Reverse Engineering Mac OS X

For all the emails and comments!

I was thinking about putting back all the tools and non-reversing posts – because they are useful for more than reversing protections- but then I found out that a zip is being redistributed with a mirror of this site. While I don’t have anything against it – I really enjoy the fact that someone understood the message and did it-, I discovered that it contains 2 Pace related posts. I asked it to be removed and the answer is that any content is now public and should be spread. Yeah respect is something difficult for idiots and kids to understand (oh sure we can have a lengthy discussion about respect if you are already thinking that I have no respect because I called fucking idiots to a bunch of really fucking idiots – nahhh better not going there). So if the kids think everything is theirs, then let them enjoy it. 90% of the wannabee reversers at MSJ and other lame crack boards can’t understand what’s there so the 2 posts are like a stupid prize to have. I really don’t understand the fetiche around Pace, because most kids have no curiosity about how it works, they just want the warez.

Well, once again, I don’t agree with this state of things. Yes call me elitist or whatever (that’s why the web is such a great sociological experience because you can always “fish” some jerks). I believe in something and that’s what will prevail. I believe that people should use their brains and think about things. I love to explore and mess with things that I don’t understand. Maybe I’m lucky and I can do it, but I seriously believe that most people can do it (excluding those who are really dumb!) with the right effort. And that’s where things start to fail. Most people do not want to do the effort and “waste” hours and frustration that researching and exploring entails. You don’t learn anything if you study Math with the solutions near you. Because it’s behavioral and you will take the easiest path and make the minimum effort and give up and check the solution at the slighest problem – been there, done that.

So there’s one less source of information, one less solution. The blog had some impact into OS X reversing and I hope some people got engaged and keep exploring and developing their skills. The lesson is to use them wisely! I will keep developing (slowly) my large TODO list (that got bigger while reversing VLOK) but unfortunately it will not be published (I doubt I will change my position on this).

I will miss this blog but one valuable learning in life is to know when to let things go.

Have fun,
fG!

I’m not motivated anymore to contribute publicly to this subject. When I created the blog I wanted to learn more about OS X (since it was my new toy) and share since there wasn’t much public information available. I was aware that OS X protections were weak and everyone would benefit from it. It had costs, because there is always some free rider, but I thought the benefits were higher. My position changed gradually and I become more aware of the costs. Full disclosure has benefits but maybe the costs are even higher. It’s a never ending discussion in the security world and no definite position exists. There are people who do full disclosure, there are others that give vendors some time to fix the problems, there are others who don’t share or share with a few, there are others who sell it for the highest price and so on.

I set my curiosity on Pace because there was no public information and it’s a high profile protection. My big interest was set on their anti-debugging tricks because OS X software lacks it (PT_DENY_ATTACH is a joke!). It wasn’t a priority project and it was in the TODO list for a long time until one day I was bored and decided to get on it. And I managed to progress and made the naive decision to publish the information. Pace reacted and the rest is history…
After that episode my efforts were even more redirected to improve some of the available tools since they are limited.

+Fravia believed that reversing and publishing the information was the better way to improve things. I strongly believe in the same but I’m tired of free riders and kids who don’t have any interest in knowledge. This same problem is happening at my MBA and I’m pretty much tired of it. There is always someone who wants to free ride and take advantage. Publishing and competing is a great thing because it makes you go further and always try to enhance your skills. That’s one good way to gain competitive advantage. But right now I’m tired of it. I’m not motivated to create things because of this and it annoys the hell out of me. The result is shutting down my knowledge and my creativity. I don’t like it but that is what’s going to happen for now.

Bryscomat is a fucking idiot because he has done no good to everyone. He hasn’t advanced knowledge and the only thing he did is having a fucking bunch of kids in the web (read MSJ) thanking him and not even caring about the protection per se. He’s an hero? Great for him and for you! He can take the benefits and the costs of it. Contrary to some morons posting comments, I don’t give a damn about it. If YOU really care about it, I did it first. And before me, someone else surely did it. Why should I really care? Fame and fortune for a handle? Do you think I will put in my resumé that I break protections and the law for fun? Adam Smith wrote that there are no new ideas, all depend on previous ideas. I’m not the best reverser in the world, I’m not even a competent coder. I do it for fun and because I love challenges. I could win good money from it because I know the underground and the economic incentives to it. Well, I don’t!

In conclusion, it were 2 years and something of fun and improvement. You know where to find me if you want to discuss and exchange ideas. I’m always available to discuss and improve my knowledge. Everything I published is public domain so you can do whatever you want with it. The new stuff will be kept private and don’t bother to ask me for the old stuff. If you want to learn how to reverse engineer in OS X do the same I did, invest some time and use your brain. Or else you can always join lame boards and request for cracks and wait for someone to do it. It’s your choice, freedom of choice.

It was fun but now it’s time to move on…

Have fun,
fG!

Update: You probably should read this, this and this to understand why releasing full cracks is turning things into this. It doesn’t look like a bright future!