Hi,

Anyone know of any good solid way to protect either
web application/ windows application written using
.NET framework from hacker/users.

What I mean is that we want our application to
have some way to store the number of user connection
or machine usage on either the client side, so
that upon payment of the bill, we can unlock
the number of user connection to our customer.

I am told that if we encrypt our setting
inside the database table column using 2 keys system,
where 1 public key is know to all whileas the other
secret key is know by us only. In order to change any
setting by user or application reading the setting
when startup, our application need access to the secret key
to unlock and read it.

Therefore, how do we protect our secret key from user/hacker
when user changing the setting or application auto reading
the setting since our public key is know to all.

Any one with experience in this area. please
kindly advise.