![\"logo1\"](\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/r3Ow0.png\")
Coming from this comment: is it possible to create a community wiki during the private beta?
\n", "Title": "Does the private beta have community wiki?", "Tags": "|support|community-wiki|", "Answer": "Yes, it is possible to create a community wiki answer. But there is rarely any case for it. Community wiki was primarily useful in the old days when there was a minimum reputation requirement to edit posts. Now, anyone can suggest an edit (which will be reviewed if the editor doesn't have enough reputation), so community wiki has lost most of its use. FAQ-type posts have also been replaced by tag wikis to a large extent. You may want to use it on an answer to encourage others to contribute to it actively, but that's very rare.
\n\nIt is not possible to create a community wiki question. The possibility used to exist, but was removed because there was no good use for it. On Stack Overflow, it used to be a way to tolerate bad questions, but this is no longer done.
\n\nCommunity wiki answers are still used on meta sites, which don't have suggested edits, for things like FAQs.
\n" }, { "Id": "20", "CreationDate": "2013-03-20T22:36:17.163", "Body": "Some stack exchange sites get lots of both upvotes and downvotes for question and answers. Others get much fewer votes. Do we want to be a high-voting site?
\n\nHere is one perspective from Scott Morrison over on meta.Tex.SE\n\n
Every Stack Exchange site will eventually end up with a different\n\"base level\" of voting --- that is, the expected number of upvotes\nfor a question of a given level of excellence. (This effect occurs\nbecause people see a good question, but already with a certain number\nof votes, and think \"oh, I would have upvoted this, but it already\nhas enough\".)
\n\nIt's easy for us to affect this \"base level\" by encouraging high\nlevels of upvoting now. We're setting the standards, and this really\nwill have an effect.
\n\n(On MathOverflow, we were very active about this early on,\nspecifically encouraging all the initial round of users to vote early\nand often. You can compare statistics, and see that the average vote\ntotal for a MathOverflow question is much higher than on any of the\nother SE 1.0 sites.)
\n\nIn case it's not obvious: the rationale for wanting this base level\nto be high is that it provides better positive feedback to good\ncontributors
During the beta period, it is important to generate reputation in the system so that users can start performing tasks other than simply asking and answering. As an example, at the moment we have just 3 users who have the privilege of reviewing Tag Wiki edits, the result being that such edits need approval from someone from SE to go through.
\n\nSo, yes, I think that we should be a high voting site during the beta period at least so that we can have some users who have the higher reputation privileges and access to the necessary moderation tools.
\n" }, { "Id": "21", "CreationDate": "2013-03-20T23:18:25.030", "Body": "I'm wondering if questions about how to make reverse engineering more difficult are within the scope of this site?
\n", "Title": "Are questions about trying to make reverse engineering harder appropriate?", "Tags": "|discussion|scope|", "Answer": "Yes, sure. The expertise on making reverse engineering easier is the same as the expertise on making the reverse engineering harder. Just as Security caters to both attackers and defenders, RE.SE can but cater to both obfuscators and reversers.
\n" }, { "Id": "28", "CreationDate": "2013-03-22T12:43:43.287", "Body": "I've noticed quite a few questions whose gists are extremely similar to example questions suggested during the definition phase. Some have been closed and downvoted, others have gone on to become some of the top questions on this site.
\n\nIs it acceptable to copy questions from the area 51 site like this and post them here?
\n", "Title": "Is it possible to take questions directly from the area 51 site?", "Tags": "|discussion|asking-questions|", "Answer": "The example questions proposed on Area 51 are supposed to be questions you would ask on the actual site. Now the site is here, so if you have a question, ask it. I'm not entirely certain why someone might object if the question was inspired by Area 51.
\n\nThe problem with the specific question you cited is that it is vague and incomplete. They just copied the title of a question without any actual content. It doesn't represent a real problem… which is why I resist suggestions that we automatically post the top questions from Area 51 when the site is launched. They're not real questions.
