Category: Misc

TikTok: Social Media, or Spyware?

TikTok is the most popular growing social media right now by far, surpassing the likes of Reddit, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and Quora.

And it’s much more popular among Gen Zs and Millenials.

But TikTok was declared as a security threat and many have growing concerns about the operations of ByteDance as a whole.

TikTok Source Code Analyzation

Step 1: Obtain TikTok source code

This is the step most people might get stuck on…

Step 2: Spend hours looking through said program for suspicious things

Step 3: Share!

Beyond initial paranoia, let’s be realistic about what apps collect. Even Google collects IP (and therefore geographic location), and other pieces of personal data:

Google might collect far more personal data about its users than you might even realize. The company records every search you perform and every YouTube video you watch. Whether you have an iPhone or an Android, Google Maps logs everywhere you go, the route you use to get there and how long you stay — even if you never open the app.

So then what are we looking for? How is this different? For one thing, Google, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps don’t collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does, and they don’t obfuscate and hide their methods sneakily like TikTok. Additionally, TikTok has some weird code in it that no normal social media app should have. Here’s a quick comparison of the APIs TikTok accesses vs the Facebook app:

They both collect data, but TikTok collects more. And needs access to your SMS messages for some reason, even though it doesn’t interact with that…

Below deconstructs more about what the TikTok app can/does do and why it might do it. Make your own judgement at the end of the day. However, this is all just what’s able to be seen. Note that TikTok has the ability to update their app and add / remove code without updating the app through the store.

Things TikTok Collects

  • Location (once every 30 seconds for some versions)
  • Phone Calls
  • Screenshots(?)
  • Network Information (Wifi Networks’ SSID, MAC address, Carrier, Network Type, IMSI (possible), IMEI, local IPs, other devices on the network)
  • Facial Data
  • Address
  • Clipboard
  • Phone Data (cpu, hardware ids, screen dimensions, dpi, memory usage, disk space, etc)
  • Installed Apps
  • Rooted/Jailbroken Status
  • All keystrokes in the browser (more below)

Location

Most apps collect your location, so there’s nothing too fishy about this. However, one could argue that your location is not useful to TikTok’s general functioning and therefore shouldn’t attempt to locate you so often or at all unless you’re using a feature that takes advantage of that. The data collected here includes your latitude and longitude, and exact location if they can pull it from the WiFi (done in the wifi collecting code).

Phone Calls/Call Log/Phone Number

TikTok requires you to provide a phone number upon signup on most occasions to function normally within the app, so they can link your identity to your phone number. They also collect your call log (people you’ve called) and have the permission to make calls from your device, although I’ve never heard of a case of this happening. Phone numbers are generally very unique, so this combined with location and name would already be enough to identify virtually anyone using this app in the U.S.

Screenshots

The app hooks an observer at some point (it would make sense to be on app load) that watches when the user takes screenshots. It’s unlikely this code can run in the background or does, but the app at least knows everything you take a screenshot of while using the app. Additionally, TikTok includes a string, “KEYWORDS”, that may be of significance. A keyword is defined as: “an informative word used in an information retrieval system to indicate the content of a document”. They may use this variable to find screenshot files and potentially scan/upload/use them. However, this may have legitimate use in categorizing images for upload by the user or be non malicious.

Network Information

It also collects lots and lots of Network data. The app uploads full lists of network contacts, SMS logs, IP, local IP, MAC address information, and probably anything else it can read from the phone (which is virtually everything).

Facial Data/Recognition

TikTok includes facial verification code as well, which upon first glance I believed to be for the face filters they include, but does a little more than that. The code includes a link to this domain (archived). Translating said domain states:

Oops, my bad. Should’ve known I had to reverse-engineer the app, extract a developer URL, and then get a translator just to see that I’d even agreed to facial recognition logging by ‘continuing to use this service’.

And further on, it states what I believe to be particularly interesting:

Near the bottom it states facial images are transmitted to the parties listed above.

In specific:

ByteDance developed this function, which includes but not limited to the Ministry of Public Security’s “Internet +” trusted identity authentication platform, “Query Center” and other institutions to provide verification data and technical support.

This is very important because it mentions a “Ministry of Public Security”, and an “Internet+” identity authentication platform/program of some sort, and it also states near the bottom of the same translated text that facial images and identity verification results + data is transmitted to said 3rd party.

