If TAAS optimizes already compiled SWFs really as good as it seems to, maybe it’s possible to release a version which just does that and nothing else? Simply a one way solution?

I’m looking forward to see what happens to my projects when optimized with your tool. I would definitly pay for a licence if it won’t be open source!

We all can’t wait to play around with it!

Greetings from Berlin!

The fundamental truth about all PC software is that relying on a “secure” client as a means to protect your revenue stream is a losing battle. If the client is valuable by itself then it will be hacked and compromised, regardless of the existence of decompilers or not.

Yes, theft of IP will occur. But the revenue “lost” is ultimately only revenue you wouldn’t have actually earned in the first place. Pirates weren’t ever going to pay for your product. Sites that’ll host hacked versions of your game and won’t respond to takedown notices aren’t sites you should depend on for ad-revenue.

Obviously there are still some very smart thieves that will be able to copy your work and make a profit off you, but if we get to the point where stealing is so incredibly hard, there’s such a small chance of your work being stolen that you will have effectively protected your work and therefore your profits.

Only pathetic people steal another’s hard work and brand it as their own and most of them do it very poorly. So if the obfuscation is good enough, those fools will be unable to steal from you. Even if it is still _technically_ possible, they won’t because they don’t know how or don’t have the time to figure it out.

With all that said, it seems that the people who will benefit from the decompiler as an educational tool are much fewer then those who would use it maliciously, mostly because it’s easier to be evil than learn yourself.

I vote to have the decompiler closed-source but open-source the obfuscator.

Yes, the technology can and probably will be abused, but also, there will be many like me who would see such tech as a god send in speeding up their development process (i.e. integrating freely-available foreign code).

Very impressed by your FOTB session.
Really feels like I am still in the sand box…
Great!
I needed that as much as this lump growing on my neck!

As for the opensource matter…
If you don’t make it opensource, someone will catch up anyway and make money with it.
So unless their is really a way you could forbid decompression, and you really fight it making updates and warning people, I would say go for open source.

Up until now, as a flash video-games developper, I know that if someone try enough, he will definitely be able to cheat (and will try to if there is a gain).
I can only do my best and let webmasters deal with the weirdly too good scores (knowing every game has a special score scale and cypher).
Still… people might find a way to cheat.
At least my games are fun.. I think.

So I would be glad that someone would finally find a way to ensure some protection into swf files.
I had an idea a while ago, of trying to protect my variables into my code by settings some random variables which would be infected too, by delaying my mouse or keyboard events with setTimeout and by calling false methods.
It would work well with obfuscation especially if you could put many of those nonsenses, but it is a pain in the ass to do it by hand.
But if a process would do so, and in a smart way so that it doesn’t ruin the performances, it could be of great use.

Also, about obfuscation, if instead of a SWF file, compilers could give a data file that a PHP function could read and send back to users as en SWF with different vars and functions names (and declared in different orders), cheaters would have an hard time cheating twice.

For such features, and some better in combination, I would be glad to pay a license fee.
That would be just right, most people needing it would need it because they make money of it.

I hope I didn’t say any nonsenses.
And forgive my English, I’ve learned from video games ya motha fucka.

Here’s a nice high profile example of what goes on:
http://www.thepencilfarm.com/blog/2008/02/snow_day_at_the_beijing_olympi.html

This kind of crap happens all the time to varying degrees. Why make theft even easier ? There’s this lovely dated view that people will just use a decompiler to check how some cool effect works so the person viewing it ( In breach of the t&c of the decompiler, but let’s let that slip ) can learn from it.
In real life, IP is stolen, with people making a profit on that theft.

I can see a vague need for decompilers, if you lose your source and your back-up and need to work on a swf, but what percentage of swf’s are decompiled for that reason ?

If it’s not this decompiler it’ll be another, and if it’s no decompiler it’ll be an outsourced team of developers in a cheaper market who simply rip off your genius idea.

The more developers that realize Flash is simply not a closed format the better off everyone will be for security purposes anyway, since obscurity is simply not an option.

I have seen people copying someone else’s code (some one that we all know in Flash world, and that other person and then he tried even make the original look like an idiot).

There are some real nasty people out there. :(

I guess I’m in the minority here being a game developer, but we and all my peers have suffered untold hacks of our games.
These aren’t anything useful like trainers, but people ripping out ads which pay for the games development ( Or even better, replacing the ads with their own ), inserting their own links / branding etc.

There’s so little money in indie game development anyway ( In spite of all the hype suggesting otherwise ) that giving script kiddies a free tool to make it even easier for them to steal our work just isn’t a great idea imho.

( As for the “justification” of decompilers as being a tool to see how something is done, if the author wanted you to know, it would be open sourced. If it’s not, then there’s a good reason for that )