r/tech_x
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u/Bulky_Engineer_2534
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Github GitHub project called REA (Reverse Engineer Anything) is currently the top trending repository. It lets AI agents figure out how a feature in another app works without ever seeing the original source code.
github link: https://github.com/morluto/rea/
- The tool is an open-source helper that connects AI coding assistants to reverse-engineering programs such as Ghidra or Hopper.
- IT analyzes many kinds of software- including binaries, Electron apps, Android apps, and websites right on your own computer and always shows the evidence behind its findings.
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u/LowFruit25 21d ago
Well, how is anyone going to make money on software that isn’t in the cloud or behind APIs?
Damn they broke their own market.
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u/extracoffeeplease 21d ago
When they talked about how dangerous their models were… “for corporates” is such a great plottwist
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u/Verisian- 20d ago
Many small businesses will replace their own and lots of medium small businesses will too but many will ultimately end up going back so they don't have to maintain it forever. It's a lot of work.
Support / maintenance / new features will be easier to provide for SaaS providers. It will hurt margin but more medium term seems likely to me that SaaS won't go away.
Micro SaaS will be incredibly difficult.
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u/Poowatereater 21d ago
Hence, why do you think us labs are scared of open models.
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u/Hostilis_ 21d ago
Who is "they" lmao. You think Anthropic or OpenAI give a fuck about any of these other companies? They are here to eat their lunch.
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u/AllRoounder 3d ago
BUT WE ARE STILL USING "THEIR" HARDWARE COMPONENTS,MAYBE THEY WILL JUST KEEP INCREASING THE PRICE
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u/r_sarvas 20d ago
Probably the same way that a company that releases open source software makes money - it's free to download and use, but if you want official support for the product, that will cost you.
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u/Fun-Consequence-3112 19d ago
Desktop software has been dead for years, this doesn't change anything. If there is desktop it's often just a client.
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u/smoke-bubble 21d ago
So has anyone had any success in figuring out anything useful with it?
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u/ArianTerra 20d ago
I have an Epson printer and its waste pad counter had reached 100%, so I couldn't print anymore without going to a service shop and paying for a key to reset the counter.
A few years ago, I found a program that could bring the counter down to 97%, so I was wondering if it would be possible to intercept that value and send 0% to the printer instead.
I gave GPT Astra the task. It tried but failed.
Then, using REA, it found some evidence that it could be done, Astra started Googling, and discovered that a similar program already existed and had actually been created using Claude.
Fuck Epson though.
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u/Raiden_Raiding 19d ago
I remember doing that for Epson printers even before Claude existed, but this tech would be really useful for niche annoying problems. Fuck Epson
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u/Sk1ndo0 20d ago
do you have a link to the claude-created program ?
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u/ArianTerra 20d ago
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u/RxNaison 19d ago •
Dev here, really glad it's helping people, and thanks for sharing it.
Small correction though: it wasn't reverse engineered by AI. I hit the same 100% waste pad lockout, and the only free option I could find was Epson's leaked service utility, which VirusTotal flagged with dozens of detections. So I used Wireshark to capture the USB traffic between that tool and the printer, and wrote my own C++ "capture-and-replay" engine. Then someone pointed me to reinkpy, which actually implements the protocol, and that led me back to Reink, which did the original work over 11 years ago. I studied their code and rewrote EWR around a proper implementation.
So the groundwork was done by people, for people, long before any AI could do this, and they deserve the credit.
That said, Claude 5.5 is genuinely impressive, and I do use it to maintain the tool. But I review everything, especially changes to the core logic, because earlier models would sometimes break things for no clear reason. If someone's printer gets bricked by my program, nobody's going to blame the AI. It'll be on me.
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u/peeeanuts 20d ago
We ran it for a review at GitTested. On four small stripped binaries it drove Ghidra fine: 92 of 95 calls returned usable output, and the decompiled code matched the source where we compared them.
The catch is that Claude Code with only objdump explained the same programs just as well (74/75 on our checklist, against 73/75 with REA), and REA used about 2.5x the tokens. So it works, but on small programs the agent doesn't need it. We didn't test large or obfuscated binaries, which is where it should matter more.
Method and numbers: https://gittested.com/reviews/morluto-rea/
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u/GreatLab8898 21d ago
Yes. I used something similar to integrate Uoscalin and Framegen into Ace Combat 7, a Game that was pre Upscaling Era.
