Hi, I'm a maker of this apktool toolchain.
I want to know, what, do you think, someone could steal from your apps? Some great algorithms? From phone app? Layouts? Localization strings? Also we shouldn't forget about the fact, that anyone could just download any app from Market and place it on his website. Android is open from the assumption, of course that doesn't mean everybody should give others their sources, but that does mean security isn't main concern. You all knew of that, when you decided to code for Android. bytecode Also, I think, you misunderstand, what apktool does exactly. You are talking about code stealing, but it don't help much with the code. It uses different tool, smali/baksmali, which is dex assembler/ disassembler. And speaking of why Google didn't removed apktool site - smali is on code.google.com too and it is there more than a year. You should know that your apps aren't encrypted in any way. Both resources decoding (apktool) and code disassembling (baksmali) aren't processes of cracking security, but converting data from one format to another. It's something like unpacking zipped text file: was binary, is human readable now, but that definitely isn't cracking something, right? Even without tools like apktool or smali it was possible to modify apks, because all data was always there, just in different, binary format. Apktool is just 2 months old, but there were UI themes from the beginning of Android's live - people modified files directly in binary format. Also, as someone said, sources are in bytecode, they could be even invoked from someone else code without any problem. That is how Java works. Ahh and sounds, images, etc. were always "crackable" using piracy tools like e.g. WinRAR. You should rethink, whether there is really any sense in stealing something from your app. Ideas, design and appearance could be "stolen" by just looking at it. Algorithms? It is really hard to analyze simple loop in smali code - it's asm, you know. If you really want to not let other people even look at your work, you should consider moving to iPhones. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
