3 ms·

You shouldn't feel bad about buying an (expensive) license if reverse engineering a hobby of yours. Computing is such a cheap hobby it's OK to splurge every onc

by gizmo 8y ago

You shouldn't feel bad about buying an (expensive) license if reverse engineering a hobby of yours. Computing is such a cheap hobby it's OK to splurge every once in a while. And there's a good chance the skills you build end up paying dividends later. Compare computing to other hobbies. Anything involving cars/boats/motorcycles: expensive. Woodworking, metalworking or anything else that requires a shop: way expensive. It's easy to spend thousands upon thousands on most hobbies every year. In contrast with computing you can do almost anything with very basic tools. It's great when there are high quality free tools out there. But most of the time these free products get abandoned or are left unfinished. It's hard to get a community of volunteers to do the schleppy maintenance work for 20 years when the product is already feature-complete. And that's why we should be glad there are commercial alternatives, even if they're a bit pricey.

jchw 8y ago
It's actually a lot simpler than that: I can't afford it. I don't have the free cash at the moment. I am focused on eliminating debt and increasing savings and I can't do either if I spend some grand on an IDA Pro license.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  Yeah, some of us got into this as a hobby because it can be done for so little.
- souprock 8y ago
  Maybe you really can't afford it, but given the job opportunities this is a bit like saying that you can't afford college. The cost with all 5 decompilers is about $15,000. That is comparable in cost to a semester of college. It might be a better deal if you bother to really learn the tool. I guess there aren't student loans for IDA, but there definitely is employment. Once you become competent with IDA, you can apply for jobs like these at my workplace: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19284153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19284153 Being competent means you can navigate around in a binary without symbols, that you can mentally convert assembly to C, and generally that you can find things of interest in the binary and understand them. Binary Ninja (binja) is $149 from Vector35. That might be optimal for you.
  - Beaving 8y ago
    That depends on the country. In Germany college costs 300 bucks per semester. I'd bet 90% of students in Germany wouldn't be able to attend if it was more than that. $15,000 is just unbelievably high.
  - jchw 8y ago
    I feel you may misunderstand me. I do have a nice comfy job at a big company, in the Bay Area, as a software engineer. My career is still young, so I don't have a ton of savings. I couldn't afford college; I went to a cheaper one, took about a year's worth of classes before my debt became too much higher than my income and gave up. That's a big part of the equation, along with a car loan I still owe a fair bit on. Luckily I found most employers did not care about the lack of a degree and so began my career without much trouble. I realize someone's probably going to comment that I'm an idiot for living in the Bay Area, but consider this: after living expenses, I still make a fair bit more than I did in Detroit, and I much prefer living here. So it is what it is. I think in a few years I should be more than capable of buying an IDA Pro license, but as it stands I am not taking on that debt for a hobby. As for whether or not I will get a job doing reverse engineering, I think it's unlikely any time soon, though certainly possible in the future. That's a lot more context than I feel is necessary to explain why I can't casually drop $3k-5k on a hobby, but hopefully it makes more sense.

by gizmo 8y ago

jchw 8y ago

It's actually a lot simpler than that: I can't afford it. I don't have the free cash at the moment. I am focused on eliminating debt and increasing savings and I can't do either if I spend some grand on an IDA Pro license.

yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
Yeah, some of us got into this as a hobby because it can be done for so little.
souprock 8y ago
Maybe you really can't afford it, but given the job opportunities this is a bit like saying that you can't afford college. The cost with all 5 decompilers is about $15,000. That is comparable in cost to a semester of college. It might be a better deal if you bother to really learn the tool. I guess there aren't student loans for IDA, but there definitely is employment. Once you become competent with IDA, you can apply for jobs like these at my workplace: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19284153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19284153 Being competent means you can navigate around in a binary without symbols, that you can mentally convert assembly to C, and generally that you can find things of interest in the binary and understand them. Binary Ninja (binja) is $149 from Vector35. That might be optimal for you.
- Beaving 8y ago
  That depends on the country. In Germany college costs 300 bucks per semester. I'd bet 90% of students in Germany wouldn't be able to attend if it was more than that. $15,000 is just unbelievably high.
- jchw 8y ago
  I feel you may misunderstand me. I do have a nice comfy job at a big company, in the Bay Area, as a software engineer. My career is still young, so I don't have a ton of savings. I couldn't afford college; I went to a cheaper one, took about a year's worth of classes before my debt became too much higher than my income and gave up. That's a big part of the equation, along with a car loan I still owe a fair bit on. Luckily I found most employers did not care about the lack of a degree and so began my career without much trouble. I realize someone's probably going to comment that I'm an idiot for living in the Bay Area, but consider this: after living expenses, I still make a fair bit more than I did in Detroit, and I much prefer living here. So it is what it is. I think in a few years I should be more than capable of buying an IDA Pro license, but as it stands I am not taking on that debt for a hobby. As for whether or not I will get a job doing reverse engineering, I think it's unlikely any time soon, though certainly possible in the future. That's a lot more context than I feel is necessary to explain why I can't casually drop $3k-5k on a hobby, but hopefully it makes more sense.