Google acquires Zynamics • Hacker News Board

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#11

Post by brang » Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 9:40 PM UTC

glj wrote: post #10

I would love to know what the typical acquisition process for Google is like. Where does it start (product team, management, engineering, etc)? How long does it take? How intense are the negotiations? Are deals typically cash or stock?

You probably have to sign an NDA about it.

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#12

Post by tonfa » Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 9:51 PM UTC

sp_ wrote: post #7

tptacek wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be neat if they just open-sourced them? They almost might as well; both have open source substitutes already, neither could possibly make Google any money.

I am very sure this does not happen because the products (especially BinNavi) are entangled in commercial licenses for 3rd party components.

Are those 3rd party components easily replaceable?

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#13

Post by _b8r0 » Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 10:00 PM UTC

sp_ wrote: post #8

Congrats to my former company! I was lead devevloper of three of our products (BinNavi, BinCrowd, PDF Dissector) until 5 months ago when I was tired of the stuff we worked on and bailed out. Curiously, we always saw HBGary as one of our main competitors. However, we were focused on tech, not shady deals. :)

While Responder Pro and Recon are pretty awesome tools, I'd certainly say that BinNavi and BinDiff are very different and serve different purposes.

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#14

Post by BuschnicK » Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 10:08 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

Most of you probably haven't the faintest clue who Zynamics is. They're based in Germany and used to be called Sabre Security. This is Halvar Flake's team; they sell BinDiff (the most popular binary diffing tool in reverse engineering, used by teams around the world to back security patches out to learn about flaws), along with BinNavi, a popular debugger-based reverse-engineering tool. For the past few years, they'v…

Kind words - thank you! Halvar wrote a more personal note about the acquisition on his blog: http://addxorrol.blogspot.com/2011/03/wow.html

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#15

Post by BuschnicK » Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 10:15 PM UTC

brang wrote: post #11

glj wrote: post #10

I would love to know what the typical acquisition process for Google is like. Where does it start (product team, management, engineering, etc)? How long does it take? How intense are the negotiations? Are deals typically cash or stock?

You probably have to sign an NDA about it.

Indeed we did. Although I wasn't involved in the negotiations proper I can say from working with Halvar (I'm the BinDiff lead) that google is a tough bargainer... Intense indeed ;-)

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#16

Post by tonfa » Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 11:28 PM UTC

BuschnicK wrote: post #15

brang wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably have to sign an NDA about it.

Indeed we did. Although I wasn't involved in the negotiations proper I can say from working with Halvar (I'm the BinDiff lead) that google is a tough bargainer... Intense indeed ;-)

Any idea where you will end up, and what you'll be doing?

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#17

Post by tptacek » Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 12:56 AM UTC

_b8r0 wrote: post #13

sp_ wrote: post #8

Congrats to my former company! I was lead devevloper of three of our products (BinNavi, BinCrowd, PDF Dissector) until 5 months ago when I was tired of the stuff we worked on and bailed out. Curiously, we always saw HBGary as one of our main competitors. However, we were focused on tech, not shady deals. :)

While Responder Pro and Recon are pretty awesome tools, I'd certainly say that BinNavi and BinDiff are very different and serve different purposes.

What do you like about Responder and Recon? I've never used or seen them (I've used both BinNavi and BinDiff).

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#18

Post by rnicholson » Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 1:04 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #4

m0nastic wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like a lot of folks, I'm curious how this will effect sales of BinDiff and BinNavi (I don't see Google in the business of selling security software); but this should be really good news for Halvar and Co.

Wouldn't it be neat if they just open-sourced them? They almost might as well; both have open source substitutes already, neither could possibly make Google any money.

Is it a sign when all the prices and ordering info for their products has vanished off the site? or is this SOP when a company is acquired?

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#19

Post by kenjackson » Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 1:58 AM UTC

sp_ wrote: post #8

Congrats to my former company! I was lead devevloper of three of our products (BinNavi, BinCrowd, PDF Dissector) until 5 months ago when I was tired of the stuff we worked on and bailed out. Curiously, we always saw HBGary as one of our main competitors. However, we were focused on tech, not shady deals. :)

Curious if you happen to know the answer to this... but some eBooks I've seen when run through antiVirus programs report being 50% MATLAB. I can't tell where this comes from or if it means anything at all. Does MATLAB in PDF files ring any sort of bell for you?

Re: Google acquires Zynamics

#20

Post by borski » Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 4:32 AM UTC

Halvar is pretty much a baller in the security industry. I met him and immediately knew he was brilliant, even putting all the history and his contributions aside. Talking to him about some of the things I was working on was enlightening.

Kudos to him and his team. BinDiff is a great product.