Everyone needs to see this and also acknowledge why reverse engineering is a super power.
Credit to https://instagram.com/ayoships
Guy reverses the dark patterns of mobile apps and publishes it, absolutely love it!
There is nothing cooler than holding the ad bastards who ruined the web to account. Deconstruct the ivory towers. Hack the planet.
Oct 14, 2026, 12:13 PM@ciaranmak I play this particular game but only in airplane mode. I have never seen an ad. I wonder of that affects how the game plays.
I play s similar one. But I changed my phones dns to adguards and all the annoying ads are now gone.
No airplane mode involved.
@ciaranmak Reverse engineering is only as good as its inverse, and range forthwith, until another differentiated range arises.
Oct 14, 2026, 12:57 PM@ciaranmak@mastodon.ie edit: i unboosted it. this might be fake. the XGboost JSON in the IPA (extracted from an unknown version by a forum member) does not include MultiClearBoostThenKillTrait or RewardHighValueAdHarvestTrait as they were mentioned in the video
@ericjames I’m wondering if his reaction to these tricks is:
• “And, thanks to us, you can do that too!”
• Or “We make it easy to write non-evil apps.”
@ericjames JFC, learn how to express yourself like a sober, sane, self-respecting grown-up.
@ericjames @ciaranmak I think it casts doubt on the validity of the results, to be quite honest.
Reverse engineering isn't a super power, it's just engineering, and it needs to be done by people who know what they're doing. Not just slopmerchants.
Oct 15, 2026, 3:04 AM@Hyperlynx@aus.social yeah true, unboosting it
@ericjames from our friends in the SomethingAwful forums:
Nowhere do they say what version was downloaded?
Oct 15, 2026, 9:19 PM@Hyperlynx @ericjames I posted a bit about what I saw on bluesky, here's the summary
@Hyperlynx @ericjames It's a super power in terms of figuring out the underlying mechanisms of how things work that 99.99% of people don't bother putting under a microscope
@ericjames which version? Their latest version released literally yesterday doesn't have it
ie: turns out going viral for being twats has an effect
Oct 15, 2026, 9:21 AM@ciaranmak@mastodon.ie idk i got the link from someone who linked a post on the something awful forums. i downloaded the app myself (version 7.5.1, released before the video came out) and unless i'm doing something wrong i don't see the XGboost JSON in the package contents
@ericjames @ciaranmak ........huh? :blobcatgooglyheadache:
@ciaranmak @AnneTheWriter1 I’ve seen the same type of behavior even in “Block Blast+”, which is an Apple Arcade title. Even without the ads, the game will throw impossible levels at you, particularly as you get further on the “Adventure” mode.
I’m actually, very excited to see where this technology goes. The people must control & have power over AI not big tech. Well do so much more good from it.
Oct 14, 2026, 3:23 PM@ciaranmak Holy Jesus f*cking hell f*cks!?! THIS IS TERRIBLE! 🤯
Oct 14, 2026, 3:50 PM@ciaranmak everyone who plays games or watches videos needs to see this. The guy's a genius
@ciaranmak What happens when you try to play such a game behind a Pi-Hole or something similar so that it cannot load any advertisements?
@LordCaramac @ciaranmak I have had people attempt to play ad supported games on my Pi-hole'd network. Some games give an error and fail to load the entire game, some just have a black screen for the duration of the ad but the rest of the game runs. It really seems varied.
@ciaranmak Yeesh
@ciaranmak
Bong hits 4 this guy and his mad reverse-engineering skillz.
Oct 14, 2026, 5:54 PM@ciaranmak Kudos to him.
The people who design these kind of evil algorithm to create dependency and abuse players for profit are evil and deserve the guillotine. 😬
@ciaranmak my hero
@ciaranmak Sudoku.
1990s: You gotto accept adds, it pays for the free content
2000s: You gotta accept popup adds, it pays for the free content
2010s: You gotta accept the cookies and the tracking, it pays for the free content
2020s: You gotta accept the algorithms, the dark patterns, the spying and the techbro oligarchy, it pays for the free content
2030s: You gotta accept being controlled like a meat puppet via the brainport, it pays for the free content
@ciaranmak
Advertising is a global cancer that needs to be heavily regulated.
@Sector9 @ciaranmak you don't regulate cancer, you cut it out or eradicate it with powerful drugs and radiation.
I fully support the use cancer treatment techniques against advertising.
@ciaranmak Brilliant work.
@ciaranmak Who the fuck ever came up with the notion that making videos like this is anything other than manic insanity? I'm honestly having trouble coming up with the language to express how much I fucking hate this. I even hate whoever shared it, just for exposing me to it. When the online community turn into a mob of coked-out dipshits?
@wesdym @ciaranmak
You didn't explain what you mean, and what your objection is.
@harry_wood @wesdym
LMAO - guy clearly likes ad abuse.
Oct 15, 2026, 10:45 AM@wesdym Now, now...
In another thread you complained that even muderous MAGA deserves respect. Not calling people dehumanizing names is a two-way street. 🙃
@tasket Someone apparently either can't parse language registers, or just likes to be contrary for the sake of it, for lack of more worthwhile efforts.
@ciaranmak At 0:52 the variable is called MAXXiBaiTrait
Xi Bai is 惜败: "be unfortunate to lose by just a small margin"
When the product is "free" YOU are the product
Oct 15, 2026, 12:19 PM@ArrestJK you're on Mastodon.
@malin there is no product
@malin but yes good point :D
@ciaranmak @kurau I vibe coded an exact clone of one these dark patterns app that my wife liked. they’re so simple too that you can’t tell the difference between a PWA or not.
@ciaranmak ping @CrispinHughes
Just a bit of technical nitpicking: He didn't figure this out through reverse engineering, but through decompiling.
Reverse engineering basically works by looking at what an app does and then developing something that behaves exactly the same way. However, you can only “reverse engineer” what you can see or what you already know in advance about an app's behavior.
@Ann_Effes That may be how you define reverse engineering but it's not how I do, I've been working in the security space for 15 years.
Decompiling is a sub category of reverse engineering, which is a very large and wide category. So in terms of technical nitpicking, I disagree.
The process of observing the apps behavior to discovering the underlying mechanics of how it actually works is reverse engineering at its core, despite the exact mechanism you use to get there.
Interesting.
So we do have a some disagreement, about the terms "Reverse Engineering" vs "decompiling".
Anyways: Interesting results fore sure, no matter what method.
@ciaranmak and this is why the games industry needs to die.
Oct 15, 2026, 1:00 PM@ciaranmak @fabi1cazenave look at the replies, it's probably fake (or misunderstood).
@ciaranmak Im sorry but this looks incredibly fake, like engagement bait.
@ciaranmak It sure is a super power. He doesn't have it, look at his other videos and you'll see that just two apps ago he was very transparent that he had used AI to reverse engineer it. Before then, a lot of his videos are about AI.