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Possible Duplicate:
Decompile iPhone app binary

This question may be unethical or at least it belongs to the hacking area or the dark side of the iPhone development.

I would like to take a look into the app without having a login (there is no registration, it is not that everyone can have an account).

Is it possible that I download it to the iPhone, transfer somehow the IPA file. Open it and take a look at the stuff that's there - e.g. resource files and xib files?

Do you know any successful approaches for reverse engineering the iPhone app downloaded from the app store.

Any suggestions are welcomed!

Please do not support spam answers/statements that it is not moral/illegal.

Community
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Rafał Sroka
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  • See also [Reverse Engineering?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12210945/reverse-engineering), [Is it possible to reverse-engineer my iPhone application?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5058203/is-it-possible-to-reverse-engineer-my-iphone-application), [How to protect app IPA from hacks if reverse engineering is possible](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6939222/how-to-protect-app-ipa-from-hacks-if-reverse-engineering-is-possible), among many others here. – Brad Larson Jan 22 '13 at 05:29

1 Answers1

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In order to look at an application that is installed onto the device, you will need to Jailbreak the device.

This is legal to do, at least in the US. The Electronic Frontier Foundation successfully argued this a number of years ago, and it was recently renewed.

Whether it is ethical or not, depends on what you want to do.

Bear in mind that one of the first products designed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak was a "Blue Box" - a device for making free phone calls. A certain amount of curiosity helps one to become a good engineer, especially if you want to specialize in security.

At the same time, the reason we have such a strong iOS industry now is because end-users can be reasonably assured that the apps they install will behave as advertised (and not get up to any funny-business).

Please ensure that you have a strong moral compass if you wish to proceed. Do not do anything unethical.

After jail-breaking the device, you can install ssh and scp. Place it on your local network and ssh in as root. Change to the: 

/Application

. . . directory and scp the .app file that you are interested to your local machine. Investigate.

Jasper Blues
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    Thank you Jasper for a constructive answer. I am not a cracker but a curious programmer. Haters will hate! – Rafał Sroka Jan 18 '13 at 09:58
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    @reecon Note that if you want to have a look at the *code* of the app, you'll have to decrypt it first. It's not very difficult with gdb or some other tools, but is not trivial either. – Igor Skochinsky Jan 18 '13 at 11:33