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This is awesome. I love reverse engineering software. There is something so magical about it. I once spent a whole summer reverse engineering crackmes but never

This is awesome. I love reverse engineering software. There is something so magical about it. I once spent a whole summer reverse engineering crackmes but never moved to actual software hmm.

kchr 8y ago
What are crackmes?
- exikyut 8y ago
  Small binaries that employ a reduced set of programming/anti-debugging/obfuscation/etc techniques. Sometimes you have an idea what sort of techniques you're up against, sometimes you don't but you have a general idea of difficulty. In all cases the idea is that the possibility domain is bounded and smallish rather than completely unknown. The idea is you conquer progressively more complicated crackmes and this helps you learn how to tackle random binaries you'll find in the wild. Generally the step up after crackmes is to find virus payloads/samples and try and unravel those. I understand Stuxnet uses some of the most complex techniques to date: https://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/w32_stuxnet_dossier.pdf https://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/secu... (ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17099969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17099969, also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2212922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2212922)
  - thewizardofaus 8y ago
    Thanks for sharing! I got lost on my way after crackmes and ended up exploring other topics, but I may have to revisit virus samples :)
    - exikyut 8y ago
      Assembly language is still on my todo list (slooow starter, heheh). I have an old DOS game I kind of want to kill the collision in so I can play it with my terrible coordination :P (This is the game: https://www.old-games.org/games/willy https://www.old-games.org/games/willy - this particular site all is in Hebrew, but it's the only one with this particular version of the game - take a look at the yellow subtext immediately under the title in the screenshot ;P) Btw, FWIW: I'm roughly around the Sydney area, if I'm interpreting your name right. If Google isn't utterly off base, maybe you're in Brisbane or NSW...? (Many matches for your name, didn't want to take chances poking all of them)

This is awesome. I love reverse engineering software. There is something so magical about it. I once spent a whole summer reverse engineering crackmes but never moved to actual software hmm.

kchr 8y ago

What are crackmes?

exikyut 8y ago
Small binaries that employ a reduced set of programming/anti-debugging/obfuscation/etc techniques. Sometimes you have an idea what sort of techniques you're up against, sometimes you don't but you have a general idea of difficulty. In all cases the idea is that the possibility domain is bounded and smallish rather than completely unknown. The idea is you conquer progressively more complicated crackmes and this helps you learn how to tackle random binaries you'll find in the wild. Generally the step up after crackmes is to find virus payloads/samples and try and unravel those. I understand Stuxnet uses some of the most complex techniques to date: https://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/w32_stuxnet_dossier.pdf https://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/secu... (ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17099969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17099969, also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2212922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2212922)
- thewizardofaus 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing! I got lost on my way after crackmes and ended up exploring other topics, but I may have to revisit virus samples :)
  - exikyut 8y ago
    Assembly language is still on my todo list (slooow starter, heheh). I have an old DOS game I kind of want to kill the collision in so I can play it with my terrible coordination :P (This is the game: https://www.old-games.org/games/willy https://www.old-games.org/games/willy - this particular site all is in Hebrew, but it's the only one with this particular version of the game - take a look at the yellow subtext immediately under the title in the screenshot ;P) Btw, FWIW: I'm roughly around the Sydney area, if I'm interpreting your name right. If Google isn't utterly off base, maybe you're in Brisbane or NSW...? (Many matches for your name, didn't want to take chances poking all of them)