picheta.me

Dev tools

code obfuscator

SHOW HN2018

44points
34comments
#840of 2,155 in 2018
Top 39%of 2018 by points

How HN took it

RoastedHalf or more of the comments are critical

1 positive, 5 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 10 critical, out of 16 comments about the project. Thread score -0.42.

Execution: 0 for, 4 againstIdea: 0 for, 3 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 2 againstDesign: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Academically impressive and a nice idea

    From 1 comment
    • Academically, kudos! This seems cool and a nice idea but... Speaking practically this strikes me as one of "this shouldn't be an online tool" things. It sends the source code to…
      throwaway2016a on HN
  • Fun to play with for a C newbie

    From 1 comment
    • Thanks for sharing this. I'm a C newbie so it was neat to play with. Don't stop making and sharing neat stuff!
      Waterluvian on HN

Objections

  • Obfuscating C source does not stop decompilation of compiled code

    From 1 comment
    • I'm not entirely sure what is this for. This won't stop decompilation because it doesn't affect compiled code - constant folding is part of C language, "\x0A" is the same thing…
      GlitchMr on HN
  • Sending source to a server is risky for code meant to be secret

    From 1 comment
    • Academically, kudos! This seems cool and a nice idea but... Speaking practically this strikes me as one of "this shouldn't be an online tool" things. It sends the source code to…
      throwaway2016a on HN
  • Renames externally visible identifiers and fails on C++ features like templates and lambdas

    From 3 comments
    • As far as I can tell, the "rename identifiers" feature also renames externally-visible identifers, which should remain the same if the code ought to keep working.
      slrz on HN
    • No template support? template <typename T> T add(T a, T b) { return a + b; } Is there a list of C++ features it supports?
      dymk on HN
    • It doesn't seem very keen on handling lambdas in C++ mode: #include <stdio.h> int main() { return [](){return 5;}(); } Results in unhandled exceptions.
      Gladdyu on HN

Requests

  • Support for C++ features such as templates and lambdas

    From 2 comments
    • No template support? template <typename T> T add(T a, T b) { return a + b; } Is there a list of C++ features it supports?
      dymk on HN
    • It doesn't seem very keen on handling lambdas in C++ mode: #include <stdio.h> int main() { return [](){return 5;}(); } Results in unhandled exceptions.
      Gladdyu on HN
  • A CLI version for whole projects

    From 1 comment
    • Wouldn't you use a tool to do that automatically in your build process? I can't see using a web page to obfuscate an entire project, one file at a time.
      jeremyjh on HN

Questions

  • What is the use case for obfuscating C code

    From 2 comments
    • What’s the use of something like this
      tobyhinloopen on HN
    • I'm not entirely sure what is this for. This won't stop decompilation because it doesn't affect compiled code - constant folding is part of C language, "\x0A" is the same thing…
      GlitchMr on HN
  • Is there a market for this product

    From 1 comment
    • I agree completely. I'm warmly impressed that this is getting attention on HN. To give a bit more context: I wrote this obfuscator for my BSc dissertation and created a web…
      dom96 on HN

Alternatives named

  • Tigress obfuscator

    From 1 comment
    • Indeed, the current transformations implemented by my obfuscator aren't particularly sophisticated, at least in comparison to some of the obfuscator's I evaluated such as…
      dom96 on HN
  • Microsoft Warbird obfuscation

    From 1 comment
    • People have been looking into Microsoft's Warbird obfuscation[1] and it looks pretty impressive. [1] https://github.com/airbus-seclab/warbirdvm
      beefhash on HN
  • Proguard

    From 1 comment
    • I'm assuming similar use cases to things like Proguard. If you need to provide your client with C code because they need to compile for a large range of architectures but they're…
      gravypod on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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