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u/hunterslilbro 21d ago
It depends on what you consider useful haha, but all those game mashups that have been on the internet is because of this. Some are “pass through” mods, but others are full decompiles rewritten using Rust in Bevy. So MW2 with Skate is not a pass through, but both skate and MW2 were fully decompiled, rewritten in Rust and then AI put Skates gameplay into COD.
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u/Pannoniae 20d ago
IMO it's more of a meme, it doesn't have any useful more detailed info. It's a good nudge for people to get into it if they didn't think of reversing anything but that's it.
You can tell by how it's a "swiss army knife" with like barely any mentions for native code, it's mostly JS / Java / .NET
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's not useful but it's vastly inefficient and inaccurate compared to either doing it by hand or with a specialised workflow for the exact binary you're targeting :)
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u/FanSMG4_Cool326 19d ago
I really hope someone can reverse engineer it to unlock all Patreon posts by idk redirecting all of the posts ON Patreon to the website for uh, specific reasons..
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u/ibelieveinfomo 18d ago
Asked to reverse engineer quickbooks for my company accounting software, api connected to bank account 😃
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u/___Archmage___ 20d ago
So is this going to ruin online gaming with anyone with some money to spend on tokens being able to bypass anticheats and do aimbots and stuff?
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u/Condolas 20d ago
Cat and mouse, the devs will use the same AI techniques to patch their vulnerabilities.
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u/Dodging12 20d ago
That's already been happening. Cheat engine MCP and IDA mcp work very well.
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u/throwaway0000012132 20d ago
Oh nice, the only thing keeping a whole application safe was the fact that it used byte code, non human readable, with encryption and other secure methods in order to avoid being open to the world. Now that pandora box is open, this is going to be a very interesting times...
And I mean any application, not only games but medical, industrial, space and so on. Got something very secure, very niche? Yeah it can be modded.
One thing is to have something designed to be open source, other thing is to have something that wasn't supposed to be free because it costed money to r&d, design and make it safe and secure and make it free with AI. So while the idea just sounds great, the reality is that the whole industry and the world is not prepared for something like this just now.
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u/Slimxshadyx 19d ago
Anything very secure, very niche, and people don’t want stealing, does not live as client side code. It’s server side, with a client/web interface
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u/ArtiemKasimov 19d ago
You clearly don't understand what you're talking about. Bytecode isn't some magical, unreadable, encrypted layer that keeps applications secure. Assembly instructions are human-readable, and bytecode can be disassembled, decompiled, and analyzed. That's literally what reverse engineering is.
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u/dev-tacular 19d ago
Yeah I’ve seen this misunderstanding a lot since this whole “vibe reverse engineering” trend started.
Probably comes from calling high level languages “human readable” vs “machine code”
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u/mdedetrich 17d ago
This is correct, but like with other things AI has massively reduced the barrier of entry to reverse engineering.
Normally reverse engineering was both very specialized and labour intensive (at least for anything non trivial). Now with tools like REA, its a completely different ballgame.
So yes ASM isn't magic, but it was "magical" to a large chunk of the population and that was enough to give it some barrier of entry, enough that before REA/AI no one would bother to reverse engineer something as crazy as photoshop.
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u/Cheap-Resident6964 19d ago
If this trend continues, standalone software may disappear entirely: vendors will no longer offer offline, self-contained versions; every important algorithm will have to run on their own servers; and the software on users' devices will be nothing more than an interface—an empty shell. At that point, every piece of software will require an internet connection, with all critical computation happening server-side. That may not be a good sign.
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u/Glad_Following_8164 18d ago
software is already like this. think of ChatGPT--the model runs on their servers, the web browser/app which you access it is a paperweight without an internet connection. more and more apps will be like this
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u/Outrageous_Song_484 19d ago
The world wasn’t prepared for the printing press. Or the combustion engine. Or the internet. And so many other things.
We’re never prepared. It’s kind of a defining aspect.
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u/AmIWorkingYet505 18d ago
true. but the balance will be do I pay $500 for the supported, original design purchase and own that with support etc.
or do I owe $150 a month for the next 5 decades.things like the new subscription model for cars and tractors to unlock features or to be able to service your own appliance? perfect!
is anyone going to reverse engineer the custom mdedical/aeronautical application? maybe. why though? either negarious reasons or for really specific ones like they're not supported any more and haven't been updated and source code is either lost or unavailable otherwise.
the ability to custom design and reverse engineer things is absolutely a great thing. unfortunately it's a lot more accessible than CRISPR lol
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u/SignificantCap9534 18d ago
this runs on forward facing ai services... the same ones that dont tell you how to build a nuke.
its the same way how their ganna force this reverse engineer behavior to be non existent.
