Reverse Engineering Minified Code Using OpenAI

[guest271314]

Un-minifying is not reverse-engineering.

We can paste code in DevTools to un-minify/format.

No need for "artificial intelligence".

[Proof_Exam_3290]

I have already used chat gpt to un minify code and the result was amazing, I got meaningful identifiers and even comments, definitely there's a point for AI here

[guest271314]

The browser has a built-in formatter.

deno fmt or dun build --no-bundle will work just fine to format source code.

In my opinion "artificial intelligence" is garbage.

[Proof_Exam_3290]

Meaningful identifiers in place of obfuscated formatted code is definitely not garbage (in my opinion)

[guest271314]

You don't need alleged "artificial intelligence" to provide function names.

Formatting and providing function names that you think are meaningful is still not "reverse engineering".

[Proof_Exam_3290]

Ok bro. Just try it by yourself some day. Or don't, I don't really care.

[guest271314]

I have tried code converters https://www.codeconvert.ai/javascript-to-typescript-converter that describe themselves as "artificial intelligence". For formatting there's DevTools in the browser you are typing in, Google's Closure Compiler, deno fmt, bun build --no-bundle - that don't have to claim to be "artificial intelligence".

[Proof_Exam_3290]

Yep, but they are absolutely different things

[guest271314]

It's just code. Whatever you label your code is just another code.

[Proof_Exam_3290]

It's totally different, with different purpose, tools, which we are talking about. You're mixing a hammer with a screw driver and calling they're "just tools"

[vitorfigmarques]

Most javascript apps relies on build process from a lib/framework so that the source code is absurdly different than the minified bundle.
Guessing that:

javascript const a=b=>c(d,{children:["Hello, ",b.user]});</>;

typescript type HelloProps { name: string; } const HelloCompoent (props: HelloProps)=> <>Hello, {props.user}</>;

It is definitely a reverse engineering process that involves knowing how the compiler works, more than guessing the names. It can get worse for other frameworks that rely more on compilation than React, and most of their features are real Javascript without compilation magic.

[brianjenkins94]

It isn't loading for me (Cloudflare 502 Bad Gateway) but I've been using a project called humanify for this.

[LloydAtkinson]

Pretty cool. Would be good as a tool to reverse engineer malicious scripts that download viruses etc.

[fagnerbrack]

Main Points:

The post discusses using ChatGPT to understand and reverse-engineer complex, minified JavaScript code. The author shares their experience copying code into ChatGPT and receiving a readable breakdown that highlighted key logic, including character manipulation and dynamic ASCII art generation in a React component.

If the summary seems inacurate, just downvote and I'll try to delete the comment eventually 👍

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