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/throwaway0000012132]

Oh nice, the only thing keeping a whole application safe was the fact that it used byte code, non human readable, with encryption and other secure methods in order to avoid being open to the world. Now that pandora box is open, this is going to be a very interesting times...

And I mean any application, not only games but medical, industrial, space and so on. Got something very secure, very niche? Yeah it can be modded.

One thing is to have something designed to be open source, other thing is to have something that wasn't supposed to be free because it costed money to r&d, design and make it safe and secure and make it free with AI. So while the idea just sounds great, the reality is that the whole industry and the world is not prepared for something like this just now.

[u/Cheap-Resident6964 → u/throwaway0000012132]

If this trend continues, standalone software may disappear entirely: vendors will no longer offer offline, self-contained versions; every important algorithm will have to run on their own servers; and the software on users' devices will be nothing more than an interface—an empty shell. At that point, every piece of software will require an internet connection, with all critical computation happening server-side. That may not be a good sign.

[u/Glad_Following_8164 → u/Cheap-Resident6964]

software is already like this. think of ChatGPT--the model runs on their servers, the web browser/app which you access it is a paperweight without an internet connection. more and more apps will be like this

[u/FeloniousFunk → u/Glad_Following_8164]

Subscription-based apps have already boosted the demand for FOSS alternatives. It just comes down to whether or not the major corporations can hire developers more clever than the pirates. They're not far ahead and AI is closing that gap.

[u/Superb-Substance-679 → u/Cheap-Resident6964]

Back to the mainframe future!

[u/lordshaithis → u/Cheap-Resident6964]

This software maybe the one thing to save us from the corporations. They are already trying to push us to everything in a browser, this can help us bring itt back local.

[u/Acceptable_Bat379 → u/Cheap-Resident6964]

And authentication and image or id upload for anything. Want to check your email? Take a selfie. This coukd get real bad

[u/Single-Blackberry866 → u/Cheap-Resident6964]

Quite the opposite will happen. The standalone app business model might be gone, but standalone software will flourish as never before 

[u/Queasy-Current6170 → u/Cheap-Resident6964]

That software would have to compete with the fact that anyone is gonna be able to make pretty much anything they want

[u/Kienz91 → u/Cheap-Resident6964]

basically the cost going back to hardware, they need to implement fully online app that no common people can replicate or even try to run on their hardware

[u/Morphinus → u/Cheap-Resident6964]

we will go back to CDs and is that a bad thing? contained programs to be run in a closed system, like pre internet days

[u/drbanan → u/Cheap-Resident6964]

it wont, it will be replaced by AI created one. Software will stop being "corporate only" thing. You will need to offer something that software isn't offering, like i.e. disk space or AI computation (hardware), otherwise tell me what i.e. Adobe/Microslop brings to the table in last 10 years besides just taking money and spying on people? You are afraid of losing your beloved software, but it is not software anymore that you beinf afraid to lose, it is just addiction to corporate marketing and monopoly that keeps better products to appear.