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Reverse engineering the obfuscated TikTok VM

(github.com)
412 points xfeeefeee | 6 comments | 21 Apr 25 01:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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godelski ◴[21 Apr 25 05:11 UTC] No.43748662[source]▶
This seems like quite a lot of work to hide the code. What would the legitimate reasons for this be? Because it looks like it would make the program less optimized and more complexity just leads to more errors.

I understand the desire to make it harder for bots, but 1) it doesn't seem to be effective and bots seem to be going a very different route 2) there's got to be better ways that are more effective. It's not like you're going to stop clones through this because clones can replicate by just seeing how things work and reverse engineer blackbox style.

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1. Scaevolus ◴[21 Apr 25 10:00 UTC] No.43750130[source]▶
Obfuscation is one part of defense in depth. Tiktok also has a variety of captchas to block scrapers, independent of this.

None of it's perfect, and they can be worked around, but by providing a barrier you've restricted some of the bad actors (spambots, scrapers) from acting at all.

It's easier to deal with 100 spambots than 1000!

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2. like_any_other ◴[21 Apr 25 15:11 UTC] No.43752843[source]▶
Unless the scrapers are DDoSing the site, I refuse to consider the downloading of publicly posted data as malicious. It shows how captured the conversation has become by corporate interests, that viewing or storing data posted free of charge, publicly, by their users, in a way not approved by that corporation, is seen as malicious, and the only morally allowed way to view it is to use their spyware-laden client.
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3. Scaevolus ◴[21 Apr 25 17:24 UTC] No.43754292[source]▶
What if the user has disabled downloads of a video? Should the creator (and copyright owner) of a piece of media not be allowed even token attempts to prevent copying?
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4. ndriscoll ◴[21 Apr 25 19:20 UTC] No.43755467{3}[source]▶
No because that interferes with fair use. If someone publicly posts a video, everyone has the right to copy it without any permission or awareness from the original author for things like commentary/criticism (it would be silly to require the copyright owner's permission to criticise a work!).
5. areyourllySorry ◴[21 Apr 25 19:49 UTC] No.43755727[source]▶
this is also a measure against bots that write, not just those that read
6. hoseja ◴[23 Apr 25 07:03 UTC] No.43769393{3}[source]▶
Here's a great way to prevent people copying your precious video: don't post in on the internet.