What is the Ministry of Public Security? A Google search quickly turns up results. They “operate the system of Public Security Bureaus, which are broadly the equivalent of police forces or police stations in other countries”, and were “established in 1949 (after the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War)”.

It seems they serve the Chinese Communist Party, or are at least connected to the government in a very direct way.

And what is the trusted identity authentication platform? More research turns up articles such as this, and this. It appears likely all facial recognition data would be sent back to China and saved by various parties.

TikTok seems to be sending facial recognition data of anyone who uses the app back to some sort of 3rd party associated with the CCP that has all the other information combined. This could create a very scarily comprehensive profile and location on high-interest targets China wants to keep track of. Additionally, it can use shadow tracking, which is a term pioneered by the era of Facebook. Shadow tracking or shadow profiles are collected data or hidden profiles of people that don’t use the app but TikTok can keep tabs on because of connections. For instance, when you upload your contacts to TikTok, it will track the names you’ve assigned to each contact and use that data in cross-checks with other uploaded contacts of your friends. For every person that uploads their contacts. This can quickly create a vast network of phone numbers and identities, even for people who aren’t associated with TikTok at all. Combining facial recognition data with shadow tracking techniques, and everything listed in this post could make for a pretty sophisticated tracking tool.

Address

I’ve used TikTok for a while before now, and I’ve never been asked to enter my address, city, or where I live. However, the TikTok app contains code to parse and send addresses of locations. This is probably to generate addresses from locations collected for internal logging and ease of viewing user’s geographical locations. This is not to say that is malicious.

Clipboard

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20210506011606/https://twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/1275896482433040386

And more information here about clipboard collection by ByteDance.

Phone Data

TikTok collects lots of data about the device you are using to access their app. Installed app list, device ID, phone name, phone storage, etc. Extrapolating from this, it also probably collects more data not proven here.

Rooted/Jailbroken Status

Detects whether or not you’re rooted. This isn’t that big of a deal but I thought it was worth a mention. Could be used in combination with other obfuscation techniques to hide nefarious actions.

Other Problems

Beyond straight up tracking and collecting data about their users, there is also a number of fundamental design issues with the app as well. For instance, the app uses out of date cryptographic algorithms, including MD5 and SHA-1 for hashing. Both of which have been broken wide open and are no longer secure. Additionally, the app used to only use HTTP, not HTTPS until recently, and that exposed user’s emails, date of birth, and username in plaintext to anyone smart enough to look for it.

Execution of Remote Code & System Calls

Some research states TikTok executes OS commands directly on the phone and has the ability to download remote .zip files, extract them, and execute arbitrary binaries on your device, allowing TikTok to run whatever code they want. While I don’t doubt this is possible, I have not personally verified the code in my research. However, I would not put it past the app to have this capability. Perhaps it’s better hidden now.

Keystrokes in the Browser

The app was tested with inappbrowser.com which shows all JavaScript events that are hooked. If you open this page in your browser, no events will show. This is a good thing. There are no events being monitored in a default, safe browser. The site is meant to show how a 3rd party app is abusing its in app browser. TikTok happens to monitor all keystrokes and key inputs in its in app browser, so the output looks a little more like below.

inappbrowser.com report text for tiktok in app browser

Security Research Files

Penetrum Security wrote an in-depth paper on TikTok if you’re interested in reading into a lot of what I’ve discovered here, and also compared how much data Facebook, Twitter, and common social media apps collect vs. TikTok. They’ve done great work and I’ve archived those files here. The data collection comparison paper is very interesting (second download).

security_analysis.pdfDownload
datacollectioncom.pdfDownload
static_analysis.pdfDownload
used_loaded_urls.txtDownload
ip_address_list.txtDownload

I’m not the only one who has come to these conclusions, as well. This reddit post and other security researcher both found similar findings.

So, social media or spyware? Why not both?

I’m probably going to continue to use the app, but I’ll be sure not to say Xi Jinping looks like Winnie the Pooh or mention the Falun Gong genocide. At least, not while TikTok is watching.

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Published 2021-05-06 09:00:00

Google’s Privacy Policies Policy

Google unpublished a couple of my apps the other day for having out of date privacy policies. Fair, those URLs went dead. However, upon updating the URLs, one app was still not accepted.

