Question

I am devising a web game with high scores in flash.
I figured I need two things. I am new to flash, so can you help me?

1. I need a way to be httpClient. I found some implementations – but I am looking for something built-in for posting to an HTTP server.

2. In order to make it “relativley” secure – I figured I would keep a password file/or a const variable. Read it, hash it, send it to the server. The server will have the same password, and so it will too hash it. Is this reasonible? I understand the problem of reverse engineering etc. What do you think?

3. Regarding 2 – How can I access MD5 etc. in flash?

Answer 1

Here’s what I can provide against your three points:

1. Look at the URLLoader class. This can send / retrieve data from server-side technology (i.e. a PHP script).
2. I can’t stress enough that any attempt to make your highscores secure is a waste of time – best thing to do here is to move as much logic as you can for calculating score to the server so that it can’t be manipulated. Send many fragments of information that you can piece together and work with at the server such as timestamps, base score, playing time, number of objects created in the game, current level, etc. Do what you can with this information to eliminate obvious manipulation (such as combined values that are illogical / impossible).
3. Look at the as3crypto library; it provides an MD5 class.