Copycats are everywhere and even in the world of the social media it still occurs. This prompted for Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc. to hire a Swiss software specialist in order to strengthen its fight against those who copy their codes.
According to Bloomberg, Snap hired Laurent Balmelli, an engineer and the co-founder of Strong.Codes. This is a two-year-old start-up that makes tools in order to protect software codes from being tampered or reverse engineered. Reverse engineer is the term used to describe taking part of a product that they will learn how to rebuild or copy.
In Strong.Codes official website, the startup shares that they offer “innovative software protection methods, such as code obfuscation and tamper-proofing, in one of the most powerful compilation frameworks of the moment.” They also pointed out the company’s goal is “to make software piracy much more expensive and complicated.”
Balmelli already registered a Snap e-mail address in Switzerland. However, it is not certain if Snap already acquired Balmelli’s company. In December, Snap opened an expansion Swiss office which is called Snap Switzerland GmbH. The said office is also in the same location as Strong.Codes. Reportedly, Snap’s Swiss office is said to make some “in the fields of technology and computer security.”
Given such development for Snap, it seems like the social media site hired Balmelli as a defensive move against Facebook which they consider as a threat. The Business Insider shared that in 2016, Facebook cloned some Snapchat features on its own platform. The features such as Facebook’s Instagram photo sharing app, codes for profiles in Messenger and Instagram stories.
Meanwhile, in other social media news, Jobs & Hire reported that Twitter is doing the necessary actions need in order to fight against cyber bullies and abusers. They are doing this in order to assure the people that Twitter is a safe place.
what? the risk isn't FB stealing or reverse engineering snap's code; it's FB taking idea and building themselves. https://t.co/Ec7iT4Wht0
— Mat Balez (@matbalez) February 9, 2017
