Re: CSG 4510 and 4567 and Dmagic reverse engineering

On Mittwoch 28 Juli 2010, you wrote:

> Since we're in nitpicking mode... ;)
> 
> You can't retrieve "the" C source from an executable; you can however
> produce working C code using tools that recognise common library calls and
> common compiler constructs. Naturally you don't get anything like
>  meaningful function or paramater/variable names in the de-compiled code
>  (except for known library calls of course).

yes ofcourse, and on top of that, "recompilation" practically never works 
fully automatic, but needs an experienced user, who in the worst case can 
transform blocks of raw disassembly into c code.

however, the point beeing: reverse engineering a machine code binary in order 
to understand exactly what it does is entirely possible. it may be hard and 
time consuming, but it can be done, always. (been there, done that =P) reverse 
engineering any kind of non trivial "active" integrated circuit on the other 
hand - and that includes any fpga implementation, even if you have the core 
binary - is next to impossible only by traditional "non invasive" methods. you 
can take the "blackbox" approach and create something "alike" (and thankfully, 
that is good enough often) by reading and/or creating documentation and 
reimplementing - but if no documentation exists and/or no meaningful 
information can be gathered by traditional methods, then you can only "decap" 
and analyze the chip that way.

ah, some more links here: http://hitmen.c02.at/html/tools_links.html :)


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