Compile using gcc without plain text constants in ELF image

I have some string constants in a C code. when i compile it using gcc, the strings are stored in a.out in plain text. These can 开发者_运维知识库be hand-edited in a.out. I wan't them to be encoded in some format so that no one can change the strings by editing a.out. Are there any objcopy or gcc options to avoid this?

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is it then atleast possible to compile the code so that the elf executes only after an integrity self-check & terminate with an error if it fails...

that is it can store some kind of md5sum in the end, and check it at each execution..

i believe win32 apps have this, & hand-editing a windows exe , makes it an invalid win32 app, because the checksum fails..

is this possible in GCC/Linux ?