Wall Ball. That’s because it doesn’t collect data on you. And what I mean by that is that when my privacy policy looked like this, Google rejected the app.

But, it’s true. Wall Ball doesn’t actually contain any ads or collect any data about anyone or anything. It simply runs as a small free game.

Removed notices from Play Console…

However, I’ve updated the privacy policy URL to:

https://gmr.dev/privacy/wallball2.html

Which basically just says I have ads in the game even though I don’t…

Whereas the link on the main privacy policy page goes to the “real” one:

https://gmr.dev/privacy/wallball.html

So we’ll see if Google accepts it this time. 😊

But hey, maybe it’s just their idea of an April Fools joke. 😛

*EDIT* GUESS WHOSE APP IS BACK ON THE STORE! 😀

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Published 2021-04-01 13:59:10

Welcome to the Age of Quantum Computers

From Bloomberg:

A team of scientists at Google’s research lab announced last week in the journal Nature that they had built a quantum computer that could perform calculations in about 200 seconds that would take a classical supercomputer some 10,000 years to do.

An age of “Quantum supremacy” was duly declared.

Google’s claim to have achieved quantum supremacy – that is, to have accomplished a task that traditional computers can’t – was premature.

Although the specific problem that Google’s computer solved won’t have much practical significance, simply getting the technology to work was a triumph; comparisons to the Wright brothers‘ early flights aren’t far off the mark.

Congress should fund basic research at labs and universities, ensure the U.S. welcomes immigrants with relevant skills, invest in cutting-edge infrastructure, and use the government’s vast leverage as a consumer to support promising quantum technologies.

A more distant worry is that advanced quantum computers could one day threaten the public-key cryptography that protects information across the digital world.

This is big for a number of reasons but do not get too excited/scared yet! Quantum computing is still a number of years away. IBM was also quick to point out that Google’s estimate for how long “Summit” (the fastest computer in the world currently Google estimated against), was incorrect. According to papers published after Google’s report, “IBM’s engineers reckon, [adjustments would] allow Summit to breeze through the job in a mere 2½ days. Therefore, according to IBM, Google had not shown quantum supremacy after all.”

Well, that was quick.

What does that mean for their supposed success? Well, it’s still impressive. Google demonstrated a monstrous leap in technological prowess and got one step closer to proving a plethora of theories that many computer scientists are still eagerly waiting to take a crack at. P = NP anyone?

But wait, not so fast. Technically yeah, Google was wrong, but you still have to compare and contrast the differing performance results. Two and a half days is, after all, still about 1,200 times longer than 3 minutes.

Second, each extra qubit doubles the memory required by a classical machine put up against it. Adding just three qubits to Google’s challenger machine would have exhausted Summit’s hard disks. Quantum computers do not face such explosively growing demands. Google’s machine may not quite have crossed the finishing line. But it has got pretty close to doing so.

Additionally, Bloomberg has an excellent point when it says the U.S. should invest in this technology, if they aren’t already. They likely are behind the scenes, as a foreign entity such as China being the first to own a Quantum Computer is very scary. As Bloomberg pointed out, Quantum Computers make breaking passwords look like a walk in the park. Our current method of storing passwords would be under direct attack from Quantum Computing, and it’s one of the reasons the research is so dangerous.

Let me end your day off with this badass robot (fair warning, some of the video is fake) that some very talented individuals are developing.

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Published 2019-11-01 11:35:18

What’s with the dark themes?

Some may have noticed the rising trend of dark themed applications and websites. This is not just your imagination. Dark themes are the latest design fad that regularly changes up every so often. Right now, flat, simple designs are in, as well as dark themes. macOS added dark theme to their entire OS, built in system apps included. Microsoft and many other vendors, including Android, and third-party applications implement dark modes into all their apps. There are extensions like “Dark Reader” that specifically render websites in dark mode. My website is entirely dark themed.

Why dark themes?

1. Choice is good.

2. It looks great.

3. Normal, white/blue light emitted from the screen keeps you awake (suppresses melatonin)

4. Eyestrain

5. Google confirmed that using dark mode on an OLED screen is a huge help for battery life. Dark mode interface in the YouTube app saves about 15% battery vs not using it on 50% screen brightness. If you use 100% screen brightness (the hell, are you on the sun or something?) then it saves a massive 60% of battery life

6. It’s easier for long periods of staring at the same image in specific

Let me point this out just for myself real quick, I cannot code on a white background. I need to look at the code for hours and hours at a time, my eyeballs would sear if I continued staring at a white background. Here’s a comparison of dark mode vs light mode from one of my favorite script editors.

