Decompiling Android

Decompiling Android looks at the the reason why Android apps can be decompiled to recover their source code, what it means to Android developers and how you can protect your code from prying eyes. This is also a good way to see how good and bad Android apps are constructed and how to learn from them in building your own apps.

This is becoming an increasingly important topic as the Android marketplace grows and developers are unwittingly releasing the apps with lots of back doors allowing people to potentially obtain credit card information and database logins to back-end systems, as they don’t realize how easy it is to decompile their Android code.

• In depth examination of the Java and Android class file structures
• Tools and techniques for decompiling Android apps
• Tools and techniques for protecting your Android apps

Godfrey Nolan is president of RIIS LLC, where he specializes in website optimization. He has written numerous articles for magazines and newspapers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. Nolan has had a healthy obsession with reverse engineering bytecode since he wrote Decompile Once, Run Anywhere, which first appeared in Web Techniques in September 1997.