Is this not considered obfuscation? I thought encyption implies there is a key of some kind to decode the message. This seems like obfuscating binary and translating it at runtime, à la security-through-obscurity.
Wikipedia defines encryption as "the process of encoding a message or information in such a way that only authorized parties can access it and those who are not authorized cannot."
A better definition would distinguish between those in possession of both the algorithm and all its inputs, and those who aren't in possession, and rather than saying they "cannot" access the encoded information, it would say that access is impractical or at least cumbersome.
By that better definition, it's still encryption, because it made it cumbersome for someone to access the codes without understanding the encryption method.
I disagree. This is security through obscurity. You are simply transforming data, byte-by-byte without any key. This is encoding data using an isomorphic function. By you definition, GZIP is encryption.
In cryptography, the key isn't just a string of bytes, it's also the algorithm and cipher.
If so, I don’t see it. Obfuscation typically uses a fairly weak form of encryption, but that isn’t essential.