\n" }, { "Id": "45", "CreationDate": "2013-03-24T16:36:49.653", "Body": "When I look at the site for now, I generally distinguish two different topics:
\n\nIs this a problem? I feel like it might get a problem, because there aren't that much people who are working in both fields. While the way of working may be the same, we might get two subsets (one for high-level and one for low-level) in the community, that aren't really communicating with each other.
\n\nIf this is a problem, how are we going to resolve this? We could of course change the FAQ to accept only one type. We could say the second type has to go to Electrical Engineering, for example. However, there might be a neater solution with which we aren't losing a part of the community.
\n", "Title": "The site tends to attract two different fields of profession", "Tags": "|discussion|scope|", "Answer": "That's the whole point of the site: being about reverse engineering of anything. If we start splitting, then software reverse engineering goes on Stack Overflow, hardware reverse engineering goes on Electrical Engineering, chemical reverse engineering goes on Chemistry, and so on, and this site needn't exist.
\n" }, { "Id": "46", "CreationDate": "2013-03-24T17:58:29.280", "Body": "Should tags be singular like compiler or plural like debuggers ?
\n\nAlternatively, should both versions of a tag be created and made synonyms ?
\n", "Title": "What should be the policy for singular/plural tags?", "Tags": "|discussion|tags|", "Answer": "On Stack Overflow, I think the singular dominates but there's no agreement. Most newer Stack Exchange sites tend to favor plural tags for countable objects, e.g. compilers, debuggers, reserving the singular for concepts (compilation, debugging). I propose to follow this convention: use the plural for countable nouns. That is what was adopted with near-consensus on English Stack Exchange. It goes along the intuition that a tag name is what you use to complete the sentence \u201cthis question is about ____\u201d.
\n\nGenerally there's no need to create both versions, and indeed the engine won't let you. As soon as one version of the tag exists, you can't create the other one (e.g. now that debuggers exists, if you try to create debugger, you'll get an error message).
\n\nFor multi-word tags, there is a standard: use a - to separate words, e.g. static-analysis (not staticanalysis).
I've asked this question on RE.SE and got a negative response: 4 downvotes and a note from Anton Kockkov:
\n\n\n\n\nThis is a question for IT Security site, not for Reverse Engineering.
\n
I see how this is on topic on IT Security, but I do not see how this is off topic here. The Reverse Engineering SE is for ...
\n\n\n\n\nresearchers and developers who explore the principles of a system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation
\n
So the faq says.
\n\nIn this particular question, I am a developer or researcher of a system, more specific a website. I explore the principles of that system, the website, by finding out on what CMS it's based. This has to be done through analysis of its structure (the HTML and CSS code) and perhaps on some functions of the website. And exactly with that, the analysis, I need help, because I don't know how to perform the analysis.
\n\nSo why exactly is this off topic?
\n", "Title": "Typicals of CMSs - off topic?", "Tags": "|discussion|scope|specific-question|", "Answer": "Although the FAQ quote is arguably describing your question, I think the community consensus is quite clear. The skills and expertise required to reverse engineer a program, a firmware or a security chip are in very different than the expertise and knowledge needed to recognise which CMS system is used to generate HTML/CSS code. This is also evident by the lack of answers to your question here in RE.SE.
\n\nPutting semantics and phrasing aside, we're simply not the right people to ask such questions, as we tend to focus on the lowlevel (assembly, hardware, C) rather than the highlevel (HTML, PHP, Python) for the systems we research. We rarely discuss web attacks here, for instance, although it's a topic tightly close to reverse engineering and security.
\n\nAlso, I would like to suggest a question involving more reverse engineering would receive a warmer welcome if presented here, but yours seems to be mostly relaying on familiarity with existing CMS systems and less of need for the common skills of a reverse engineer.
\n" }, { "Id": "66", "CreationDate": "2013-03-27T19:43:41.053", "Body": "I would like to know if asking about the use of a tool that is designed for the purposes of reverse engineering is on topic?
\n\nThe questions that follow under this category would be asking about software that is used for reverse engineering where the answer would help the community reverse engineer with that tool.
