43 ms·

Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]

153 points by dennis714 6y ago

david_shaw 6y ago
For anyone interested in a little more context: the book has a website (including translated versions, etc.) located at https://beginners.re/ https://beginners.re/ It looks like this PDF has been posted to HN a few times before, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=beginners.re https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=beginners.re I haven't read the book, but I did download the PDF and briefly check it out. I'm not a reverse engineer by any means, but this seems like a (very) comprehensive overview. It's over 1000 pages!
- troughway 6y ago
  I flipped through it briefly a while back, it covers a lot of important things in a nice and structured manner but I wish the author would cover C++ more, I didn’t see it but I didn’t go through the whole thing either. When I first got started the Lena151 tutorials had just been released. This would have been helpful as an aid but having video tutorials of all the subwindows of OllyDBG was very beneficial. That, and having crackmes to practise against combined with wireshark or ethereal or whatever it was called was a great time to learn this stuff.
- adamhearn 6y ago
  Is there a tool to check for submissions of the same link? Not just the site, but I mean the same link.
  - icholy 6y ago
    https://github.com/pinoceniccola/what-hn-says-webext https://github.com/pinoceniccola/what-hn-says-webext
    - adamhearn 6y ago
      Thank you!
Kaze404 6y ago
I had my first experience with reverse engineering recently. It's an online MMORPG, and I wanted to figure out what makes my character do emotes (hug, cry, sit, etc). Seems simple enough, but after 30 hours over the course of 3 days of looking at x64dbg I just lost it. There are so many things that can go wrong, and every time it felt like I was close, after another hour or two I was back to square one. I gave up after the third day, but even though it was a frustrating experience I also learned a lot about how assembly works. I don't know if that'll ever be useful but it was fun to learn.
- indigochill 6y ago
  Yeah, reverse engineering software that's not made to be reversed (or is actively made difficult to reverse, as much commercial software is) isn't usually a great place to start, IMO. There are practice binaries that you can download that are designed to be reversed, though, which I would typically recommend to someone looking to start reversing. Or if you really want to hack an MMO, there's also "Pwnie Island" which is an MMO made to be reversed/hacked: http://www.pwnadventure.com/ http://www.pwnadventure.com/

153 points by dennis714 6y ago

For anyone interested in a little more context: the book has a website (including translated versions, etc.) located at https://beginners.re/ https://beginners.re/ It looks like this PDF has been posted to HN a few times before, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=beginners.re https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=beginners.re I haven't read the book, but I did download the PDF and briefly check it out. I'm not a reverse engineer by any means, but this seems like a (very) comprehensive overview. It's over 1000 pages!

troughway 6y ago
I flipped through it briefly a while back, it covers a lot of important things in a nice and structured manner but I wish the author would cover C++ more, I didn’t see it but I didn’t go through the whole thing either. When I first got started the Lena151 tutorials had just been released. This would have been helpful as an aid but having video tutorials of all the subwindows of OllyDBG was very beneficial. That, and having crackmes to practise against combined with wireshark or ethereal or whatever it was called was a great time to learn this stuff.
adamhearn 6y ago
Is there a tool to check for submissions of the same link? Not just the site, but I mean the same link.
- icholy 6y ago
  https://github.com/pinoceniccola/what-hn-says-webext https://github.com/pinoceniccola/what-hn-says-webext
  - adamhearn 6y ago
    Thank you!

Kaze404 6y ago

I had my first experience with reverse engineering recently. It's an online MMORPG, and I wanted to figure out what makes my character do emotes (hug, cry, sit, etc). Seems simple enough, but after 30 hours over the course of 3 days of looking at x64dbg I just lost it. There are so many things that can go wrong, and every time it felt like I was close, after another hour or two I was back to square one. I gave up after the third day, but even though it was a frustrating experience I also learned a lot about how assembly works. I don't know if that'll ever be useful but it was fun to learn.

indigochill 6y ago
Yeah, reverse engineering software that's not made to be reversed (or is actively made difficult to reverse, as much commercial software is) isn't usually a great place to start, IMO. There are practice binaries that you can download that are designed to be reversed, though, which I would typically recommend to someone looking to start reversing. Or if you really want to hack an MMO, there's also "Pwnie Island" which is an MMO made to be reversed/hacked: http://www.pwnadventure.com/ http://www.pwnadventure.com/