MQL5 License Protection Methods for Trading Software
Summary
The article surveys ways to restrict use of MQL5 Expert Advisors and indicators, from checking a password in the interface to validating generated keys, broker account details, and expiration dates. It explains the basic logic of each approach and discusses tying a license to hardware, while noting that hardware changes and virtual private servers can complicate that method.
It also outlines a remote licensing design in which an EA contacts a server through XML-RPC, with base64 encoding used to represent the response. The author suggests encrypted parameters and PGP as further barriers to reverse engineering. These are implementation concepts and sample-code patterns, not a comparative security evaluation: the article reports no tests or measured resistance to cracking. Its central caveat is that protection embedded in software can remain vulnerable if the code or its inputs are exposed to a skilled analyst.
Key ideas
- A fixed list of passwords is easy to implement but can be shared, forcing the developer to revoke compromised keys.
- A key generator can validate passwords against rules or values tied to a user's hardware.
- Broker account identifiers can restrict an EA to specified trading accounts.
- Remote license checks let a server decide whether a client may run the software.
- Encoding and encrypted parameters may add obstacles, but the article does not demonstrate that they prevent reverse engineering.
Tags
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.