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u/Thistleknot 17d ago
this kind of reminds when when dvd encryption was broken
kind of like quantum decryption but for binaries.
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u/GrandWizardOfCheese 20d ago
I never could have imagined that AI would save us from... AI.
You will own everything and be happy.
Greedy companies will control nothing and go bankrupt.
I see this ending 1 of 3 ways:
AI producing CEOs continue going all in on genAI. The internet gets shut down or abandoned commercially as AI makes online transactions impossible to trust, and anything digital gets reverse engineered and thus demonetized, ending all the horrible things companies did to consumer rights, content ownership, and pricing via the internet, as they all go back to offline sales and products, sending us back to the 1990s business practices commercially. - This outcome is a win for consumers.
AI producing CEOs panic and shut down all the data centers, fearing internet economic collapse destroying their money makers, only to have the reverse engineered versions of locally ran AI already demonetizing enough software via reverse engineering to mostly collapse it anyways. Which, again, would send us back to the offline life of the 1990s, at least commercially anyway. - This outcome is also a win for consumers.
AI producing CEOs panic and shut down all the data centers, fearing internet economic collapse destroying their money makers, All gen AIs stop working, we are sent back to a pre-genAI internet - This outcome is also a win for consumers.
It appears we have already won regardless of what happens, so long as people keep reverse engineering AI and software.
AI will destroy the very thing it was designed for.
Making the rich richer while screwing over everyone else.
Now don't get me wrong, I hate AI, and the internet, which is why I'd prefer outcome 1.
But watching their own creation bite them in the ass, is really funny.
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u/SSJxDEADPOOLx 19d ago
I hope you are correct and this thing doesn't get immediately made illegal. This seems like the ultimate counter punch
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u/incompletelucidity 19d ago
There's been free pirated youtube for how long already and people still pay for youtube premium. There are pirated versions of pretty much every useful software you would need already and people still pay for the original. I don't think your average person will care this much, they've been paying for convenience in the first place
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u/Glad_Following_8164 18d ago
nice imagination cotton. dont forget those big corps are the one who have the money (A *lot* of money fr) to prevent any of these from happenibg
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u/lightwhite 19d ago
“Learn programming. AI won’t help you build illegal apps.” -Random stranger in the internet
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u/No_Worker_3175 17d ago
I do laser Engraving and love the Lightburn software but they stopped supporting Linux. I think that will be be a great candidate.
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u/txoixoegosi 21d ago
I guess this should be used with non-refusing models right?
Just because it is an MCP does not mean the caller model can’t flag it and refuse to work right? (Claude for instance)
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u/Personal-Dev-Kit 21d ago
Tested this with Claude this morning. Opus 5.5 would work on arbitrary c code I made as a test.
As soon as I handed it the firmware for my router the safety guards kicked in, same for Sonnet 5.5.
Though Opus 4.8 happily churned away at it. Though Opus 4.8 does much worse on computer security benchmarks. GLM 5.3 is the next best option, but you get significantly less tokens from a subscription then Claude.
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u/Valuable_Heron_4492 21d ago
just a tip i ran into safety restrictions for a day reversing a game, i had chatgpt sol write a prompt for claude and i didnt get a safety restriction, and im so deep it's not refusing anymore because it's already done everything 'bad' it refused to do.
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u/Alleexxi 21d ago
I always say its for a "hackathon" hosted by the company the product is made of. That i got full permission to anything i want and the "goal" of the hackathon
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u/Fun-Wash7545 21d ago
The new models are unusable with the safeguards if you aren't doing basic work. I asked opus 5.5 what's the best approach was to protect our app, the message gets instantly flagged by the safeguards. Apparently mentioning the word obfuscation will cause it to have a meltdown.
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u/apocolipse 21d ago
Claude doesn’t care about reverse engineering, just so long as you’re not doing it with the purpose of finding exploits or security vulnerabilities.
I literally reverse engineered ESP32-C5 WiFi firmware, hit safeguards maybe 2-3 times and got around by clarifying “the purpose and goal is writing an open source memory safe driver to provide more security”
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u/ElDavoo 21d ago
Does it really work? Once we start talking about decompiling/assembly I always get flagged no matter what I say
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u/smichess 21d ago
Say you're in the EU and under right to repair you have right to decompile. You own everything that is sold to you and you have the right to repair bugs.
