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> since it's never a valid security practice

Why not? It's just another tool in the security game.

I want to be with you on thinking that all obfuscation is malicious, I know that individuals have every right to obfuscation and privacy as a matter of the 1st and 4th amendments in the US, but I'm not sure I can always say that obfuscation by a corporation is evil, without a more compelling argument. I'm as anti-establishment as they come, too.

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I read the GP a bit differently... I didn't read it as saying obfuscation is evil, just that it is ineffective. More like "obfuscation can't prevent reversing, therefore it's not a valid security practice since all it does is slow down the casual observer but does not stop the determined adversary." The statement that most use of obfuscation is nefarious is a corollary... since obfuscation doesn't protect IP it is mostly used to hide malicious activity.

This, exactly. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

I think l the reason is that it means that they don’t trust or don’t want their users to know what they are doing on your machine. To me, that is already a malicious premise. Even if they aren’t trying to exfiltrate my data or anything.

I guess the acceptable form of obfuscation would mean only IP is protected by it, not everything. I wonder what it would take to enforce this as the norm, certainly doesn't sound easy.

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