68k details

[meynaf]

It seems as some are just unable to counter my arguments, they start attacking me.
Next personal attack will be immediately reported to moderation.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by meynaf

It seems as some are just unable to counter my arguments, they start attacking me.
Next personal attack will be immediately reported to moderation.

I have yet to see anything resembling an argument. I started this line of enquiry to try and get something concrete from you in terms of arguments because I'm fed up with this subjective nonsense, broad brush statements and throw away comments.

Knock yourself out with the moderation my friend. You attack people way more than vice versa and you refuse to accept any counter arguments.

[Thorham]

Have to agree with meynaf here. How can you write an OS in standard C? Unless I'm missing something, you have to rely on additions made to the compiler that vary from platform to platform (if they're in there to begin with).

As for copying the stack, just Must be a real useful OS.

Originally Posted by plasmab

these make Amiga assembly guys look like script kiddies

Thanks for that

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by plasmab

I have yet to see anything resembling an argument. I started this line of enquiry to try and get something concrete from you in terms of arguments because I'm fed up with this subjective nonsense, broad brush statements and throw away comments.

Knock yourself out with the moderation my friend. You attack people way more than vice versa and you refuse to accept any counter arguments.

Ok you asked for it. Post reported.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by meynaf

What i said is that most apps aren't protected because there is not much need to.

If you count games than this isn't true.

[Thorham]

Guys, can we keep it cool?

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by Thorham

If you count games than this isn't true.

I don't count online games, these need to be protected. But games running on local machines have weak protection, if any.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by meynaf

I don't count online games, these need to be protected. But games running on local machines have weak protection, if any.

Perhaps, but an awful lot of games are online these days, including for just DRM.

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Perhaps, but an awful lot of games are online these days, including for just DRM.

That's the only strong protection. Beating this might require hacking the server, and wouldn't last long. It's not the same as mere code protection.

But anything that can be played offline is just weak. I don't count the number of "limited" games i've played a lot more times than in theory allowed

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by meynaf

And the registers ? How do you save/reload them in portable C ?
Registers are completely 100% dependent of cpu architecture !

I'm sure there is a way, even if it involves poking hex bytes directly into the object code. Because assembly language must be avoided at all costs! Then you make it 'portable' by sprinkling #ifdefs through the source.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I'm sure there is a way, even if it involves poking hex bytes directly into the object code. Because assembly language must be avoided at all costs! Then you make it 'portable' by sprinkling #ifdefs through the source.

There are portable ways of accessing registers.. C compilers have ways of doing this but yes it gets ugly.

See page 33... http://server.owl.de/~frank/vbcc/docs/vbcc.pdf

You can then do the ifdefiry crap.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by meynaf

But anything that can be played offline is just weak.

Perhaps you're right. Ultimately everything off line can be hacked, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. However, that doesn't have to mean it's always easy.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by meynaf

Oh. Then you may try :
- ReSource - http://aminet.net/package/dev/asm/ReSourceDemo
- IRA - http://aminet.net/package/dev/asm/ira
- ADis - http://aminet.net/package/dev/asm/ADisV1_3

But it all depends what you want exactly. No disassembler will automatically get it 100% right for what is code and what is data.

Soon there may be another choice. I am working on an interactive disassembler that - most of the time - does get it 100% right, and only needs a few mouse clicks to change the type when it is wrong.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Soon there may be another choice. I am working on an interactive disassembler that - most of the time - does get it 100% right, and only needs a few mouse clicks to change the type when it is wrong.

Nice. I also just found this .. its been used with the Visual Studio Code integration

https://github.com/aquynh/capstone

Kinda nice in a weird sort of a way.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by plasmab

Nice. I also just found this .. its been used with the Visual Studio Code integration

https://github.com/aquynh/capstone

Kinda nice in a weird sort of a way.

Kinda interesting that popular X86 disassemblers have trouble dealing with what look to be basic instructions.

The only time I ever needed to disassemble a Windows program, IDA pro couldn't do it because it didn't understand NE format. I tried working with a bare disassembly but it was a nightmare - X86 machine code sucks!

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by plasmab

Sigh. No software professionals here i guess.

I find the code formatting comment amusing coming from some one who seems to work on the hardware side of things as all the chip designers I knew 10 years ago used either ViM or XEmacs as their code editors. The last I heard things haven't changed much and the use of IDEs is minimal.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Kinda interesting that popular X86 disassemblers have trouble dealing with what look to be basic instructions.

The only time I ever needed to disassemble a Windows program, IDA pro couldn't do it because it didn't understand NE format. I tried working with a bare disassembly but it was a nightmare - X86 machine code sucks!

Windows PE format is pretty horrid.

"On Windows NT operating systems, PE currently supports the IA-32, IA-64, x86-64 (AMD64/Intel 64), ARM and ARM64 instruction set architectures (ISAs). Prior to Windows 2000, Windows NT (and thus PE) supported the MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC ISAs. Because PE is used on Windows CE, it continues to support several variants of the MIPS, ARM (including Thumb), and SuperH ISAs."

*shudder*

Then you have the .NET CLR startup variations. I actually like .NET DLLs. They do signing really nicely and you can do a reasonable job of preventing people loading unsigned DLLs.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by plasmab

I believe iRacing update their binaries every 7 days. Certainly every time I logon I have to update.

Also remember online services can challenge the binary to do checksums over arbitrary regions of any binary and can disconnect if the answer is wrong. Etc.

I think these systems need more skill than your average Amiga cracker.... these make Amiga assembly guys look like script kiddies

EDIT: the idea is to make it cheaper to buy the software by N orders of magnitude. Depends on what your time is worth of course but aside from AutoCAD and (10 grand packages) the like there is virtually nothing that would be worth my time cracking.

Nice generalisation there, but a couple of points worth making you aware of:

1). Whilst the Amiga had a dearth of pitiful copy protections, it also had quite a few very decent ones, certainly describing the work to successfully crack them as akin to a "script kiddie" makes me question whether you know what you're talking about, because someone knowledgeable on the subject wouldn't say that

2). Some of us "script kiddies" are perfectly at home on other "uglier" processors. Many of the current PC protections that have fallen in recent times were done so by ex-Amiga crackers.... that kind of flies in the face of you using the term "script kiddie" and "need more skill".

I'm not so much insulted as amused, but if you're going to have a war of words with people, can you be a bit more discerning?

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I'm not so much insulted as amused, but if you're going to have a war of words with people, can you be a bit more discerning?

Noted.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by demoniac

I find the code formatting comment amusing coming from some one who seems to work on the hardware side of things as all the chip designers I knew 10 years ago used either ViM or XEmacs as their code editors. The last I heard things haven't changed much and the use of IDEs is minimal.

I dont work in hardware though. I'm a professional software engineer/developer/sometimes manager. My LinkedIn profile is public and always has been.

EDIT: Its also a bit pass remarkable for those that do work in hardware. There are a bunch of linting and code cleaning tools out there like verilator, iStyle and HDL Companion. There's loads of IDEs for HDLs like Quartus, ISE, Vivado Studio. I couldn't possibly comment on the uptake because i don't do this professionally anymore but the tools exists.