Files
apk-reverse/docs/tool-verification/README.md
T
inliver233 6cffc3d2ac Absorption pass: take the mechanics from four external skill repositories, keep our discipline
Four projects were cloned for comparison (reverse-skill, awesome-game-security,
android-reverse-engineering-claude-skill, MobileRE-Skill) and read for what they do that this
repository does not. None is vendored and none becomes a runtime dependency: what crosses over is a
phase order, a checklist or a command pattern, with the source URL and the retrieval date recorded in
the file that absorbed it.

The rule applied to every candidate: does this make a judgement easier or a verification harder? The
repository is a decision-and-verification layer, and the four things kept are all of that kind.

  new  scripts/scan_leaks.py            target identity scanned before publishing, with an explicit
                                        do-not-anonymize list and four RESULT=/exit states
  new  references/precedents/           the positive half of the record: route including dead ends, a
                                        grade per assertion, measured pits, and a write-back checklist
  new  scripts/svc_scan.py              does a libc-level hook structurally see this call at all
  new  scripts/anti_detect_probe.js     observer-only: name the check, and report the environment it reads
  new  references/desensitization-and-leak-scans.md
  new  references/dart-aot.md sections   the 32-bit snapshot's real string-record format

  check_repo.py now delegates the identity scan to scripts/scan_leaks.py and runs it over
  git ls-files, so the gate reads content instead of layout for the first time. An explicit file list
  cannot be narrowed by the default work-area exemptions -- that defect was caught by the gate itself.

Two claims that this repository had already written down turned out to be wrong, and both are
recorded as refuted rather than quietly rewritten:

  dart-aot.md   the armv7 string table was documented as [len*2 u32le][UTF-16LE]. It is not. The same
                extractor keeps 4,980 chained entries on arm64 and zero on armv7, and the byte layer
                shows the 32-bit record is [header u32][byte-count u32le][UTF-8 payload]: two adjacent
                literals carry 0x46 (70) and 0x48 (72), exactly their byte lengths. The zero was a
                format mismatch, not an empty table. The engine-version banner on the same target is
                66 bytes of "0.0.1" with a blank build id, so the documented regex returns a
                version-shaped lie.
  leak scan     the pass that added the scanner found 26 strong hits inside its own evidence file on
                the day it was written -- the fixture's literal match values, quoted to prove the
                rules fire. The corpus may contain values; the published surface may not.

Measured, not asserted. The check that fires was named on a public MASTG target: three arms with one
variable, the control alive at the end and the probe arm dead in about 300 ms, with strstr("frida") at
t=303 ms and no tombstone. Reproducibility is bounded honestly -- one full sequence in three arms, on
a target whose whole window is sub-second. svc_scan.py's two independent decoders agree on an
identical 214-site set, and ptrace-free dumping gained a negative boundary: a target whose dex is
deflated inside its APK has no whole-image dex in memory to export, for reasons that say nothing about
protection.

Also in this pass: the detector-locating pipeline (detection-and-anti-analysis.md Step 3) with its
branch conditions; the layered Java-to-svc descent and the dump's honesty boundary in
advanced-unpacking.md; a sourced capability-gap list in toolchain.md where every row is graded
URL-verified or measured; the RESULT=-token convention; and SKILL.md opening with an immediate-action
block, because the symptom index and the gates were sitting in the part of a long file nobody reads.

Gates: check_repo.py 0 problem, check_refs.py 0 dangling / 0 warning, check_budget.py 0 failure /
0 warning / 1 pre-existing note. The scan reports RESULT=leaks_found_strong_only, exit 0: four
endpoint/weak hits, all of them addresses from the RFC 5737 documentation range in usage examples.
2026-09-21 22:51:09 +08:00

8.0 KiB

Tool verification record

This directory is the evidence record for the apk-reverse skill measured against real targets, kept separate from the skill itself so the Coverage statement in SKILL.md can be checked against the runs behind it, and so a later reader can tell which claims were observed, which were inferred, and which are still unverified.

It is not a set of target-specific notes kept for reuse, and it deliberately carries no target identity. The measurements are about the tools and the skill; they stay valid whichever APK produced them. Where a concrete figure was needed to make a point (a class count, a file size, a build time) the figure is kept and the target is named generically.

Targets measured: Flutter AOT applications, multi-dex, mid-size native library sets, no packer.

The APKs themselves are not in this repository (.gitignore excludes *.apk, and tools/).

Workbench paths are an operation record, not a pointer. A record may say a run happened at tools/_work/... so the command can be judged; .gitignore excludes tools/, so that path is not something a reader can open. Anything a reader is meant to follow is named under docs/tool-verification/ or inside the skill — that rule is why a reference document never cites a tools/ path as its evidence, even when the work happened there.

Strength labels

Every claim carries one of three labels, used the same way references/verification.md uses them:

  • observed — reproduced here, with the exact command and its output.
  • inferred — follows from observed facts, but the step itself was not executed.
  • unverified — assumed or reported by a tool and not independently confirmed.