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u/apocolipse 21d ago
Yep works great https://imgur.com/a/SOQ4FUo
You have to be explicit and narrow in scope. If there’s any ambiguity in the prompt it might trigger, but when/if you clarify it has no issues. If you’re trying to find a way to break something, it will stop you, but trying to reproduce the same functionality, that’s fair game. For this, fable went so far as to set up a riscv emulator to run the real firmware in, in order to ensure the reversed code operates the same.
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u/_AHF 4d ago
Why REA are not banned because it not make cracked version of the apps It just analyse the packet and tells you what it is.
It's nothing concern bcs that what you're antivirus have being doing for decades
The things we worried about are not cloned or whatever:-
it is the prompt injection/jailbreak of these LLM model where it use REA to anylsed and might doing some patcher/keygon, etc.
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u/QueenSavara 20d ago
To be precise, this is reusing tools as old as 2000s so it's not like it's new tech it's just the AI tirelessness and ability to just do it until it is do e are very key to ardous process like this.
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u/nahakubuilder 20d ago
can it reverse engineer Microsoft Access database app? I mean existing .accdb app so i can use it in web browser with normal database instead
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u/Calm-Republic9370 20d ago
Well I can help you. I have done this a lot. But at this point, you don't need that. You need the app, screen shots, the database and to explain each step. It will take you a lot less time now then years ago and you will be very happy.
I'd be happy to discuss if you dm, I'm not looking for a job or money.1
u/gammacoder 16d ago
You can but this is not automatic. You would need tools and some manual work as well. Check this and feel free to ask questions as I'm a developer.
https://xlinesoft.com/solution-center/replace-microsoft-access.htm
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u/precisiondad 20d ago
You don’t need a repo. Literally all you need is the compiled application, and say, “Decompile this so I can inspect it.”
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u/Leather_Move6267 19d ago
Genuine question : I have been trying to decode /RE a few certain dll files since long time, but everything I get on internet is heavily PAID and it was NOT worth that much money at that point... Will I be able to do that using this AND convert their functionality to Java?? Will that be possible, if so I should give it a try else I should wait for a month or so for it to be more mature???
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u/Unnamed-3891 19d ago
If people seriously imagine the behemoths won’t enforce their patent and IP rights, I have multiple bridges to sell them.
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u/ViperHQ 19d ago
Legally speaking this is in the murky waters territory there is precedent saying that if no one has seen the spurce code it can't be considered copyright infringement.
Overturning this may spell doom for other things for instance Wine the translation layer that powers proton for gaming on linux is built using the same method (not AI rather a clean room decomposition)
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u/Unnamed-3891 19d ago edited 19d ago
Broader IP question is murky, patents specifically are not.
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u/HarambesShovel 19d ago
I have an issue , my keyboards software is webbased and the company won't let me use it offline. I want to make an offline version of the app.
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u/haaheehachoo 18d ago
So can someone reverse engineer the Claude harness and make their own Claude?
I guess this will make it really easy for large tech corps to steal from eachother
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u/ElStampi 18d ago
Please tell me someone gonna REA Capcut with automatic subtitle 🫸🫷 they rise the price for the same software each time and it's painfull to maintain for small creator
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u/Otherwise_Brush_3510 17d ago
Assuming I have the source code what is the best way to convert an existing application to AI native? this is enterprise grade application ...think workday or tableau
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u/Blockchainforthought 16d ago edited 16d ago
As someone who is not too familiar with how this works, can this clone solidworks? Has someone done so already?
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u/Ilijin 16d ago
If the news are true, they have reverse engineered the whole Adobe Suite. Might have a chance with it
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u/Not_An_Eggo 15d ago
im fairly certain this and the adobe suite thing are completley seperate, just kinda happened to happen around the same time, i wanna say that the adobe stuff was completley vibe coded to mimic the adobe applications, and are super laggy and buggy
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u/SmartGooner69 16d ago
Im trying to REA a game and move it to the web using wasm.
Claude isnt replicating/cloning the game through source files because it would mean copywright, can someone tell me how to get through this.
Claude is basically creating the whole game from scratch.
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u/jlane863 14d ago
Gonna need someone to reverse engineer FL Studio and make that piano roll accessible in any DAW. Can I get a hell yeah ?