\n\nSome examples of these kinds of questions include:
\n\nAn example of a question that is not covered by this description is[(Note, I'm not saying these are or are not valid questions, just they they aren't being evaluated under the description above):
\n\nI realize there is a fine line between debuggers being used in software development and in RCE, but we shouldn't shy away from questions concerning dual-use tools just because they are dual-use.
\n\nAs for the How does GDB's process recording work? question, I would say such things should also be considered on topic for the simple reason that reverse (code) engineering relies in large part on experience and circumstantial knowledge.
\n\nTherefore knowing how your tools work often provides missing jigsaw pieces should be considered an intrinsic part of the discipline.
\n\nAlso:
\n\nDynamic analysis just like static analysis is a part of RCE and debuggers play a vital role in it. Therefore knowing how certain features in a debugger work makes sense.
\n\nEven if the intention behind this question may not go that far, I think that most reverse engineers at one point or another have written their own debugger. Which goes to show how relevant it is to know how things work internally.
\n" }, { "Id": "74", "CreationDate": "2013-03-29T13:08:56.550", "Body": "If a question has already been asked on SO, is it OK to repost questions with a self-answer (FAQ style) if they are very relevant to RE (e.g. useful questions about disassemblers, assembly language questions, etc)?
\n", "Title": "Is it OK to duplicate information from SO?", "Tags": "|discussion|scope|", "Answer": "No, do not duplicate an already answered SO question unless you need additional information that only the reverse engineering audience can provide. We want to minimize the duplication of content between the sites as much as possible because it is very easy for content to be lost and become out of date.
\n" }, { "Id": "88", "CreationDate": "2013-04-02T13:21:03.410", "Body": "I know, you want to accept an answer to show the problem is solved. But really, the quality of the site can be improved when you do not accept an answer too fast.
\n\nAn answer might be correct and useful, but there may be much better answers out there! When an answer is already accepted, this discourages others to answer as well, as the question seems 'done'.
\n\nWhen you get a useful answer, upvote it, but wait like one or two days with accepting it.
\n\nI can understand you could be afraid of forgetting the question and never accepting it. What I do is checking back every now and then on all the SE sites I'm active on if I have any open questions of which I can accept an answer. This only takes like five minutes.
\n", "Title": "Do not accept an answer so fast!", "Tags": "|discussion|answer-quality|answers|accepted-answer|", "Answer": "Okay, as I outlined already in my comments, I am also doing this on other SE sites: i.e. not accepting too quickly. It may lead to forgetting to accept an existing answer temporarily, but inside your profile a nagging notice will appear over questions you have asked but on which you didn't accept any answer:
\n\n\n\n\nHave you considered accepting an answer or starting a bounty for this question?
\n
My main reason is indeed that I know from the other side of the fence how discouraging it is to find that a question that was the first, already got the most upvotes or was written by the guy with the most reputation in the room and therefore gets accepted \"by default\".
\n\nAs Camil Staps points out:
\n\n\n\n\nWhen an answer is already accepted, this discourages others to answer as well, as the question seems 'done'.
\n
It's too true, because doing it creates a dynamic of its own and doesn't necessarily foster the quality of the answers but instead quantity or speed. Often questions will be short and still to the point, but more often it seems to give an advantage to have high rep already. The quality of these answers is in many cases no better than what exists as answer from a lower rep user, but for some reasons the high rep user will garner the upvotes anyway \"by default\".
\n\nThere are so many answers out there on all of the SE sites and oftentimes I go *facepalm* and sit down to write up a comprehensive answer to a rather old question well knowing that I won't get (m)any upvotes for it. The whole Q&A spirit of the SE sites demands I do it. After all these sites have a high search engine rank and people will come here to look for answers and often consider them authoritative. Hence it is very important to foster the quality and not the speed or quantity of answers.
\n\nAn existing answer that tells you that you can't do something even though you can full well do it, but was accepted because either the OP gave into the nagging notice (Have you considered accepting an answer ...) in his/her profile or didn't know better, doesn't really encourage to write up another better and more comprehensive answer when you know that all you do is \"wasting time\" (because the topic is a niche topic in the first place) and you won't get gratification by means of upvotes either.
