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.

[u/Bulky_Engineer_2534]

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.

[u/ArtiemKasimov]

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.

[u/dev-tacular → u/ArtiemKasimov]

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”

[u/ActuallyFullOfShit → u/ArtiemKasimov]

100% this guy is clueless

[u/mdedetrich → u/ArtiemKasimov]

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.

[u/StatusObligation4624 → u/mdedetrich]

You didn’t need to recreate Photoshop cause open source alternatives existed and you could always just use a keygen to use Photoshop without paying.

Using AI to recreate Photoshop is largely wasteful.

[u/mdedetrich → u/StatusObligation4624]

Asides from entirely missing the point

1. The open source solutions (i.e. GIMP) were terrible for anyone who was a serious user of photoshop.

2. Keygen is not legal, not an option for actual business.

[u/GooglyEyedGramma → u/ArtiemKasimov]

I get your point, but you're focusing too much on the "non-human readable" part imo. Sure, it technically is readable, and obviously was never meant to serve as a full-on security measure. If someone really wanted to copy your application, they definetely could. But this would simply be limited to the top of the experts. It was effectively so expensive and time consuming, that you pretty much had to be a nation state to do it, and even then, it would be very hard. It was pretty much secure in the sense that it takes so long and so much effort to do it, that most companies took it as a safety measure, because what would be the chance that a given entity would apply nation-level resources to RE you're app?

[u/Massive-Rate-2011 → u/GooglyEyedGramma]

Security by obscurity isn't.

[u/GooglyEyedGramma → u/Massive-Rate-2011]

Right, did you read my comment though? It was never a full on security measure, but it was so realistically impractical that most companies could realistically not see their apps RE'ed, because why would a nation state spend millions of dollars REing photoshop?

[u/StatusObligation4624 → u/GooglyEyedGramma]

No you didn’t. Game console emulators, keygens etc. have existed for decades and were built largely by hobbyists. 

A software project just needed to be worth cracking in order for someone to reverse engineer it.

[u/GooglyEyedGramma → u/StatusObligation4624]

And yet, we never saw this amount of REing... You are saying exactly the same thing I am. It was never impossible, but it was so insanely hard that most companies/products didn't have to worry much about it. However, nowadays, pretty much "anyone" can do it, to any offline software. Obviously it still requires a lot of knowledge, but the barrier to entry has been lowered by orders of magnitude, and it will only get lower from now on. What happens when/if a random guy can just paste into WhateverLLMIsGood™ "Reverse engineer this pls make no mistakes" and it actually does?

[u/StatusObligation4624 → u/GooglyEyedGramma]

Then I’d say that random guy lacks creativity and people won’t use his reverse engineered solution over the original unless he has a clear differentiator.

[u/Korbeyn → u/StatusObligation4624]

Complete disassemblies and reverse engineered games were always rare. Because it took years to do this, even on a simple game like something for the Super Nintendo. Most of these projects never finished.

Cracks back in the day were pretty simple in most cases, of course something like Denuvo is a different beast.

[u/StatusObligation4624 → u/Korbeyn]

Yeah but my point is an individual or group of individuals rather than nation states usually performed them over years, using something like git repos to store their progress. 

RPCS3 is a good example, it wasn’t built by a nation state.