iOS Code Protection - C Static Library or Objective-C Framework?

Question

I have some calculation algorithms that I need to send to my client for testing. I am asked to prevent my client from reverse engineering the algorithm. I am thinking that I have 2 choices:

1. Wrapping the calculation in Objective-C framework, in which I could make some HTTPS request to my server periodically, the framework will only do calculation if the server allows.
2. Wrapping the calculation in C program and compile into .a static library. It is a plain C library, so I think will be very difficult to make HTTPS request. But I also read that C static library is more difficult to break relative to dynamic framework.

I understand that there are no 100% security, I just want to know in terms of security which option is better? And please also suggest if there are any other ways to secure frameworks / static libraries?

Answer 1

As I understand, the deliverable to your client in this context is just the result of the algorithm (and not the actual implementation of the algorithm). Once way to achieve it is by implementing the algorithm on your server (using C, Node.js, Python, etc.) and then expose it via an HTTP/s API. Then from your iOS app/framework/static library, you pass the required parameters as inputs via a HTTP request, perform the computation on your server and return the results.