\n\nSo to reiterate: this is a discussion and I fully support Camil Staps' view because I'd like quality to be a more relevant metric than quantity.
\n" }, { "Id": "98", "CreationDate": "2013-04-03T17:28:39.513", "Body": "A beta that just started will hardly end up with a lot of high rep users in a short time frame. Are there any special rules w.r.t. the reputation needed for certain actions or is it the same as on any other SE network site for betas, too?
\n\nExamples:
\n\nIf I see this correctly from the list of what the rep levels provide, it looks like none of us can even peer review edits, right? Who is doing it then? Is that the SE staff?
\n", "Title": "Are there no special rules for betas?", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "Just adding to what Gilles mentioned, the rep limits for the various privileges vary depending on what phase the site is in. Here is the complete list :
\n\nAction Priv \u00df Public \u00df Golden SO\n\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\nSkip lecture on how to ask None None None 10\nAnswer questions on the site's meta 5 5 5 N/A\nAdd images, 2+ link, answer protected questions 1 10? 10 10\nCreate community-wiki answers 10 10 10 10\nVote up 1 15 15 15\nFlag offensive 15 15 15 15\nChat 20 global reputation* 20\nLeave comments on any questions or answer 1 50 50 50\nMake bounties 75 75 75 75\nCreate a chat room 100 global reputation* 100\nVote down (costs 1 rep) 1 100 100 100\nEdit community wiki posts 1 100 100 100\nCreate new tags 1 150 300 1500\nVote in moderator elections No elections 150 150\n+100 rep to all linked accounts 200 200 200 200\nReduced advertisements No advertisements 200 200\nRetag questions 1 200 500 500\nVote to close, reopen, or migrate your questions 1 250 250 250\nNominate for moderator No elections 300 300?\nShow up/down vote splits; user card 100 750 1000 1000\nCreate a gallery chat room 1000 global reputation* 1000\nEdit other people's posts 500 1000 2000 2000\nSuggest tag synonyms 1250 1250 2500 2500\nVote to close, reopen, or migrate any questions 1 500 3000 3000\nApprove tag wiki edits 750 1500 5000 5000\nDelete closed questions, moderation tools 1000 2000 10000 10000\nReduce captchas 1000? 2000 10000 10000\nReview chat flags 10000 global reputation* 10000\nProtect questions 1750 3500 15000 15000\nEdit tag wikis immediately; more deletion 2000 4000 20000 20000\nPainting of unicorns, signed by Jeff and Joel 200000 200000\n\n\n" }, { "Id": "107", "CreationDate": "2013-04-05T08:44:16.823", "Body": "
Just wondering, is it already possibly to migrate questions from other stackexchange sites such as stackoverflow to Reverse Engineering?
\n\nSame for questions like this question that have already been closed.
\n", "Title": "Is it possible to migrate a question from other stackexchange sites to Reverse Engineering?", "Tags": "|support|migration|", "Answer": "While it's technically possible to migrate questions, the migration paths are not set up until a site becomes well-established.
\n\nBut beyond that technical limitation, building this community from the old, pre-answered questions of another site would do this site a terrible disservice. That's not how you want to build this site.
\n\nForget for a moment that other site may not want their content removed like that (along with the the knowledge and reputation earned). Consider that, from day one, your brand new site will be filled with old, pre-answered anonymous questions, as the original authors are off on another site.
\n\nThe creation of this site was a somewhat controversial. The subject is already covered to some extent on other sites. But the idea of creating a site dedicated to Digital Preservation is to build a community was supposedly not being well-served by another site. I wouldn't rush to simply migrate someone else's content content here. Continue focusing on building your own community. You should focus on building your own content with properly curated solutions, built with the community and expertise that genuinely belongs here.
\n\nThat was the point of creating this site in the first place.
\n" }, { "Id": "122", "CreationDate": "2013-04-07T17:42:50.613", "Body": "As I suddenly figured out, there is plain HTTP used on log-in form to http://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com
\n\nNo SSL\\HTTPS implemented, and password in login form transferred in clear text.\nAs You may see, this is not secure at all.
