Question

I have a situation where I would like to do some very light image file obfustication. My application ships with a bunch of .png files and I’d like it if they weren’t so readily editable.

I’m not looking for a ‘secure’ solution (I don’t believe one really exists), I’d just like Joe Public to be unable to edit the files.

I am currently using;

ImageIO.read(new File("/images/imagefile.png"));

I’d rather not have to use Serialisation, as the ImageIO system is pretty deeply ingrained in the code, each image needs also to remain as its own file on disk.

I was hoping I could just change the file extension eg;

ImageIO.read(new File("/images/imagefile.dat"));

But ImageIO seems to use it to identify the file. Can I tell ImageIO that it is a PNG despite its extension?

Answer 1

Encrypt all the files on disk.
Then in the program, decrypt a file, load it in memory and go rocking.