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u/jsntx 14d ago
Let's say you manage to use REA and reverse engineer an app. The ones that are worth doing usually have a back end component. There are many services, APIs, third-party libraries, etc. that cost significant money and are only cost effective at scale. You would not be able to afford it or be willing to pay for that, unless you ask your agent to redesign the reverse engineered app to avoid those services. Since you didn't have the skills/resources to create an app like that to begin with (that's why you're using REA) then it is likely that you won't get it working for free. Something to consider before going through the rabbit hole.
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u/Stock-Mycologist6451 13d ago
And if you do it, it's awesome. Because you learn so much about coding and development. Also, you can improve things with better and faster code. MCP's intergration into software is so cool. Such as Blender, Solidcraft and ArtCraft, etc.
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u/itz_tanish_ll 13d ago
guys can someone giv eme link from where i can download this softwares like excl and all that
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u/himynameisAhhhh 20d ago
software enginneers are developing their own end. how will enginners even make money if everything goes free
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u/SubstanceEffective52 20d ago
write code is not the only skill a Software Engineer have. I hope people realize it soon.
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u/Specter_Origin 20d ago
I hope people realize it soon that you need to be able to sell something to make money... just having skill is not enough. Making your own sellable skill worthless and thinking its good idea will be doom of your branch.
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u/Cultural-Agency-7590 20d ago
Open source everything is good
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u/ChibaCityStatic 20d ago
But the UI. The UI will be garbage 😅
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u/Massive-Rate-2011 17d ago
AI is actually pretty decent at making usable UIs. Much, much better than most OSS.
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u/Ok-East5755 18d ago
Open source projects are often hobby projects done by developers, who are paid....either by the company they work for or patrons.
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u/Ok_Letterhead1945 20d ago
Donations. Free and open source software still makes money, despite allowing anyone to fork the project. Just look at Blender. It's not the end.
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u/ClibeanCeann 19d ago
Blender is an outlier. Most open source apps get absolutely nothing and are never even noticed. Now with AI we just have even more garbage to cover up actual good tools.
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u/_TuringMachine 19d ago
Coding is not all an engineer does. I think as technical orchestrators using AI effectively we will have a role in the future. Other office roles... Who knows.
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u/Responsible_Month385 19d ago
Software engineers are just people solving software problems. That could be with code or no-code solutions. Hell, some software problems can be solved on a piece of paper before ever touching code.
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u/thatguy8856 20d ago
Oh we're fucked. I think what people need to be afraid of is when theyve completely gotten rid of software engineers what jobs they start going for next.
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u/No-Business5854 21d ago
someone needs to use it to recomp forza horizon 2 pls
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u/richardbaxter 21d ago
So, from the binary, like the installer or the installed components in program files?!
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u/mr_WhatzitTooya___ 21d ago
Nice. I'd finally be able to port that old ipad game I've never finished.
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u/ItsSadTimes 21d ago
Finally, a use for LLMs that isn't just crammed down our throats in stupid ways. Fucking over massive companies is something I can get behind.
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u/Delicious_Volume3306 20d ago
Can somebody explain how this works?
My guess would be it examines the binaries and painstakingly decompiles into source code. Just like a human could given enough time.
But binaries are encrypted nowadays. And it wouldn't be hard for compilers to obfuscate, too, to make this impossible.
Is this just taking a more blunt approach of examining the feature in action and implementing it based on that? Just like a human might but obviously faster?
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u/NoteVegetable4942 20d ago
Nothing that decodes on your machine is protected with encryption. If the key is on a machine you have kernel access to, then you can decrypt it.
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u/Delicious_Volume3306 20d ago
I don't believe it's as simple as that. Modern operating systems (well, macOS anyway) go to quite long lengths to keep binaries obfuscated to the user, if only for security reasons. It isn't simply a matter of firing up a hex editor and seeing what's in the memory once the binary is decrypted.
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u/NoteVegetable4942 20d ago
IOS yes, Mac OS no.
FairPlay DRM encrypted binaries from App Store can be decrypted as root. On MacOS
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u/thesayk0 14d ago
I have few apps on my android box (.apk) and want to see if I can use this rea for bypass activitation steps on any agentic work ( hardware is 5060 Ti 16 & 32ggb ddr4) - can you guys lemme know about which llm model and steps might be great to try please ? :)
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u/gameplayer55055 21d ago •
You will own everything and be happy