ghidra VS KeenWrite

[1] https://github.com/boricj/ghidra/tree/feature/elfrelocatebleobjectexporter

I've been working on a specific reverse-engineering technique called _unlinking_ [1] on-and-off for the past 16 months or so. I'm on my third prototype (first a set of Ghidra scripts written in Jython [2], then a fork of Ghidra [3] and now a Ghidra extension [4]) and I've started a blog in order to document it [5], which side-tracked into writing a whole series of articles on reverse-engineering to introduce the topic.

What for, you may ask? Basically I'm trying to decompile a PlayStation 1 video game and I've quickly decided that dealing alone with multiple +500 KiB executables of complete utter spaghetti code wasn't going to work. Instead, I've decided that I'd rather divide-and-conquer the problem, so I've been tooling up to split executables into relocatable object files, in order to decompile those one at a time and _Ship of Theseus_-style my way to success.

Ironically, all of that stuff is so not done that I don't even know what meaningful feedback there could be. My prototypes do work, but only for 32 bit little endian statically-linked MIPS executables. The articles on my blog are draft-quality. As for the decompilation project itself that started all of this, it hasn't seen much progress due to all of those side-quests. The overall topic is so esoteric that so far I've only managed to hear about one group of two persons that tried to do anything remotely similar and one another anecdotal account [6] that this particular skill is very uncommon among reverse engineers.

Personally, I'm starting to think that maybe I could've actually reverse-engineered and decompiled the game in the time I took to get here. I've also tried to engage with Ghidra to upstream the foundations of my modifications in my fork, but after some back-and-forth it became clear that my prototype-grade stuff wasn't industrial-grade and couldn't be merged in its current state, which is why I'm currently reworking the code in my fork as a Ghidra extension.

To those that want to provide feedback after reading all of this: beware, I've had a lot of fun going down that rabbit hole, but this is one hell of a time sink _and_ a particularly tricky mind-bender.

[1] I don't actually _know_ what's the actual name for this technique, given that there are so few resources on it out there. I do know I didn't invent it.

[2] https://github.com/boricj/ghidra-unlinker-scripts

[3] https://github.com/boricj/ghidra/tree/feature/elfrelocateble...

[4] https://github.com/boricj/ghidra-unlinker-extension

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36575081#36590078

[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35729232&p=3#35740761

- The relocation synthesizer for MIPS: https://github.com/boricj/ghidra/blob/feature/elfrelocateble...

  - The Ghidra analyzer that leverages this synthesizer: https://github.com/boricj/ghidra/blob/feature/elfrelocatebleobjectexporter/Ghidra/Features/Delinker/src/main/java/ghidra/app/analyzers/RelocationTableSynthesizerAnalyzer.java

KeenWrite is my free, open-source, cross-platform desktop Markdown editor that can produce beautifully typeset PDFs. I started working on it years ago to help write a novel that has a complex timeline and I couldn't find a text editor that would allow me to integrate a character sheet with the story itself.

https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite

Tutorials:

* https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB-WIt1cZYLm1MMx2FBG9...

Here's what I mean by using variables directly:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFCqe3A5dFg

CommonMark doesn't propose a standard for bibliographic references. Would anyone find the editor more appealing if it had cross-references and citations?

My cross-platform desktop text editor, KeenWrite, allows users to define variables in an external YAML file. The editor calls out to Kroki[1] to convert text-based diagrams to SVG. The diagrams can reference variables and are rendered using EchoSVG[2].

KeenWrite[3] can produce PDF documentation from Markdown documents that has PlantUML diagrams with elements stored in an external, machine-readable file. Here are screenshots showing variables on the left, diagram text in the middle, and a real-time render on the right:

* https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/main/...

* https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/main/...

KeenWrite supports all diagrams offered by Kroki, which includes "diagram-plantuml".

[1]: https://kroki.io/

[2]: https://github.com/css4j/echosvg/

[3]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite

Although not interactive, I've created a video series that shows advanced usage of Markdown. Namely R, external variables, diagrams, math, annotations, and a different approach to metadata:

* https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB-WIt1cZYLm1MMx2FBG9...

Tutorial 4 shows basic Markdown:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNbGSiRzx-0

The top-right of each video shows keyboard and mouse clicks to help follow along.[1] My desktop text editor, KeenWrite[2], is used in the tutorials.

[1]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/kmcaster

[2]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite

https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/main/scripts/bu...

My template script provides a way to make user-friendly shell scripts. In a script that uses the template, you define the dependencies and their sources:

    DEPENDENCIES=(

I didn't create the fork, nor am I affiliated with the project. I use it in my text editor, KeenWrite to rasterize SVG.

KeenWrite Themes[1] are instructions that tell ConTeXt how to typeset XHTML documents (content) into PDF files (presentation). I made a tutorial that shows how my FOSS desktop text editor, KeenWrite[3], allows users to write in Markdown to typeset a document against a particular theme.

Before it can be used for scientific papers, it needs cross-references, which, unfortunately, aren't part of the CommonMark specification.

I posit that the vast majority of LaTeX users don't grok how to separate content from presentation. When I asked a question on TeX.SE about how to adjust the line spacing between enumerated items (spanning a couple dozen enumerated lists), the vast majority of people voted for the answer of using `\itemsep0em` to tweak each list ... individually.[4] The correct answer, IMO, is to fix the problem globally, and not waste time tweaking individual lists.

[1]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite-themes

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QpX70O5S30

[3]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite

[4]: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/6081/reduce-space-be...