The same is true for iPhone apps (.ipa files). You can just unzip them.
They are typically encrypted, though.
Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
21–30 of 91 posts
Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
#22Warning: Very rambly and somewhat incoherent video; tried to pay attention due to the topic being of interest, but very quickly gave up. EULAs be damned, even the DMCA has exceptions for RE in the name of interoperability and repair.
You're going to the bathroom at an airport? You pee in a urinal you can't even take home.
YOU
OWN
NOTHING
Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
#23What a coincidence, I just got an email announcing that Breville intend to orphan my Joule sous vide stick: the existing app will stop working, the new app is only available the US and Canada and in parts of Europe. Live in another country? You're s.o.l., it wasn't officially sold there. You need a new account as well, hope you like the TOS. All of this for a device whose core functionality -- setting a target temper…
This reads like satire: The ability to cook with or without WiFi anywhere, anytime.
I'd pay to cook with WiFi. Just imagine the signal strength!
Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
#24What a coincidence, I just got an email announcing that Breville intend to orphan my Joule sous vide stick: the existing app will stop working, the new app is only available the US and Canada and in parts of Europe. Live in another country? You're s.o.l., it wasn't officially sold there. You need a new account as well, hope you like the TOS. All of this for a device whose core functionality -- setting a target temper…
I have an Anova sous vide cooker that is also about 10 years old and has an app, but is fully functional without it. When I bought it the app was free, but then later became a subscription addon. However they grandfathered all original owners into a free lifetime subscription. Pretty classy.
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Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
#25What a coincidence, I just got an email announcing that Breville intend to orphan my Joule sous vide stick: the existing app will stop working, the new app is only available the US and Canada and in parts of Europe. Live in another country? You're s.o.l., it wasn't officially sold there. You need a new account as well, hope you like the TOS. All of this for a device whose core functionality -- setting a target temper…
This reads like satire: The ability to cook with or without WiFi anywhere, anytime.
And in a bold face font:
> You've always needed an account to operate your Joule Sous Vide with the Joule app. This is not a new requirement.
Absolute comedy.
Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
#26What a coincidence, I just got an email announcing that Breville intend to orphan my Joule sous vide stick: the existing app will stop working, the new app is only available the US and Canada and in parts of Europe. Live in another country? You're s.o.l., it wasn't officially sold there. You need a new account as well, hope you like the TOS. All of this for a device whose core functionality -- setting a target temper…
This reads like satire: The ability to cook with or without WiFi anywhere, anytime.
If you're not cooking with WiFi, you need more key-down transmit power.
I'm currently full QRO on the 13cm band with something around 1600W EIRP CW, and will be for several minutes until the curry base defrosts.
Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
#27The same is true for iPhone apps (.ipa files). You can just unzip them.
Sometimes you also find hidden things lurking accidentally left behind in IPAs and APKs that are nice and juicy and realize they've been shipped on Google Play/App Store for years.
I've found everything from entire copies of internal company manuals to working test credentials for a physical place with a membership barcode in debug logs left inside the app from developers.
Also sometimes changelogs left inside by accident which include things like "It hasn't been sanitized for outside consumption and thus should remain internal to . Deliver it externally at your own risk of embarassment."
Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
#28Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
#29The same is true for iPhone apps (.ipa files). You can just unzip them.
.docx and .xlsx are also just zip files with XML and attachments. The bad thing is that the XML is Word's internal document structure serialized and behavior for some values is only defined in Microsoft's code.
I've worked on docx and xlsx import/export and the public documentation for the formats was sufficient for normal documents (maybe excluding some very exotic features). That was ca 2010.
Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]
#30I've found that Claude Code works well at reversing java applications. Even if it is fully obfuscated claude can restore sensible names for everything and understand how it all works and answer questions about what it is doing.
Naming is an area where LLMs are useful; but I'd still use a regular Java decompiler (there are quite a few of these around) for the actual decompilation part.
Claude will opt to use a regular Java decompiler too.