3 ms·

Strange that they would need the source code. I would think that it should be easy to figure out what encryption algorithm it uses by looking at the binary if i

• Arnt 8y ago
  I expect what he wanted was the data structures. You know — length field at the start, then foo, then bar, then payload data. (I've never broken "real" encryption, but I spent quite some time during my teens on, ah, improving the user-friendliness of computer games.)
• dnautics 8y ago
  one guess might be they wanted to know exactly how the software seeded the PRNG, to cut down their search space dramatically.
  • shittyadmin 8y ago
    The binary would tell them that - in fact, it'd tell them that better than the source if there were any overlaps into garbage memory for example. Wanting the source is purely for speedy analysis.
    • dnautics 8y ago
      I've never done windows (95?) disassembly, but from what little VSC++ I did back in the day, for the sake of speed, I would probably have wanted to see the source code instead of disassembling! Don't know how good at this stuff the NSA was back then.
• tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
  They may not need it, but source code will allow them to read it faster and with a higher chance of getting it right. It will also make it easier to re-run the decryption routine to get the original file/verify a cracking attempt instead of having to reimplement it correctly (possibly without having known-good test vectors to check if they got it right).