Earlier quoted context omitted.
Real Men program web sites in assembly, and they like it.
Indeed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12371463
I'm a bit disappointed the frontend uses javascript. I was hoping for handwritten webassembly.
Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
31–40 of 50 posts
Re: Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
#32For beginners...1054 pages of assembly. Sometimes I think the entire IT sector is on the spectrum.
Shouldn't we be kinda proud of it?
Re: Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
#33If you enjoy this format, the same author also wrote "SAT/SMT By Example" which I learned a lot from: https://yurichev.com/SAT_SMT.html
Re: Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
#34Any input from beginners who have dipped their toes into this? Is the content explained fairly intuitively or in a way that is simple to understand? I'm also curious - for those in the know - is the pursuit of knowledge regarding reverse engineering something that has proven valuable in a job or is it primarily an academic pursuit? If it has proven valuable, how so?
A dedicated career in reverse engineering is quite lucrative.
It is also quite helpful in the embedded space where sometimes your only tool is a hex dump of memory.
Re: Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
#35For beginners...1054 pages of assembly. Sometimes I think the entire IT sector is on the spectrum.
It can be a quite lengthy introduction and still be intended for begginers.
I don't see the contradiction.
Re: Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Found the web developer
Real Men program web sites in assembly, and they like it.
Re: Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm one "in the know", so I'll answer that part. Heck yeah it is valuable. My area has numerous employers that are eager to hire people with that skill set. It pays more than the typical software development jobs. Most of the jobs seem to be related to how things get hacked into. One can play defense or offense. I post about my employer in the "Who is hiring?" sometimes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21422735
how much is "more than typical"? Sounds interesting!
Informally I was told I could get a 40% instant raise by joining a company like this. I bet it can be more than that though. I haven’t pursued it yet because I don’t think my skill is enough.
Re: Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
#38Some very serious work was put in writing this book. I admit I never fully read it from beginning to end, but from the parts I did read I think it is very well written.
My general advice for beginners who want to get into reverse engineering is to read less books, and try to actually reverse engineer small and self contained programs. Reverse engineering has been my job for many years now, but it still very difficult for me to consume a long text talking about a reverse engineering project without touching the code on my own.
If you are interested in a hands-on experience, I recently made a self learning kit for learning reverse engineering for beginners. It is called ReversingHero. (https://www.reversinghero.com). It is one binary file made of 15 levels of increasing difficulty, teaching reverse engineering. It works in Linux environment, on the x64 series, and can also be completed using WSL (Windows subsystem for linux).
ReversingHero also contains an accompanying (paid) video solutions. The video solutions contain 12+ hours of step by step solutions to all the levels.
Re: Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
#39Some very serious work was put in writing this book. I admit I never fully read it from beginning to end, but from the parts I did read I think it is very well written. My general advice for beginners who want to get into reverse engineering is to read less books, and try to actually reverse engineer small and self contained programs. Reverse engineering has been my job for many years now, but it still very difficult…
Maybe you can make the "hex editor", "debugger" and "disassembler" bold words into links to good FOSS implementations of each tool?
Otherwise, this looks very interesting :)
Re: Reverse Engineering for Beginners [pdf]
#40Any input from beginners who have dipped their toes into this? Is the content explained fairly intuitively or in a way that is simple to understand? I'm also curious - for those in the know - is the pursuit of knowledge regarding reverse engineering something that has proven valuable in a job or is it primarily an academic pursuit? If it has proven valuable, how so?
The parts I read seemed well-written, but I'm not sure any beginners are going to dive into a big tome like this.
I started reversing when I started coding, which was back in the 80s. Back then it was just trying to get extra lives on home computer-games.
Later I wanted to install software, and that lead me to +fravia, and some of the associated challenges.
It's almost too hard to step back and imagine whether a true beginner would follow along, but I think with the right motivation and a lot of baby-steps along the way it is a field that will always draw some people, and they'll get there in the end due to sheer tenacity, regardless of the quality of documentation they come across.