I Tested The Viral Github Repo That Reverse Engineers Anything — Transcript

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1. 0:00Reverse engineer everything, where REA
2. 0:02is an MCP that allows you to virtually
3. 0:05rebuild any software you want by
4. 0:07actually decompiling the source app and
5. 0:10then giving your AI agent a bunch of
6. 0:11instructions behind how to recreate or
7. 0:13replicate those features. Pretty much
8. 0:15everybody is talking about it and doing
9. 0:16cool demos like reverse engineering
10. 0:19their Apple TV remote in around 45
11. 0:21minutes. Or like one person on X thinks
12. 0:24reproduce the entire suite of Photoshop
13. 0:26apps. In this video, I'm going to run
14. 0:28you guys through how REA works, but also
15. 0:31why I think a couple of people are are
16. 0:33missing the point. And ultimately
17. 0:35speaking, what this means for software
18. 0:37more broadly. So yeah, everybody on
19. 0:38planet Earth is making a big fuss right
20. 0:41now about REA. Matthew Berman said
21. 0:43reverse engineer anything software is
22. 0:45done.
23. 0:46You know, this fellow here said software
24. 0:47is dead, long live software. Amjad, the
25. 0:50Replit CEO, said this is insane. Pretty
26. 0:52much all software will soon be open
27. 0:54source. And Jaden Williams says God help
28. 0:56us all. You know, somebody that used to
29. 0:57develop software, I can empathize with a
30. 0:59lot of these concerns. But there are a
31. 1:01couple of things that I think you need
32. 1:02to know about REA to really be able to
33. 1:04deduce whether or not that is A true and
34. 1:06B what you can do about it. So first,
35. 1:08the way reverse engineer anything
36. 1:10actually works is you, a lowly human,
37. 1:13will ask your super smart squiggly AI
38. 1:15agent, "Hey, how does this feature work?
39. 1:18Can you make me this app? And reverse
40. 1:20engineer it." Your AI agent then sends a
41. 1:22request to the REA MCP. This then sends
42. 1:25a request to a tool suite containing
43. 1:27apps like Ghidra, which I think was
44. 1:29initially released in 2019, Hopper,
45. 1:31which I believe is 2011, and even IDA,
46. 1:34which I pretty sure was released in the
47. 1:3690s. This REA library then allows your
48. 1:39agent to seamlessly communicate with
49. 1:41each of these tools. It can then use
50. 1:43Chrome DevTools and other
51. 1:45you know, services to help poke around
52. 1:47the app and learn more about it before
53. 1:49finally giving you some sort of result.
54. 1:51That result usually includes some pseudo
55. 1:53code, which just means not actually
56. 1:55code, just high-level descriptions of
57. 1:57what's going on, some proof of what's
58. 1:59happening, and then any unknowns. Your
59. 2:01agent then picks that up, and then it
60. 2:02just continues circling around and
61. 2:04around like a fat merry-go-round until
62. 2:06your agent has effectively rebuilt the
63. 2:07whole app. It's pretty easy to get up
64. 2:09and running with this stuff. You
65. 2:10literally just tell your agent, "Hey, go
66. 2:12download reverse engineer anything, REA,
67. 2:16and let me know when you're done." Um
68. 2:18I'm using this inside of a cool terminal
69. 2:20manager called Orca. Reason I like Orca
70. 2:23is because I just get to, you know,
71. 2:24really quickly and easily create a bunch
72. 2:26of terminal subdivisions, and then I can
73. 2:27run Claude in one, Codex in another, and
74. 2:30so on and so forth. You don't need to do
75. 2:32that, obviously. You can do this in
76. 2:33whatever freaking app you guys want. Um
77. 2:35I just, you know, I like this one
78. 2:36because it makes me feel all smart and
79. 2:38big-brained. As you guys could see, the
80. 2:40main agent here has already found REA,
81. 2:42and now we can go and we can try
82. 2:43rebuilding something. All right, now
83. 2:45that it's all downloaded and installed,
84. 2:47thanks, Claude. We can actually just
85. 2:48start a new Claude session. So, I'm
86. 2:51going to exit out of this. So, I'm going
87. 2:52to go Claude again. We were indeed
88. 2:54busting. And I'm going to say, "Use REA
89. 2:55to rebuild the preview app on my Mac."
