Any plans to crack Flash binary URLs

[Tootle]

Any plans to crack this:

No exposed URLs and media file locations

The location of media on the internet can often be compromised by URLs pointing back to the content source. Most media players on the market enable users to see the location of the media clip that is playing rather easily. With Flash, external media file locations are compressed into binary format in the SWF file and unavailable for website visitors, all but eliminating the ability for visitors to obtain the file and server location for media delivered via Flash Player.

Source

[mouser]

yeah this is tricky, and i think mostly going to be the job for a program that tries to record the video rather than url snooper.

[Tootle]

Makes sense. Thanks for the reply

[smartazz]

There's a program called hugflash that's excellent for extracting EVERYTHING from swfs. Unfortunately it can't make them into .fla files but it certainly can find the urls. I'm still trying to figure out how to download myspace streaming audio these days. I have Xi which can spoof any browser agent id, I've tried using the ip numbers instead of the domains, I've extracted both the flash and the xml links, and still nothing. Anyone have any clues?

[Carol Haynes]

See http://www.forest.impress.co.jp/lib/pic/video/flash/hugflash.html for details

Have you tried it? Does it install an English interface or is it just Japanese? Any Japanese visitors able to translate to English?

[Carol Haynes]

OK I have given it a go on the James Blunt spoof.

It works like this ...

First find the file containing the video (you can use URL Snooper for that) and download it (you can probably use anything you like for that - I used Streambox).

Run Hugflash and a tiny window opens and just says "waiting".

Drop the file on and it readsthe file looking for audio and video streams. If it finds them it will output separate audio and video files (by default AVI and MP3) which you can then run through a program (free TMPGEnc should do it if you want MPEG otherwise any video tool that can combine audio and video as separate streams) to remux the streams and produce a useable video.

Seems to work fine.

Couple of points:

1) the UI is in a mixture of Japanese and English and is not eactly easy to understand - but since it seems to work quite well without fiddling with the settings it can be used in a very basic mode easily.

2) it requires no installing - just unpack the zip file (it is alreadyin a folder) and just double click the app.

3) All documentation and the user forum are in Japanese - and google does not perform an intelligible translation.

4) The archive is in LZH format - WinRAR can unpack it.

Have fun - maybe we could contact the author and get an English (or other langs too) translation of the UI and documentation if we can find someone who speaks both languages.

[compn]

urlsnooper can find the full url! use the 'also search for' and put in 'netstream' or 'description' (which i think flash player sends each time it requests a stream)

start with an rtmp stream

http://online.tvguide.com/Video/VideoPlayer.asp?videoname=TVGCOnline_IdolTonight_Promo2&headerJPG=TVGC_idol&vTime=31&live=true&vdir=showvideos

using url snooper without filters or 'also search for' gets me

rtmp://flv.world.mii-streaming.net/tvguide/showvideos/

then just adding the videoname= part works....

rtmp://flv.world.mii-streaming.net/tvguide/showvideos/TVGCOnline_IdolTonight_Promo2.flv

ok, now that we know the filename, add 'idol' to 'also search for'

and you get some more packets...

play          TVGCOnline_IdolTonight_Promo2         Â 

and

level status code NetStream.Play.Reset description 4Playing and resetting TVGCOnline_IdolTonight_ÄPromo2. details TVGCOnline_IdolTonight_Promo2 clientid A

so in reality, url snooper could be made to search for this rtmp stuff. altho it is rather difficult to parse and put together. maybe it should go into whatever rtmp downloader instead of urlsnooper...

btw, i dont think hugflash can do rtmp, unless you know something i dont.
its more like an swf decompiler which can extract anything out of swf to
other formats like actionscript (txt) sprites (jpg,gif) audio (mp3) etc.
i mean its for swf files with included video , not rtmp streams.

you can test rtmp urls using flvplayer
http://www.martijndevisser.com/blog/article/flv-player-updated/
hit the url button and paste in rtmp

[mouser]

nice report compn, that info could come in handy!
and welcome to the site 

[StefaniaCastelli]

Before the advent of Flash/Silverlight Streaming Contents on all Main Media Web Sites the simple job of playing web contents on Stand Alone players was really easy, thanks to URL Snooper.
Flash and Silverlight completely changed this perspective and the problems a user need to front to get streaming content playing on a small customizable standalone player instead of a redundant and too extended web page are basically two:

1) find/extract the right url to reproduce on players
2) find a player able to reproduce the content

About the 1st point URL Snooper would need some more Mouser coding efforts in order to extract/compose the right URL.
I take as example a typical, "hard to handle" web page with video content: http://www.radioradicale.it/scheda/291832.

Using URL Snooper (even following "compn" suggestions or filling the "Manually Scan a URL" field) you won't get anything useful to feed your player.

Opening the page Source with a browser you'll find some lines in the player script (,streams: [{"url": 'mp4:FL532501.f4v',"duration": 4037}],netConnectionUrl: 'rtmp://video-12.radioradicale.it/store-51/') so you should get the working URL (rtmp://video-12.radioradicale.it/store-51/FL532501.f4v).

Sadly, this link systematically crashes VLC and even other flv players are unable to handle it.

On the same page you can find some specific links to download the content, but this links expire automatically after three weeks.
(http://download.radioradicale.it/store-51/roma/2008/08/FL532501.f4v)

This one works but, as said, become unavailable after some times.

So, there's a mix of issues (right URL and Player compatibility) that makes the "independent streams watching" a hard job.

Stefania 

[lanux128]

See http://www.forest.impress.co.jp/lib/pic/video/flash/hugflash.html for details

Have you tried it? Does it install an English interface or is it just Japanese? Any Japanese visitors able to translate to English?

it does have an english readme but it is mentioned that the text was "translated by Excite". this seems to be the author's website (also in Japanese) but he has an online help link which is translated by Google quite well.

[compn]

I take as example a typical, "hard to handle" web page with video content: http://www.radioradicale.it/scheda/291832.

Using URL Snooper (even following "compn" suggestions or filling the "Manually Scan a URL" field) you won't get anything useful to feed your player.

Opening the page Source with a browser you'll find some lines in the player script (,streams: [{"url": 'mp4:FL532501.f4v',"duration": 4037}],netConnectionUrl: 'rtmp://video-12.radioradicale.it/store-51/') so you should get the working URL (rtmp://video-12.radioradicale.it/store-51/FL532501.f4v).

Sadly, this link systematically crashes VLC and even other flv players are unable to handle it.

you created the wrong url.
"rtmp://video-12.radioradicale.it/store-51/mp4:FL532501.f4v"
is the correct url, and works with rtmpdump.