Re: [Fsfe-uk] BBC's DRM Iplayer windows only

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Chris,

> x86 machine code is over the head of 90% or more even if you include
> virus writers.  I spent several years writing x96 assembler, and I
> certainly wouldn't take on the task of decoding an executable without
> a lot of pay and some expensive tools.

Even though the percentage is small, I think the actual number is
probably large enough.  And it's not too hard just a little tedious so
motivation has to be strong.  I've taken 64KiB of symbol-less ARM
binary, disassembled it to mnemonics, and then annotated it, e.g.
function names, variables, etc., to find out the logic implemented by
this bootloader on an embedded system.  Given the CPU's datasheets the
code typically has to interact with the hardware to start doing
something useful and you can work bottom-up from that and top-down from
the entry address.

Similarly, a program running on Windows would have to talk to libraries
and the kernel and so they're points to work back from.

Cheers,


Ralph.