90. 2:59So, for those of you guys that don't
91. 3:00know, preview is just like a little
92. 3:02photo app. It looks just like this. And
93. 3:04in my case, I have this loaded up with a
94. 3:06pretty badass-looking picture of some
95. 3:09scary titan-looking thing attacking some
96. 3:11tiny human-looking thing. And you know,
97. 3:13there's a bunch of different
98. 3:14functionality. I have a little I button
99. 3:16that I can click. I have a little zoom
100. 3:18out, zoom in. You know, this is a this
101. 3:19is an application, essentially. And so,
102. 3:22I can, you know, rebuild my own,
103. 3:24obviously. But what if I really like the
104. 3:25way that this was laid out, the way that
105. 3:27it looked? What if I wanted the ability
106. 3:29to, I don't know,
107. 3:30draw boxes or maybe do a little bit of
108. 3:32handwriting on it? Well, that's where
109. 3:34something like REA would come in handy.
110. 3:36And so, I just said, "Rebuild the
111. 3:37preview app on my Mac." And now I'm just
112. 3:39going to sit around and wait. And let's
113. 3:40see what happens. One tiny tweak. While
114. 3:43this is happening, I'm going to get
115. 3:44Claude to try and rebuild the same app
116. 3:46without using REA. So, I'm going to say,
117. 3:49"Without using REA, a
118. 3:51of the Mac preview app, the photo viewer
119. 3:55one, and then serve me the result. You
120. 3:58can do this in I don't know, however you
121. 4:01see fit. Let's see which one here I like
122. 4:04more. It's done some decompiling with
123. 4:05Ghidra and I'd say we're probably
124. 4:07halfway done. And it looks like these
125. 4:09two are actually in a race to the finish
126. 4:10trying to create the preview app in
127. 4:13their own independent ways. Okay, and so
128. 4:16the end result uh was first completed by
129. 4:19Opus without any libraries. As you guys
130. 4:21could see here, we have the the preview
131. 4:23app. Does seem a little bit laggy. I
132. 4:25think that may be because I'm currently
133. 4:27developing the other app in the
134. 4:28background, but hey, uh we'll compare
135. 4:30them more broadly in a moment. So, it's
136. 4:31been another, you know, 3 4 minutes
137. 4:33since uh still waiting for the one on
138. 4:36the left, okay, the R E A version to
139. 4:37work. It's testing by opening and
140. 4:40closing a bunch of tabs, flashing alpha
141. 4:42on my screen. Um I think it's actually
142. 4:43going to launch now with three files and
143. 4:45show me the difference. Cool. And so,
144. 4:47here is the app that R E A developed.
145. 4:49Okay, and here is my preview app on my
146. 4:51computer. And as you guys could see
147. 4:53here, it is virtually the same thing. Uh
148. 4:55if I just were to pull this open to
149. 4:57approximately the same size as my other
150. 4:59computer as my other window, let's see.
151. 5:01We have what looks to be the title. This
152. 5:05one is far longer, which I think
153. 5:06explains a big chunk of the difference.
154. 5:08We do have the information. We can zoom
155. 5:10in, zoom out. We can share this. Uh
156. 5:13looks like we can also draw on the page.
157. 5:15And the drawing is occurring far faster
158. 5:18than the other app.