Dark theme of IDE
Light mode of IDE

Plus, dark mode on an OLED screen blends into the bezels(?) so well, it looks practically magical. It’s possible to forget you have a camera cutout or notch if you choose the right wallpaper.

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Published 2019-10-15 01:42:49

How to create a simple voice-activated assistant in C#.

This is really old. I will release another tutorial updating this eventually. Follow my blog to get an update when that happens. Thanks!

While this sounds advanced (and it can be), it’s not that hard to set up a very basic setup where a custom application runs in the background in C# by using the built in speech recognition libraries in Windows 10.

Taking this idea further, I personally have a “Jarvis” that runs on my computer, automating basically all of my common actions, including launching games, music, sleeping my computer, adjusting the volume, minimizing windows, controlling the lights, and (best of all), sending emails and messages. I recommend using an external API for speech recognition if you’re serious about building something similar, as Microsoft’s sucks. You can build your own, or attempt to use something like Google’s API.

Anyway, here’s some simple C# code that should get some ideas flowing.


using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Microsoft.Speech.Recognition;
using Process = System.Diagnostics.Process;
using System.Diagnostics;
namespace VoiceAssistant
{
class Program
{
#region Native Stuff
const int Hide = 0;
const int Show = 1;
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll")]
private static extern IntPtr GetConsoleWindow();
[DllImport("User32.dll")]
private static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int cmdShow);
[DllImport("PowrProf.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, ExactSpelling = true)]
public static extern bool SetSuspendState(bool hiberate, bool forceCritical, bool disableWakeEvent);
#endregion
static SpeechRecognitionEngine speechRecognitionEngine;
static bool speechOn = true;
private static string clipboardText;
private static bool shouldLog = true;
private static readonly string[] commands =
{
"assistant mute",
"assistant open clipboard",
"assistant new tab",
"assistant work music",
"assistant new github",
"assistant sleep computer confirmation 101",
"assistant shut down computer confirmation 101",
"assistant open story",
"assistant open rocket league"
};
static void HideWindow()
{
//Hide window
IntPtr hWndConsole = GetConsoleWindow();
if (hWndConsole != IntPtr.Zero)
{
ShowWindow(hWndConsole, Hide);
shouldLog = false;
//ShowWindow(hWndConsole, Show);
}
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
HideWindow();
//Console.WriteLine("[ASSISTANT AI INITIALIZED]");
CultureInfo cultureInfo = new CultureInfo("en-us");
speechRecognitionEngine = new SpeechRecognitionEngine(cultureInfo);
speechRecognitionEngine.SetInputToDefaultAudioDevice();
speechRecognitionEngine.SpeechRecognized += SpeechRecognition;
speechRecognitionEngine.SpeechDetected += SpeechDetected;
speechRecognitionEngine.SpeechHypothesized += SpeechHypothesized;
LoadCommands();
while (true)
{
Thread.Sleep(60000);
}
}
static void LoadCommands()
{
/*Grammar muteCommand = new Grammar(new GrammarBuilder(commands[0]));
Grammar browserOpenCopiedLink = new Grammar(new GrammarBuilder(commands[1]));
Grammar browserCopyLink = new Grammar(new GrammarBuilder(commands[2]));
speechRecognitionEngine.LoadGrammar(muteCommand);
speechRecognitionEngine.LoadGrammar(browserOpenCopiedLink);
speechRecognitionEngine.LoadGrammar(browserCopyLink);*/
foreach (string command in commands)
{
speechRecognitionEngine.LoadGrammarAsync(new Grammar(new GrammarBuilder(command)));
}
speechRecognitionEngine.RecognizeAsync(RecognizeMode.Multiple);
Console.Beep(600, 200);
Console.Beep(600, 200);
}
static void SpeechHypothesized(object sender, SpeechHypothesizedEventArgs e)
{
//Log(e.Result.Text);
}
static void SpeechDetected(object sender, SpeechDetectedEventArgs e)
{
//Log("Detected speech.");
}
static void SpeechRecognition(object sender, SpeechRecognizedEventArgs e)
{
string resultText = e.Result.Text.ToLower();
float confidence = e.Result.Confidence;
SemanticValue semantics = e.Result.Semantics;
Log("\nRecognized: " + resultText + " | Confidence:" + confidence);
if (confidence < 0.6)
{
Log("Not sure what if you said that. Not proceeding.", ConsoleColor.Red);
return;
}
if (resultText == commands[0])
{
speechOn = !speechOn;
Log("Speech on: " + speechOn);
if (speechOn)
{
Console.Beep(600, 200);
Console.Beep(600, 200);
}
else
{
Console.Beep(400, 400);
}
return;
}
if (!speechOn)
{
Log("AI is muted. Not doing any commands.");
Console.Beep(400, 200);
return;
}
if (resultText == commands[1]) //Open link on clipboard.
{
Thread clipboardThread = new Thread(param =>
{
if (Clipboard.ContainsText(TextDataFormat.Text))
{
clipboardText = Clipboard.GetText(TextDataFormat.Text);
}
});
clipboardThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
clipboardThread.Start();
clipboardThread.Join();
Log(clipboardText);
Process.Start(clipboardText);
}
if (resultText == commands[2]) //Open browser
{
Process.Start("https://google.com");
}
if (resultText == commands[3]) //Open work music
{
Process.Start("https://youtu.be/Qku9aoUlTXA?list=PLESPkMaANzSj91tvYnQkKwgx41vkxp6hs");
}
if (resultText == commands[4]) //Open Github new repository
{
Process.Start("https://github.com/new");
}
if (resultText == commands[5]) //Sleep computer
{
SetSuspendState(false, true, true);
}
if (resultText == commands[6]) //Shutdown computer
{
Process.Start("shutdown", "/s /t 0");
}
if (resultText == commands[7]) //Open story
{
Process.Start("https://docs.new");
}
if (resultText == commands[9]) //Open Rocket League
{
Process.Start("C:\\Users\\USER\\Documents\\SteamLauncher\\RocketLeague.exe");
}
}
static void Log(string input, ConsoleColor color = ConsoleColor.White)
{
if (shouldLog)
{
Console.ForegroundColor = color;
Console.WriteLine(input);
Console.ResetColor();
}
}
}
}

