reverse engennering

Hi.

Can you guys explain a little more the process of reverse engennering, for example, the vci-100? I asked the author of firmware 1.4 but i got no answer...

thanks

yes???? anyone???

if the guys, the ones who know, don't want to explain, just say it and it will ok.

In short (to the extent of my knowledge) it involves getting a copy of the firmware and decompiling it to machine instructions (assembly).

Using a copy of the datasheet for that specific family of microcontrollers enables you to decipher what each instruction is doing and once you understand the whole code you can re-write it in a higher level language (C/C++) or make changes at an assembly level.

I would not expect someone to try and teach you via email as it would be very time consuming, and I mean no offence in saying this but if you have to ask, instead of researching yourself you probably need to learn to code first and then find a community that revolves around this type of activity.

Knowing Assembly is pretty useful for very few things these days. Only the hardcore will know it as many high level languages are so much more useful (and can also do some low-level tinkering stuff, in the case of something like C). If you're not already a very versed programmer, don't bother.

There are three main tools used but many others are used aswell.

Disasemblers will take the code and convert it into assembly code.

They also use debuggers that the develpoers used. They can use step modes to run the code one line at a time.

Decompilers will try to give you the origional enter source however in certain situations they will not work.

Also learn C++, C and a good understanding of how operating systems work if you are looking at drivers.

It is not an easy job, if you have done no programming in C or C++ before dont even think about it and in most cases you will need to know assembly code

Spelling engineering correctly wouldn't hurt.

its a very long and complicated process.
if i were you, i would listen to what they already posted and learn the basic language.
when i was younger i used to study a lot of this stuff and i used to take things apart and re build them into different things

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Originally Posted by norequest

Spelling engineering correctly wouldn't hurt.

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:D;):cool:

Also you can go to for Arduino (or similar) and build from scratch your own controller.

Don't expect some help from selfish engineers, they usually think nobody else can do their job (other engineers neither)

Sorry about mispelling (but not about criticism about engineers).

pd: I'm a consultant engineer from some hardware/software projects. My two brothers are engineers (electronics and computing).

Two examples:
www.skrat.ch
http://hangar.org/wikis/lab/doku.php?id=start:octint

more coming...

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Sorry about mispelling (but not about criticism about engineers).

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That's b/c when their shit breaks or needs to be tweaked, other engineers usually don't bother to learn. They just get the author to do it. I know I get calls all the time. :/

Yeh how's that reverse engineering going Mudo? Did you manage to find someone willing to explain it from the ground up over the internet for free?

didn't think so.

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Mudo strikes again

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yeh, what was with that?

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There are some good tools for reverse engineers, for example IDA Pro Disassembler 5.2:

http://www.hex-rays.com/idapro/52/index.htm

Not only does it know a lot of different machines and assembler syntaxes, it also helps with breaking code into functions and tracking symbol names throughout the source as you uncover what they should be called.

Once it recognizes the compiler and libraries used, it can fill in a lot of the standard calls for you.:

http://www.hex-rays.com/idapro/idaflirt.htm

Excellent tool, wish I'd known about it a year ago.

I have two friends that I ride with. One Works for Texas Instruments building high tech stuff. The other works for somebody else taking apart high tech stuff to reverse engineer it. They're both way smarter than me, but I can ride circles around them. I guess life evens out like that. Anyway if you have to ask....