hello i have an educational software that should be installed on different PCs across the enterprise. my program is using a 5000 text, xml, html files as source of it's content. i don't want my source to be tampered with, copied or used illegally. what i intend to do is to encrypt my source seperately and then put the encrypted files in a folder inside of my app so later my app can read and decrypt each file that is requested by user. the app will be installed and used anywhere. but the problem is that to secure and store the encryption key inside my application i have to use a key container while as far as i remember(correct me if i'm wrong) they're machine based and can't be used on different machines while i need my key to be fixed for all the installed copies on any PC. i know a lot of softwares using such a architecture but i don't know how do they do that.
any idea?
If you put the key on every PC (and you have to if you want them to be able to run your software) then everyone will have it and the encryption is pointless.
but the problem is that to secure and store the encryption key inside my application
Yeah, you can encrypt that key with another key and then turtles all the way down... What you are trying to do is impossible. Don't waste your time. You will gain no security whatsoever and the only thing you will do is waste cycles and annoy users making their computers slower.