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simplevoiceassistant.cs

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Published 2019-05-22 18:10:00

VR: The Future and Best Development Practices in Unity

I recently acquired a VIVE and after a day of oohing and ahing about how cool it was, began to create some simulations for it in Unity. The first of such is located on my main site, along with a demo video in case you don’t have a VR headset. You should definitely check it out.

I discovered a couple of things. First, I’m totally sold on VR being the future. I don’t get motion sick (at least while not moving from a fixed point in VR, more on this in a bit) , so I’m fine to whip my head around in Virtual Reality all I want. The experience is really cool, and tricked my brain into thinking I was somewhere else much more than expected. I first picked up a jetpack and immediately got butterflies in my stomach, because I felt like I was actually flying upwards! Over the next couple of years VR tech will improve drastically, just like all new devices. A few areas that could improve are portability, resolution of the eye pieces, and performance on lower end devices. We will also see advancements in handling sound. Currently you need to provide your own headphones and it’s a bit of a clunky setup.

VR Development Best Practices

So, what’s actually different about VR development? Beyond the obvious need for different gameplay design, there are some key details that devs might overlook. I refer to Unity with these points but they can be adapted to other engines, as conceptually they are the same.

Performance

Performance is much more important in VR than typical game design. This is because if the display lags, it can induce physical discomfort and nausea in some users.

Rendering

Rendering is one of the most recurring bottlenecks in VR projects. Optimizing rendering is essential to building a comfortable and enjoyable experience in VR. In Unity, “setting Stereo Rendering Method to Single Pass Instanced or Single Pass in the XR Settings section of Player Settings will allow for performance gains on the CPU and GPU.

Lighting

Every lighting strategy has its pros, cons, and implications. Don’t use full realtime lighting and realtime global illumination in your VR project. This impacts rendering performance. For most projects, favor the use of non-directional lightmaps for static objects and the use of light probes for dynamic objects instead.

Post-Processing

In VR, image effects are expensive as they are rendering the scene twice – once for each eye. Many post-processes require full screen draws, so reducing the number of post-processing passes helps overall rendering performance. Full-frame post process effects are very expensive and should be used sparingly.

