Angular: hide JSON data from user

Question

My Angular application loads JSON files as search material using $http

$http.get('my.json').success(function(data){ ... };

Unfortunately, this method loads the JSON file in to the browser and allows the user to see it's content.

Safari screenshot Screenshot from Safari

I'd like to hide that file from the user.

To refine my question. I know that I won't be able to totally hide that data from the user. A user can easily write a script to scrape the data off my site. I just don't want to hand those files to the user so easily, to just let them sit there for him to just copy and paste.

If you're sending it to their browser, and they're interested and knowledgeable enough, they can see it; you can't hide it from them. If you absolutely need to keep data hidden from the user you can't send it to their browser. — Anthony Grist
– Anthony Grist, Commented Jul 23, 2014 at 8:11

gorpacrate · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-23 08:57:39Z

4

Everything you sent to client is anyhow visible by client. There is no way to absolutely hide it from him.

All you can do is .zip or encode data on server and unzip or decode it on client. But even in this case all decoding mechanisms will be available to user and if he wishes and has some skills, he can decode it and access all data you send him.

UPD:

Ok, you want to uglify your data so client couldn't see it simple way.

You need to somehow encode data on server, send it encoded to the client, and decode on client so you could use it.

Checkout lz-string - it's js library that can archive / unarchive json strings, converting them to binary format, so data becomes unreadable. And it's pretty fast (I haven't noticed any delays encoding/decoding 2Mb strings - I use it to compress data and store it in localStorage).

It's as easy as LZString.compress(JSON.stringify(data)) to compress json and JSON.parse(LZString.decompress(data)) to decompress.

Only thing you need in addition - to find a server-side library that uses exactly this format. If you use NodeJS at your server, you can take lz-string itself. Otherwise, quick googling gave me solution for php - I think it's pretty possible to find solutions for other languages..

edited Jul 23, 2014 at 8:57

answered Jul 23, 2014 at 8:12

gorpacrate

5,7013 gold badges23 silver badges18 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Ben Avnon Over a year ago

I updated my question with a refinement, I'd highly appreciate it if you could update you answer accordingly. Thanks for answering! :)

Florian Gl · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-23 08:07:39Z

1

If you want the user to see only parts of the document, you should filter it on the server.

Create some kind of service/Api-function/etc. which loads the document and pass it the user information via ajax request. Now filter it depending on this user information and return the filtered data.

answered Jul 23, 2014 at 8:07

Florian Gl

6,0142 gold badges19 silver badges30 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Angular: hide JSON data from user

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related