Hacker News Reader

The ability to reverse engineer the source through the browser doesn't make something qualify as open source anymore than reverse engineering a binary with some other tool.

I can view web requests but let's say on the 365th web request it sends my API key to an unknown location. How would I know if this was closed source?

View on HN

It's not similar to a binary file, since re a binary file is a pain in the ass and looking at JS with some obfuscation is much easier.

Your example is valid, but it's like asking "how can I know that my iPhone doesn't record me while I'm sleeping?"

I trust apple over some random person on the internet.

Forgive me if I’m just being naive but couldn’t you look at the source from the browser dev tools?

Sure, if you're checking the first 365 requests or you get really lucky and just happen to look that time. Quite unlikely though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com