[Noisebridge-discuss] Software Reverse Engineering Workshop

[Daniel Packer]

Hey Dr. Jesus!

Thanks for volunteering, I'd love to make your talk part of the
evening. Some folks will not be x86 wizards, so you might lose a few
folks, but if you can explain the concepts and capabilities of the
programs in addition to the code nitty gritty I think all will get
something out of it. A live demo of some kind would be great, and if
people can get in the action somehow that'd be uh, even greater.

-Daniel


On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 1:08 AM, Dr. Jesus <j at hug.gs> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 12:49:50AM -0700, Daniel Packer wrote:
>> How about a software reverse engineering workshop sometime in May?
>>
>> This came up after Mike told me about his exploits in hacking software
>> with custom hardware (like figuring out how to cheat at every Nintendo
>> game) and his interest in software visualization - as in, showing in a
>> visually intuitive way what a program and the overall system is doing
>> in terms of memory and operations.
>>
>> Anyway, we agreed it'd be great to have a workshop like this to see
>> what the capabilities of modern disassemblers and related tools are,
>> and figure out the basics of how to use them.
>>
>> So... if you happen to be an expert at IDA or some other reverse
>> engineering tool and you wouldn't mind sharing some of your knowledge
>> please let me know so we can organize something fun. I'll even provide
>> snacks. If you know of software visualization and R.E. tools that
>> would be of interest, that'd be cool too.
>>
>> AND, if you don't know this stuff but want to learn, feel free to chime in.
>
> I have a prepackaged talk on IDA, HTE, and windbg I could give.  If
> this were any other crowd I'd say something like how I'd need to give
> an x86 assembly talk first so the reversing talk doesn't sound like
> incoherent hexadecimal rage, but I'm not sure that's true for
> noisebridgers.
>
> I could also write up some new slides on visualization.  However, I
> concluded long ago that visualization which would actually enhance
> productivity instead of merely looking cool would require displays
> that won't exist for a while yet (50+ megapixels).
>
> Most people I know get by with the graphing features in IDA 5, me
> included.
>