Victor Law

16 papers Journal 13Unranked 3
YearRankTypeTitle / Venue / Authors
2025 J jnl
J. Comput. High. Educ.
Kun Huang, Victor Law, Xun Ge, Yan Chen, Ling Hu
2024 J jnl
J. Inf. Technol. Educ. Res.
Lisa I Kittinger, Victor Law
2024 J jnl
J. Comput. High. Educ.
José Dutra de Oliveira Neto, Victor Law, Sung (Pil) Kang
2024 J jnl
Br. J. Educ. Technol.
Kun Huang, Victor Law, Anita Lee-Post
2019 J jnl
Br. J. Educ. Technol.
Kui Xie, Lauren C. Hensley, Victor Law, Zhiru Sun
2019 J jnl
Br. J. Educ. Technol.
Kun Huang, Victor Law, Sang Joon Lee
2018 J jnl
Comput. Hum. Behav.
Andrew A. Tawfik, Victor Law, Xun Ge, Wanli Xing, Kyung Kim
2018 J jnl
Interact. Learn. Environ.
Ching-Huei Chen, Victor Law, Wei-Yu Chen
2017 J jnl
J. Educ. Technol. Soc.
Kun Huang, Xun Ge, Victor Law
2016 conf
ICLS
Lauren C. Hensley, Jessica Cutshall, Victor Law, Kui Xie, Lin Lu
2016 J jnl
Comput. Educ.
Victor Law, Ching-Huei Chen
2016 J jnl
Comput. Hum. Behav.
Ching-Huei Chen, Victor Law
2016 J jnl
Technol. Knowl. Learn.
Victor Law, Xun Ge, Deniz Eseryel
2014 J jnl
J. Educ. Technol. Soc.
Deniz Eseryel, Victor Law, Dirk Ifenthaler, Xun Ge, Raymond Miller
2011 conf
CSCL
Victor Law, Xun Ge, Deniz Eseryel
2010 conf
ICLS (1)
Deniz Eseryel, Victor Law
redb/extractors/js_extractors/scripts/js-xray-runner.js
← Index redb/extractors/js_extractors/scripts/js-xray-runner.js javascript
#!/usr/bin/env node
// Bridge between the Python JS pipeline and @nodesecure/js-x-ray.
//
// Usage: node js-xray-runner.js <path-to-js-file>
//   stdout  one JSON object: {"obfuscator": <name|null>, "warnings": [...]}
//   stderr  human-readable error on failure
//   exit 0  analysis ran (the file may still be benign — see "obfuscator")
//   exit 1  the file could not be read or analysed
//
// Each warning is emitted as {kind, value} so the Python side can tag
// supporting signals (encoded-literal, short-identifiers, suspicious-literal,
// unsafe-stmt) without having to mirror js-x-ray's whole schema.
//
// js-x-ray ≥7 ships as an ES module, which CommonJS `require()` cannot load
// from a `.js` script — the dynamic `import()` below is what makes the
// bridge work without renaming the file to `.mjs` or adding `"type":
// "module"` to package.json (which would break tools that still
// `require()` from this directory).

const fs = require("fs");
const path = require("path");

function fail(msg) {
  process.stderr.write(msg + "\n");
  process.exit(1);
}

async function main() {
  const target = process.argv[2];
  if (!target) fail("usage: js-xray-runner.js <file>");

  let source;
  try {
    source = fs.readFileSync(target, "utf8");
  } catch (e) {
    fail(`read failed: ${e.message}`);
  }

  // The legacy `runASTAnalysis` function is deprecated (removed in v8); the
  // current API is the `AstAnalyser` class. Both produce a result with the
  // same `warnings` shape, so the rest of the bridge is unchanged.
  let AstAnalyser;
  try {
    ({ AstAnalyser } = await import("@nodesecure/js-x-ray"));
  } catch (e) {
    fail(`@nodesecure/js-x-ray not installed (run \`npm install\` in ${path.dirname(__filename)}): ${e.message}`);
  }

  // js-x-ray defaults to module-mode parsing, which rejects scripts that
  // (legally) use reserved words as identifiers, top-level `return`, etc.
  // A lot of real-world JS malware is script-style (WScript/HTA bodies,
  // pasted snippets) — retrying in script mode catches those without
  // pulling in a more lenient parser. Both attempts share the same
  // analyser; only the parse mode flips. If both fail, the original error
  // (module-mode) is reported because that's the more informative one for
  // genuinely broken sources.
  let result;
  const analyser = new AstAnalyser();
  let firstErr;
  try {
    result = await analyser.analyse(source, { module: true });
  } catch (e) {
    firstErr = e;
    try {
      result = await analyser.analyse(source, { module: false });
    } catch (e2) {
      fail(`js-x-ray analysis failed: ${firstErr.message}`);
    }
  }

  const warnings = (result.warnings || []).map((w) => ({
    kind: w.kind,
    value: w.value !== undefined ? w.value : null,
  }));

  // js-x-ray flags the obfuscator family in a warning whose kind is
  // "obfuscated-code" and whose value names the family (jsfuck, obfuscator.io,
  // freejsobfuscator, morse, jjencode, ...). Absent => not detected.
  const obfWarning = warnings.find((w) => w.kind === "obfuscated-code");
  const obfuscator = obfWarning ? obfWarning.value : null;

  // js-x-ray runs its own AST internally with a modern parser, so its
  // identifier-length average is the only path the Python pipeline has to
  // that signal on ES2015+ sources — pyjsparser is ES5.1-only and silently
  // drops to 0 the moment it hits destructuring, classes, optional chaining,
  // etc. Surfacing this lets the heuristic's `avg_identifier_length<2`
  // strong signal fire on real obfuscator.io output. `null` when the value
  // is missing or non-numeric (defensive — older js-x-ray builds may differ).
  const idsLengthAvg =
    typeof result.idsLengthAvg === "number" && !Number.isNaN(result.idsLengthAvg)
      ? result.idsLengthAvg
      : null;

  process.stdout.write(JSON.stringify({ obfuscator, warnings, idsLengthAvg }));
}

main().catch((e) => fail(e.message || String(e)));