sample is based on GameOfLifeView by Thiago Rocha.

License

Copyright 2021 PreEmptive Solutions, LLC.

Copyright 2011, 2012 Thiago Rocha

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

   <http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0>

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.

Android is a trademark of Google LLC. GitHub is a registered trademark of GitHub, Inc. Gradle is a registered trademark of Gradle, Inc. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.