Re-Engineering BB Project From Xcode

Discussion in 'Buildbox General Discussion' started by Kevin W, Dec 17, 2015.

  1. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    Hey guys,
    I see this dev posting a few clones using BB ( even leaving the BB splash screen on ) and was curious on how on earth is he doing this?

    I've played his clone of our Slippy Slopes game and it is way too similar for someone to recreate this from scratch, I mean, aside from images, the levels are identical, and I mean identical even down to speed and small touches we added - is it possible the exported XML settings are being used or something like this?

    Here's his games that I've seen so far, and I know all too well about cloning, but I thought I'd throw it out there for some insights as it seems ridiculously similar.

    Slippy Slopes
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/downhill-skier/id1067296164?mt=8

    BBP Clone ( @Lee Fellows )
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ninja-cave-endless-cave-surviving/id1063171876?mt=8

    Ketchapp ( @Florian Porkert Game )
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hero-lift-jumpers/id1055716018?mt=8

    thanks team and hopefully if he is a legit customer and reads this, shame on you dude!
     
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  2. Andy

    Andy Miniboss Boxer

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    A really crafty person can lift some data from any game (not just BB) and reverse engineer to varying extents, I won't go into details for obvious reasons... unfortunately Apple does not provide any encryption protection for binary IPA files. What you can do though is file a DMCA takedown request if you want it taken down. (Or just email Apple, I'm not sure the exact process.)
     
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  3. sysads

    sysads Serious Boxer

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    Also just so you know since this is now mentioned here, it appears someone has access to if not all the buildbox games .bbdoc files released so far on your Buildbox site. He said he developed it by himself but I thought since it took months for some games to be made and one person cannot overnight create all similar games.

    There was a youtube video showing this but that was later removed or made private.
     
  4. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    Hey Andy,

    Yeah, I know the options on IPA's etc, that's cool and realise it's the same throughout, but feel this somehow goes beyond reverse engineering on our game - and super strange that it is pretty much like for like, but I was shocked to see the level of replication - We have a ton a levels randomly generated on this game, this copy is incredible, pretty sure I couldn't re-do the stuff we did :)

    And sure, we've done quite a few take downs with Apple.

    Thanks dude, just putting it out there.
     
  5. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    @sysads - can you expand a bit more please? You say "your" - do you mean buildbox.com? If you find anything else I'd be interested to hear more.
     
  6. sysads

    sysads Serious Boxer

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    Found the youtube video. Watch and tell me if these are not BBox games, including SKY :( since no one has access to V2 except Buildbox Team
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 17, 2015
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  7. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    wow - wtf!

    Team BB, any thoughts? That is certainly my exact file on Slopes, the start screen is pixel perfect :( Feel worried right now.

    thanks @sysads
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2015
  8. VectologyGames

    VectologyGames Serious Boxer

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    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 17, 2015
  9. sysads

    sysads Serious Boxer

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    Yep that tells you someone had been very busy. We cannot eliminate clones which is fine but seeing these tells me someone has access to all the buildbox submitted games.
     
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  10. VectologyGames

    VectologyGames Serious Boxer

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    Inside Job.....
     
  11. ajcoryat

    ajcoryat Avid Boxer

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    Holy shit! These are all the top games. Even if you had unzipped an ipa file you wouldn't get the bbdoc files. That's just crazy.
     
  12. Sean Buildbox

    Sean Buildbox Serious Boxer

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    Hey guys!

    Thanks for bringing this to our attention. First off, I'm removing the video so we do not send people his way. (For the people who did not see it, someone is showing a video of them opening up BBDOCS of popular games). It appears someone has figured out how to reverse engineer binaries into bbdocs, which isn't surprising as they've been doing the same with flash and even compiled C++ code for a while.

    We do not believe this is an inside job. You'll notice he showed Sky but did not preview it. This is because it was built with a prototype and would not run on a normal version of Buildbox. He most likely still figured out how to extract the mapping data for images into scenes.

    The technical team will be reviewing this and figuring out ways to increase security of binaries. Thanks again for bringing it to our attention.
     
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  13. sysads

    sysads Serious Boxer

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    Sorry I had to post this here as I was not sure if this was true or not but thanks for looking into it.
     
  14. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    Thanks for the update @seanjonathanconnor - I figured it had to be something like this.
    Thanks for posting @sysads , I'd normally shrug these things off but this definitely smelt more than a cheap clone.

    I must say this is extremely worrying moving forward for us, there's one thing downloading an IPA ( etc etc ) but being able to essentially recompile the source code directly is a massive blow, it would be great to get some assurance that Team BB can put something into action to rectify this soon.

    Thanks
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2015
  15. ajcoryat

    ajcoryat Avid Boxer

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    A couple years ago we had this problem with someone reverse engineering Project Zero games. We rallied the troops and had GooglePlay shut the guy down.
     
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  16. Simon Crack

    Simon Crack Avid Boxer

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    This potentially explains why I've seen so many 'exact code rips' not crappy clones (don't give a crap about those) of my stuff. Wondered how the hell a guy was appearing to sell mine and @Florian Porkert game code AND included BB doc on Chupa (I figured it was a IPA code rip and shitty re-built BB doc) - we got them removed - but wowza I'm floored. I echo @Kevin W comments!
     
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  17. VectologyGames

    VectologyGames Serious Boxer

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    I was not speaking of the Buildbox team. More so the app review teams or some shadowy group of app terrorist.
     
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  18. Simon Crack

    Simon Crack Avid Boxer

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    I will also add I NEVER shared the Exit Zone BB doc with anyone - so @seanjonathanconnor has probably cracked the issue here.
     
  19. Sean Buildbox

    Sean Buildbox Serious Boxer

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    Yeah @Simon Crack that was my first thought actually is that the collection of apps to my knowledge would not be hackable from one source. We certainly are taking this reverse engineering matter very seriously and the team is already working to add further protections.
     
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  20. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    Exactly, our docs haven't been shared so that was never a consideration :)
    thanks @seanjonathanconnor - anything to make these bleeps life harder would be awesome.
     
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