Re: Non-6502 ROM used for software key?

From: Peter Bortas <bortas_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 23:52:53 +0200
Message-ID: <CA+NK+AAE0Oo0x21Bs3WV=nhpFz67p+GBBk82-1azfNYuEjsGLw@mail.gmail.com>
On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:18 PM, Spiro Trikaliotis
<ml-cbmhackers@trikaliotis.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> * On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 03:21:08PM +0200 Anders Carlsson wrote:
>> Ethan Dicks wrote:
>>
>> > I don't recognize IDA as a product name.
>>
>> I believe MichaƂ refers to this commercial product, which starts at 739 USD
>> for the most basic license!!
>>
>> https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/order.shtml
>>
>> Seems a little excessive to spend so much money to determine if an anonymous
>> ROM chip contains code or just random data.
>
> IDA was available in free variants some years ago. That is, an older
> version than available at that moment was available.

It's still there. The latest version is just a month or so old. And
IDE is an extremely competent interactive dissassembler.

https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/

> There were restrictions, however, in that the number of CPUs were
> limited, or the length of the disassembly was limited, or such. However,
> if one looks for it, you might find them (called idafree*, with a
> version number where I have the "*").

The big limit has always been on the available CPU modules. The
$700+/year starter version works if you want to do ARM32, ia32 and
MC68k for example, but if you want x64, ARM64, MIPS or Sparc you need
the Pro version.

https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/processors.shtml

If your buissiness pays for IDA then go for it. If not it's worth
checking the cheaper alternatives even if they are currently less
capable:

* radare2 with the Cutter UI, completely Free and OSS:
https://github.com/radareorg/cutter
    Do not try the radare2 without the GUI unless you already enjoy
using "vi" and would like something more complicated.

* Binary Ninja, fearly new low price commercial venture with a better
UI than IDA but less sofisticated and no where near as many CPU
modules yet: https://binary.ninja/
    My current favourite, has a great API and is easily extendably with Python.

> As far as I know, IDA stopped this habbit because there were too many
> pirated versions available. Because of this, they also stopped the
> student's offer they had once.

They still release the free version, and just this year they have been
better at updating it because of pressure from Binary Ninja. With the
limited number of CPU modules available in the free version it's not
particularly useful though.

Regards,
-- 
Peter Bortas
Received on 2018-03-28 00:00:02

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