kaitai_struct_formats VS cutter

Kaitai has a repository of binary formats[1] that can be used in visualizers or to auto-generate parsers.

[1] https://formats.kaitai.io/

This is tangential to your submission, but PDF is the file format I use for exercising any library that claims to be a declarative file format (ala https://github.com/kaitai-io/kaitai_struct_formats#readme )

Everything Hiew can do, Rizin[1] can do too, and is completely free and open source[2] under LGPL3 license. Moreover, it supports more architectures, platforms, and file formats, as well as GUI in Qt - Cutter[3][4]. If something is missing in Rizin but presented in Hiew, please let us know by opening the issue with details.

[1] https://rizin.re

[2] https://github.com/rizinorg/rizin

[3] https://cutter.re

[4] https://github.com/rizinorg/cutter

Okay, so, your comment about a "Dasher + Guitar Hero music theory/improvisation practice program" just sent me down a huge rabbit hole...

Well, rabbit hole(s) plural, I guess, most not directly related. :D

Largely because I made the "mistake" of looking at your HN profile & discovering you're also in NZ & we seem to have somewhat overlapping interests (and an affinity for "bacon" in account names, apparently), so, some thoughts[0]... :)

# Topic 1: Nissan Leaf VSP hacking

After reading your recent posts (https://ianrrees.github.io//2023/07/03/vsp-hacking.html & https://ianrrees.github.io//2023/08/05/voltage-glitch-inject...) on this topic & noting your remark about wanting to try reverse engineering a firmware image, I found the following thesis PDF (via a brief google search for `"reverse engineer" "firmware" "Renesas"`):

* "AUTOMOTIVE FIRMWARE EXTRACTION AND ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES" by Jan Van den Herrewegen https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/11516/1/VandenHerrewege...

Not really what I was anticipating finding but seems relevant to your interests--I don't think it was already in your resource list.

While the thesis addresses the Renesas 78K0 rather than the Renesas 78K0R, from a brief look at the "Flash Protection" PDF Application Note in your resource list it seems there's a large overlap.

Perhaps most significantly the author presents "novel methods" that combine bootloader binary analysis with constraint-based power glitching in an effort to improve on the results described in "Shaping the Glitch".

While I haven't read the entire 186 pages :D they theorize that using their approach extracting 8kB firmware might only take ~10 hours.

And, most helpfully, they even published their source code under the GPL here: https://github.com/janvdherrewegen/bootl-attacks

So, an interesting adjacent read even if it turns out not to be directly applicable to your situation.

Given I have an interest in & a little experience with firmware reversing my original thought was to maybe provide some hopefully helpful references that more generically related to firmware reversing but more specific is good too, I guess. :)

In terms of reverse engineering tooling, I've used Rizin/Cutter/radare2 previously: https://rizin.re https://cutter.re

On the CAN tooling/info front, you might be interested in taking a look at my "Adequate CAN" list which I originally wrote-up for a client a couple years ago: https://gitlab.com/RancidBacon/adequate-can

Some other probably outdated reverse engineering tooling links of mine: https://web.archive.org/web/20200119074540/http://www.labrad...

In terms of how to approach RE, other than just "getting started & digging in" & learning by doing, I've sometimes found it informative to read other people's firmware reverse engineering write-ups to learn about potentially useful approaches/tools.

Anyway, hopefully some of this is helpful!

[0] I have a tendency to be a little... "verbose" and/or "thorough" (depending on one's POV :) ) so I'll probably split this over a couple of comments, in case I run out of steam while writing and for topic separation.

In Cutter[1][2] we have an idea to implement thes same feature[3] as a plugin, but our priorities lie elsewhere die to the lack of enough hands. Contributions are welcome.

[1] https://cutter.re

[2] https://github.com/rizinorg/cutter

[3] https://github.com/rizinorg/cutter-plugins/issues/3

For this kind of task, using low-level debugger tools is probably better. Rizin[1][2]/Cutter[3][4] could help. We also have GSoC participant this year who works hard on improving debuginfo and debugging support[5]. I personally also like Binary Ninja, they recently made their debugger stable enough[6].

[1] https://rizin.re/

[2] https://github.com/rizinorg/rizin

[3] https://cutter.re/

[4] https://github.com/rizinorg/cutter

[5] https://rizin.re/posts/gsoc-2023-announcement/

[5] https://binary.ninja/2023/05/03/3.4-finally-freed.html#debug...

Something like https://cutter.re/ or https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dll_export_viewer.html Could possibly give you some insight. I guess the question though is, what are you trying to do with it?

Rizin[1] (and therefore Cutter[2]) supports interactive disassembly and analysis (but not decompilation) of the Python bytecode[3][4]. Apart from that it also supports Java and Lua bytecode for different versions.

[1] https://rizin.re

[2] https://cutter.re

[3] https://github.com/rizinorg/rizin/tree/dev/librz/asm/arch/py...

[4] https://github.com/rizinorg/rizin/blob/dev/librz/analysis/p/...

cutter is quite nice though