Application/Content Protection

We are at the outset of a large project that will be a distibution via CD-ROM of a catalog of data and images (30,000+ images and a database)

We have (almost) settled on using vb.net and ado.net [msaccess via oledb 4.0].

My main question is as follows:

We are concerned about distributing all this content and it being visible to users by browsing the disc.

Is there any way to encrypt or protect the images and the database so that when a user browses the disc, all they see is the exe file or some other sort of unreadable "resource" files (and not the 30,000 image files and the mdb file) ?

Also, any recommedations regarding our choice of architecture and/or database backend?

Thanks!

If someone answer you and give you a trick , then it's not secret anymore . So it won't work . You have to be creative in such issues .

I am not really looking for a trick, as much as a solution to the problem, whether it be a commercial utility or some other such solution.

Surely I am not the first one to have this problem! Anyone have a solution?

Convert every image to a base 64 encoded string. That will stop a BIG portion of the users. Then, if you want to go further, you can encrypt those strings.

This will slow your application down though.