Pancho  writes:

> On 04/01/2021 17:51, gareth evans wrote:
>> On 04/01/2021 13:08, Pancho wrote:
>>> On 04/01/2021 11:00, gareth evans wrote:
>>>> Thinking back to my first job, nearly 50 years ago now,
>>>> when I had to dis-assemble DEC's paper tape BASIC
>>>> interpreter in order to enhance it, I guess that
>>>> dis-assemblers and decompilers must now be ten-a-penny,
>>>> especially for programs running under Windows where
>>>> the structure of Windows programs is well-known with
>>>> an assumption that C was the source language?
>>>>
>>>> But I wonder if Artificial Intelligence could, after
>>>> being fed with numerous instruction sets, take a
>>>> block of binary, and analyse its source without
>>>> any prior knowledge of the instruction set?
>>>>
>>>> I am particularly interested in the Binary Blob
>>>> provided for Raspberry Pi computers, with a view to
>>>> getting detailed knowledge of the video processors
>>>> employed therein.
>>>>
>>> I think a lot of the problem is defining the question.
>>>
>>> What do you want it to do?
>>>
>> I don't want it to do anything. I want to play at a low level
>> with the thing ... large oaks from little acorns grow.
>>
>
> Play with what thing? What is an instruction set, what is the Binary
> Blob? Why do you need an AI?
>
> Most compilers leave fingerprints on executables you don't need an AI
> to detect them. I remember decompiling in the early 80's but complex
> modern code can often be a challenge to naively reverse engineer a
> high level understanding from even if you do have source code. Take
> away sensible variable and function names and you are stuffed.

I've had more than one experience in putting those meaningful variable
names right back.  It's actually pretty easy, a somewhat rote process.
Find the read input instruction.  Since you know the layout of the input
record, you now have labels to many of the references to that input
area.

I think you can work out how to proceed.


--
Dan Espen

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05