From: Evenbit on
There are plenty of alternatives to

a) sending our proprietary code over the unprotected Internet
b) disclosing our code to a third party

The answer to a) is: don't do it. Get MD/SOO permission to use a courier.

The answer to b) is:

o Isolated the bug(s) to the smallest amount necessary to reproduce
the error. According to the previous email traffic between these
two people, there were two compile-time bugs. The programmer can
be faulted for not using two orders of magnitude fewer lines for
demonstrating the error. A small fragment of code can be emailed.

o If the problem is compile-time, email the relevant C/C++
preprocessor output snippet. The comments by the programmer in the
email transfer state THE CODE DOESN'T COMPILE ANYWAY.

o Have the vendor deliver a "debug" version of their product. That
would be a good use for email. Sun Microsystems does that with a
C++ product for us, their customer. Email the results back.

o Have the vendor visit to troubleshoot.

o Requested a login via SecureID and Salomon's netblazer, supporting
28.8 PPP (TCP/IP for windowing connectivity) for the vendor. Let
them transfer in any tools they need to troubleshoot.
Short-term access.

o If it is truly necessary to transfer a large amount of code, such as
Informix working to convert a large Sybase app, then take the time
to write a shell script that (using say 'sed') scrambles the names
of environment variables, and be sure to hand-ruin any proprietary
algorithms.

Why is transfer of Salomon proprietary source to a vendor's site the last
step to try? Bec