Index

File Covers
TOOL-VERDICTS.md One verdict per tested script and external toolchain, with the independent cross-check behind it
FINDINGS.md Findings about the skill itself: defects, contradictions, boundary evidence
REPO-DECISIONS.md What changed in the repo as a result, and what deliberately did not

Extension-pass record

The extension pass (the six coverage gaps named in the external review: module ecosystem, extraction shells and VMP, emulation/RPC, native DBI, kernel-level environment, protocol layers) keeps its evidence here, one file per topic, in the same three labels:

File Covers
EXTENSION-device-run.md The on-device run against a hardened Flutter sample: the two control runs, the frida refusals, the twice-corrected pid-drift attribution, the failed-dump artefacts checked with dex_dump_validate.py, and a shared-device hazard measured with Stalker
EXTENSION-unpacking.md Extraction-shell diagnosis by trivial-body ratio, dex_dump_validate.py against a fixture derived from the sample's own shell dex, and the tool's own defect found during the run
EXTENSION-rootdump.md The root-side /proc/<pid>/maps + mem route that does not use frida: 17 real dex images recovered, the shell skeleton they are not, four device-shell traps, and the negative result on anonymous/ART-heap scanning
EXTENSION-lsposed.md Module route: the gradle-free build chain with timings, three build traps, LSPosed config-DB anatomy, the module that could never have worked, and the root-hiding configuration the device actually has
EXTENSION-emulation-rpc.md ASC/ddc measured on a hardened APK, Frida-RPC exercised end to end on a live device, and the unidbg build repair
EXTENSION-native-dbi.md Stalker: the zero-event boundary, the crash from following a hot libc export, and an offline protobuf round-trip that caught a defect in its own decoder
EXTENSION-kernel-ondevice.md The MT Manager APK MCP probe, the module-environment facts it could verify, and the kernel routes that this device's 4.14 kernel puts out of reach

Benchmark-pass record

The benchmark pass put public targets under the documented routes — tests/benchmark.md is the matrix, and these files are the evidence behind its rows. Same three labels. Several of these rows came back negative, and four of them overturned a conclusion this repository had already recorded; those are called out in the matrix rather than buried here.

File Covers
EXTENSION-benchmark-l1-l3.md The first two matrix rows: the L1 equal-length patch -> repack -> re-sign chain with its on-screen behaviour change and its zero-change control, and the L3 time-to-death baseline, the two spawn/patch/detach orderings that cannot work, and the terminate path that patching the obvious death site does not stop
EXTENSION-extraction-shell-bench.md dex_dump_validate.py against an 11-variant skeleton set: the trivial-body ratio as a bimodal result rather than a threshold, the three script defects the variants exposed, and the ranking that pointed at a modified image until independent review caught it
EXTENSION-stalker-exclude.md Stalker exclusion measured across three arms: the no-follow baseline, the follow that kills the process, and the follow with 20 modules excluded that survives but still delivers zero events
EXTENSION-java2c.md Java2C against JNI sinking: native-declaration density roughly 2000x apart, why a Java_* symbol search fails silently, and the Dex-to-C build chain no toolchain on this host could complete
EXTENSION-vmp-diff.md The known-plaintext differential: a 218-of-224-opcode coverage fixture, a closed-loop check that recovered 218/218 mappings with zero fabrications, and the one link that cannot be automated
EXTENSION-kernel-weapons.md The generated KernelSU/APatch scaffold and its three kernel-side templates, all shipped unbuilt, plus the structural correction that a userspace module cannot change a syscall return value
EXTENSION-split-apk.md Two real split sets through both branches: unified re-signing, the merge that is refused by design, the merge that succeeds, and the signer chain this host actually needs
EXTENSION-protobuf-raw.md A schema-free decoder cross-checked against the official runtime and a real DataStore container, with the packed-boundary and proto3-zero ambiguities reproduced on real bytes

Absorption-pass record

A later pass absorbed mechanics from external skill repositories (reverse-skill, awesome-game-security, android-reverse-engineering-claude-skill, MobileRE-Skill), keeping each project's own discipline: only the phase, the checklist and the command pattern cross over, with the source URL and the access date recorded, and nothing vendored as a runtime dependency. These files live here rather than in the skill because two of them corrected a claim the repository had already written down.

File Covers
EXTENSION-desensitization.md The leak scanner's rules and exemptions, its four RESULT= states and exit codes, the escaping false positives, and the pass that found its own evidence file leaking 26 strong hits — the fixture's literal match values, quoted to prove the rules fire
EXTENSION-dart-aot-formats.md Two string-table claims tested against a real dual-ABI Flutter app: the arm64 packed scheme confirmed against literal tag bytes, and the assumed armv7 len*2/UTF-16 form refuted — the 32-bit record is [header u32][byte-count u32le][UTF-8], and the extractor's zero is a format mismatch rather than an empty table
EXTENSION-detection-pipeline.md Naming the check that fires: three arms on a public MASTG target (control alive, probe arm dead in ≈300 ms via strstr("frida"), with the TracerPid=0 versus 4-frida-mappings asymmetry), svc_scan.py's two decoders agreeing on an identical 214-site set, the layered Java-to-svc descent, and the ptrace-free dump boundary on targets whose dex is deflated inside the APK

Adding a run

Record the tools, versions and exact commands, and label each claim. Keep target-specific facts out: what belongs here is what a future reader can apply to a different APK — a defect, a measured cost, a method that did or did not work, and the cross-check that settled it.