159. 5:19Uh looks like we can also rotate as much
160. 5:21as we want, stop the annotation, and
161. 5:23then ultimately save this file to my
162. 5:25computer, which is neat. The issue is
163. 5:27everybody's treating this like it's a
164. 5:28super new thing. Um but I think like a
165. 5:30lot of technological developments, to be
166. 5:31clear, it is not. I mean, Ghidra over
167. 5:33here has been around since, as
168. 5:35mentioned, 2019. It was actually
169. 5:37released by the freaking National
170. 5:38Security Agency. I don't know if you
171. 5:40guys could tell, but that is an
172. 5:41American-ass looking eagle. The Hopper
173. 5:43Disassembler, I don't know if it's
174. 5:44clear, was also not made anytime
175. 5:46recently. That website looks like it
176. 5:48crawled out of the Stone Ages. Finally,
177. 5:50IDA, although a little more modern, was
178. 5:52also released a forever ago. And so, the
179. 5:55point I'm trying to make here is nothing
180. 5:57is super new or special. All REA does is
181. 6:00it just basically gives your AI agent
182. 6:02access to these tools in a really simple
183. 6:03interface, and that is ultimately what
184. 6:05allows it to do this reverse
185. 6:06engineering. But, I want to make things
186. 6:08really clear here. Um I've seen a lot of
187. 6:10people talk about how dope this thing is
188. 6:11and how incredible uh this enables
189. 6:13scientific and software advances to to
190. 6:15be. But, I haven't actually seen very
191. 6:17good demos. And so, I think this is one
192. 6:19of those situations where the internet
193. 6:21has probably gotten a little bit ahead
194. 6:22of itself. Uh you know, there's a lot of
195. 6:23incentives on signal boosting cool
196. 6:26developments like this. Obviously, a lot
197. 6:27of people have also been doing very dope
198. 6:29things with games like, you know, Tony
199. 6:31Hawk's Pro Skater in Halo 3 meets Modern
200. 6:34Warfare times Runescape. Um you know, I
201. 6:36myself I had a reverse engineer moment a
202. 6:38couple days ago where I combined themes
203. 6:40from Minecraft and then Attack on Titan
204. 6:42and made a really dope game. And you
205. 6:43know, I think it's more of like a
206. 6:44memetic cultural moment than it is,
207. 6:45genuinely speaking, a new breakthrough.
208. 6:47And part of the reason that I think you
209. 6:49know this is because virtually every
210. 6:51video that talks about REA starts with a
211. 6:54graph that looks something like this,
212. 6:55which is just how many GitHub stars it's
213. 6:57gotten over the course of the last few
214. 6:59days. You can see that it was, you know,
215. 7:01probably reasonably steady about a week
216. 7:02ago, week and a half ago. But, last few
217. 7:04days in particular have been pretty
218. 7:05nuts.
219. 7:06Um you know that when a video starts
220. 7:08talking about how many GitHub stars a
221. 7:11thing has or how super trending it is,
222. 7:13that it probably lacks something more
223. 7:15interesting to show you instead. Like,
224. 7:17if the only thing you could talk about
225. 7:19are GitHub stars, then it's like, well,
226. 7:20why don't you just show me the super
227. 7:21dope demo instead, right? Like, why are
228. 7:23we talking about people's perception to
229. 7:25a thing as opposed to the actual value
230. 7:26of the thing itself? Anyway, that's just
231. 7:28me being an old man. Uh more broadly,
232. 7:30you know, there are some really cool
233. 7:32reverse engineering applications. And I
234. 7:34think as somebody that's been doing a
235. 7:35fair amount of this stuff myself over
236. 7:36the course of the last little while, I
237. 7:38should talk uh in generalities about
238. 7:40what this means for software. Most
239. 7:41software is going to become open source,
240. 7:44and that's because what we've done is we
241. 7:46moved up an abstraction layer from
242. 7:48specific software applications and how
243. 7:50they're done to a general intelligence,
244. 7:52aka, you know, your Claudes, your
245. 7:54Codecses, um that can just rebuild
246. 7:56software on the fly. To that end, most
247. 7:58of the front ends and back ends are also
248. 8:00going to be highly commoditized if not
249. 8:02already. I mean, we're seeing a bunch of
250. 8:03really cool things happen, this Cambrian
251. 8:05explosion of opportunity and
252. 8:07availability, but you know, I always
253. 8:09like to think about things from a
254. 8:10business perspective as, you know, a
255. 8:11business owner and somebody that's made
256. 8:12a fair amount of money with this stuff.