Anti-aliasing is a must in VR as it helps to smooth the image, reduce jagged edges, and improve the “look” for the user. The performance hit is worth the increase in quality.

Cameras

  • Orientation and position (for platforms supporting 6 degrees of freedom) should always respond to the user’s motion, no matter which of camera viewpoint is used.
  • Actions that affect camera movement without user interaction can lead to simulation sickness. Avoid using camera effects similar to “Walking Bob” commonly found in first-person shooter games, camera zoom effects, camera shake events, and cinematic cameras. Raw input from the user should always be respected.
  • Unity obtains the stereo projection matrices from the VR SDKs directly. Overriding the field of view manually is not allowed.
  • Depth of field or motion blur post-process effects affect a user’s sight and often lead to simulation sickness. These effects are often used to simulate what your eyes do naturally, and attempting to replicate them in a VR environment is disorienting.
  • Moving or rotating the horizon line or other large components of the environment can affect the user’s sense of stability and should be avoided.
  • Set the near clip plane of the first-person camera(s) to the minimal acceptable value for correct rendering of objects. Test how it feels to put an object into your face in VR. Set your far clip plane to a value that optimizes frustum culling.
  • When using a Canvas, favor World Space render mode over Screen Space render modes, as it very difficult for a user to focus on Screen Space UI.

UI

More on that last bullet point above.

Something very interesting about VR is the need for a Diegetic UI. A Diegetic UI means a user interface that exists in the universe (in this case, a game) that we are experiencing. So, a non-Diegetic UI would be your health floating at the bottom left of your screen on a normal computer game.

Now here’s the problem. In VR: your eyes can’t focus on something that close. Putting something on screen close to the face of the viewer works really well for normal games where you can focus on the screen at a specific part. However, VR goggles work by projecting two separate images on each lens, and your brain combines it to achieve depth perception. Putting something that statically close to the screen makes the user’s eye attempt to focus on it, which makes the viewer go cross-eyed and the whole immersion is broken. The solution? Use diegetic UI elements. What this means is attaching the UI to objects IN the game world. This looks really cool, and accomplishes the goal of not breaking immersion and looking terrible.

Notice the time left is stuck to the gun, so the user can look at the UI themselves vs it being stuck on the screen

This type of UI hasn’t been limited to VR either, it just works really well in it. We’ve seen examples of this kind of user interface all over.

VR will hit mainstream within 20 years, and we will see long term usage within 50.

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Published 2018-11-08 15:53:28

The Death of Flash… and the End of an Era.

Every millennial or Gen Z remembers playing Flash games in class on a school computer, or playing Super Smash Flash on your home computer. Those were magical, simpler times. But all of that is coming to an end, very soon. Flash is dead.

But that’s okay. Newer technologies are almost where they need to be to be a full-fledged Flash replacement. WebGL, WebAssembly, and HTML5 canvases have shown great promise and can fill Flash’s absence. There is one question though, what happens to all the existing flash content on the web?

Good question. And there’s no good answer… right now. Some are attempting to immortalize it as best they can, as is the case with Flashpoint, which is focused on saving flash games and making sure you can play them in the future when flash dies. It seems to be a worthy project and I encourage you to support them as best you can.

So, why is Flash being killed? Numerous reasons, chief among them being that Flash player is proprietary and Adobe controls it. Another is that Flash is a gaping security hole.

In terms of websites still using Flash… those websites will simply cease to function in 2020. For most browsers, including Edge and IE: “Users will no longer have any ability to enable or run Flash,” said John Hazen, a program manager on the Edge team. Google has a similar timeline, and by the end of 2020, you will not be able to run Flash on any major browser.

My thoughts on the matter are pretty neutral. I was a flash developer myself, and so it does make me slightly nostalgic and sad to think that all of that is going away. On the other hand though, technology is always evolving, and being a software engineer unfortunately means going with the flow sometimes. I look forward to seeing what advancements WebGL brings.

Again, if you’re feeling nostalgic about all those Flash games you used to play, I recommend checking out one of the numerous services wanting to immortalize them, like Flashpoint mentioned above. Go check out their Discord server and say hello!

Concussion, my last flash game I made, is luckily available online still. 😉

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Published 2018-10-06 14:51:46