Binary Config file: Protect script(s): Powered-by logo: How to?

Hey all, A couple years ago, before I could write my own PHP, I used a semi-commercial gallery script... Long story short, this gallery script used a config.dat file with these contents: <?php exit(); ?> 11001100 01101100 00000100 10001100 00001100 ... ... (Picture 1,667 lines of this) ... 11101100 00000100 00101100 11101100 00000100 This config file controlled how a "Powered by Company Name" was displayed on the bottom of the template page. So, if you buy the gallery script, which I did (I think I spent like 20$), the "Powered by Company Name" disappears. Since then, I have always wondered how I could do the same. I am definitely not a PHP guru, but I can hold my own... There have been a few scripts I have written for clients where I would have loved to implement this same technique... Recently, I re-downloaded the script and tried to break-it-down to see how it works... I was able to narrow things down to a few methods, a template page, and a tiny bit more of PHP script... But, it is really hard to understand how this is done because the config.dat file is unreadable! Any thoughts on how I could go about doing this? How are they making their config files (I am assuming that they probably wrote a proprietary script to convert PHP code to binary 1's and 0's)? Any thoughts and/or suggestions? If anyone is curious, I can post a bit of the code. Here is a link to the gallery script: http://www.stadtaus.com/en/php_scripts/gallery_script/ Does anyone else do something similar? I would love to see some code, and/or read more about similar techniques.... Thanks all, Cheers, Micky -- ¸.·´¯·.¸¸><(((º>·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸><((((º> ·´¯·.¸¸.·´¯·.¸¸.·´¯·.¸¸.·´¯·..¸¸><((((º> ·.¸¸><((((º>¸.·´¯·.¸¸><((((º>