257. 8:14What new opportunities does this really
258. 8:15open versus what doors does this close?
259. 8:18And this closes a lot of doors. Not
260. 8:19reverse engineer anything to be clear,
261. 8:21but just the trend of this technology
262. 8:23more broadly over the course of the last
263. 8:25few years up until now. Um virtually all
264. 8:27of the wrapper apps that wrap around
265. 8:30Claude and Codecs and deliver some sort
266. 8:31of additional functionality, like sweet
267. 8:34visuals, and hell, even my sexy
268. 8:36explainer app that you guys could see
269. 8:37right over here. All this stuff is just
270. 8:39swallowed up by the models themselves
271. 8:41through design updates, you know,
272. 8:42interactive explainer updates. Um the
273. 8:44cool software games and stuff like that
274. 8:46that you guys are developing, you know,
275. 8:48the the actual value ladder has moved.
276. 8:50And so, while I think you could probably
277. 8:51get some short-term benefits out of
278. 8:52reverse engineering your favorite app
279. 8:54and trying to sell it on a black hat
280. 8:56world or whatever, obviously you'd face
281. 8:57severe intellectual property
282. 8:58restrictions, and so it's less we can
283. 9:00make a dope business out of this and
284. 9:02more the barrier for recombining
285. 9:05pre-existing ideas and turning into
286. 9:06something kind of cool has gone down.
287. 9:08And the barrier to like hitting trending
288. 9:10on X with a cool demo like this has also
289. 9:12gone down. To be clear, you don't need
290. 9:14reverse engineer anything to reverse
291. 9:16engineer an app. You could actually just
292. 9:17tell your agent, "Hey, I really like XYZ
293. 9:19feature in XYZ app. Could you go and
294. 9:21figure out how it works and then reverse
295. 9:23engineer it for me?" And you know what?
296. 9:24It'll use its own little screenshot
297. 9:26tool, take screenshots of like an
298. 9:28animation as it goes across the page or
299. 9:29whatever the hell it is that you wanted
300. 9:30to copy. It'll do it for you. You don't
301. 9:32need a cool library or whatever. It'll
302. 9:34already know how to do that just
303. 9:35through, you know, virtue of its own
304. 9:36reasoning process alone. Uh will it do
305. 9:38so perfectly? Will it copy the exact
306. 9:40functions of the app? Probably not. But,
307. 9:42I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of
308. 9:44those functions that it is attempting to
309. 9:45replicate actually end up being more
310. 9:47efficient when written by AI than by
311. 9:49humans alone. We saw this with the
312. 9:50recent Photoshop suite uh uh
313. 9:52repurposing, and it's going to be pretty
314. 9:54cool. You know, we can get pretty close
315. 9:56with just vanilla uh Claude code. And I
316. 9:58want you guys to know that that's now. I
317. 10:00mean, in like a month or or two,
318. 10:02realistically, Claude code is going to
319. 10:04have a lot of these reverse engineer
320. 10:05features not built directly in, but the
321. 10:07post-training that is continually
322. 10:09occurring on it will guide it towards
323. 10:10being able to do most of this on your
324. 10:11own.
325. 10:12Uh we also don't know if we need all of
326. 10:14the, you know, component apps there,
327. 10:15Ghidra, for instance, or IDA. Obviously,
328. 10:17they did help uh replicate speed, so I
329. 10:20think that's pretty important. We can
330. 10:21produce, you know, the plausible um um
331. 10:24visual and like back-end analog of any
332. 10:26app with RAE. We can also do it visually
333. 10:29in like probably a uh 2/3 of the time,
334. 10:31if not faster, um just by using vanilla
335. 10:33agents. So, while there is a little bit
336. 10:35of a speed bump there, I just want you
337. 10:36guys to know that most of this will
338. 10:37probably be just captured by agents in
339. 10:39general. So, get ready for the reverse
340. 10:40engineer era. All right. Hopefully, you
341. 10:42guys appreciated the video. Had a lot of
342. 10:43fun putting it together, and I will
343. 10:44catch all y'all in the next one.