[HN Gopher] Deobfuscating World of Warships' Python Scripts
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       Deobfuscating World of Warships' Python Scripts
        
       Author : lukastyrychtr
       Score  : 55 points
       Date   : 2023-11-17 11:23 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (landaire.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (landaire.net)
        
       | zem wrote:
       | as someone who works on static analysis of (regular, non-
       | obfuscated) python bytecode, that was super interesting. if this
       | sort of thing were more common, i could see people developing
       | interactive tools that let you iteratively poke at the pyc files
       | to help the decompiler along, and in the process hopefully
       | identify patterns you could then automate.
        
       | coldcode wrote:
       | It brings back memories of when I spent six months fighting a
       | company (one person doing the work) writing a cheat package for
       | our game by trying to make his life hell in our binary. Both
       | obfuscation and the opposite are amazingly fun to work on; you
       | have to understand both ends to be effective. Eventually, I made
       | the guy give up as it was too much work for insufficient money
       | (the cheat cost more monthly than we charged for the game, but in
       | reality most people did not use it). In my case, it was not
       | Python (our game was C/C++), but the difficulty was similar. It's
       | hard to cheat in WO* games as the server validates everything.
        
         | all2 wrote:
         | What is a WO* game?
        
           | 0xffff2 wrote:
           | Presumably "World of <X>", e.g. World of Warships, World of
           | Tanks... not sure if there are others.
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | World of (Warships*/Tanks*/Warplanes). Basically,
           | Wargaming.net games that aren't Master of Orion.
           | 
           | * These are each game lines with three entries each
        
             | all2 wrote:
             | I played so much MoO when I was a kid. I've still got the
             | CD laying around somewhere.
        
               | lstodd wrote:
               | Try 1oom+rbo or/and ROTP
               | 
               | https://gitlab.com/ignatius_rbo/1oom.git
               | 
               | https://rayfowler.itch.io/remnants-of-the-precursors
        
         | V__ wrote:
         | I would love to read a blog post or similar about this. Sounds
         | like a fun challenge.
        
       | ajkjk wrote:
       | I'll bite. What's up with the "Anyone But Stefan Esser" license?
        
         | fsckboy wrote:
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/5kcqx0/discussio...
         | 
         | submitted 6 years ago _This is the quote from Yalu 's website.
         | ( https://yalu.qwertyoruiop.com/ )_
         | 
         |  _" my patches and additions on top of Ian's code are licensed
         | under the ABSE ("Anyone But Stefan Esser") license. note that
         | an additional exception to the license is added, forbidding
         | use/redistribution of said content to his trainees as well, but
         | only when in a 5 mile radius from "Stefan Esser" or while
         | holding any sort of (video)conference/chat with him."_
        
         | stavros wrote:
         | I think this guy?
         | 
         | https://www.crunchbase.com/person/stefan-esser
        
         | vGPU wrote:
         | Stefan esser was a bit infamous in the iOS jailbreak scene for
         | being a bit of an ass and trolling the community to try to get
         | people to pay for his iOS security lessons.
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-17 23:00 UTC)