\n\nWorkaround I found for myself - log in at https://stackexchange.com/ and then - use Login button on reverseengineering.stackexchange.com to extend login session to subdomain as well. It's not 100% secure also, but at least not credential but session passed in clear text here.
\n\nSo - question is, is there any option to enable secure login directly to project website, without workarounds?
\n\nUPDATE: well, always re-check results before You ask questions. \nActual OpenID form URL is https://openid.stackexchange.com/affiliate/form\nSo - problem is partially solved.
\n\nAnyway - site with information related to InfoSec IMHO should at least have SSL available for all traffic, even if it not default.
\n", "Title": "HTTPS\\SSL authentication for users", "Tags": "|feature-request|status-planned|", "Answer": "HTTPS connections to the questions and answers site have been requested for a long time but are currently not supported.
\n\nIf you're using Stack Exchange as your OpenID provider, you can connect to https://stackexchange.com/ and log in there. Even if you connect to http://stackexchange.com/, assuming you haven't been redirected to another site by an active man-in-the-middle, your credentials are not sent in cleartext \u2014 the login form does use HTTPS. That still leaves your session cookie exposed to potential hijacking.
\n\nSome prior requests and discussions on the topic:
\n\nSince this site is public now, I guess we shall start to see questions related to \nsolving challenges on some wargame, solving a crackme and so on... As someone how has learned a great deal by doing such challenges myself, I can appreciate the value of doing the actual research and discovery process myself, and wouldn't have liked it if i could just read the solution somewhere. My concern is that many challenges could be spoiled by directly answered questions here.
\n\nNow, I'm not talking about straight \"How do I solve this crackme\" type of questions, I guess those are right out. I'm talking about questions that are not obviously related to some challenge, but you know them to be if you've solved/seen it before.
\n\nWould you find this an issue at all ? How would you deal with these?
\n", "Title": "Wargames, crackmes and CTFs - how to deal with spoilers?", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "just use
\n\n\nthe spoiler marker:
\n>!
for
\n\n\neach separate items
\n
and
\n\n\nenough separators
\n
so that
\n\n\nnot everything is revealed at once.
\n
\n\n" }, { "Id": "145", "CreationDate": "2013-04-15T13:12:27.330", "Body": "This should do the trick!
\n
The private beta is over and no one has been awarded the Beta badge yet. Seeing that some users even fulfilled their commitment within the private beta itself along with being active on Meta, I dont think its possible that nobody crossed the threshold.
\n\nAlso, it appears that this badge is awarded manually globally. Can anybody confirm this?
\n", "Title": "Where are the beta badges?", "Tags": "|bug|status-completed|badges|", "Answer": "Oh, look: 45 of 'em, hot off the forge.
\n" }, { "Id": "153", "CreationDate": "2013-04-16T21:35:40.723", "Body": "Since the site scope isn't limited to reverse code engineering as such, would it make sense to have a specific tag for questions regarding the reverse engineering of code in particular? I.e. something like rce?!
\n", "Title": "Should we have a [tag:rce]?", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "In my opinion, whenever anyone mentions \"Reverse Engineering,\" everyone's thoughts jump straight to reverse code engineering. RCE should be implied, unless there are other tags such as ree for electrical, rme for mechanical, and so on.
\n" }, { "Id": "154", "CreationDate": "2013-04-16T21:46:50.667", "Body": "Could we rename windows-api to winapi? StackOverflow uses the latter, shorter form. It would make sense to go with an established standard here, since this is referring to the same thing anyway.
\n", "Title": "Could we rename [tag:windows-api] to [tag:winapi]?", "Tags": "|feature-request|support|status-completed|", "Answer": "Good catch. winapi Done.
\n" }, { "Id": "161", "CreationDate": "2013-04-17T01:35:37.437", "Body": "Subject line says it all: Could someone alias dissasembler (see spelling) to disassembler, please?
\n\nThe former just got inadvertently created by someone posting a question. I fixed that by giving the correct spelling.
\n\nOf course I don't know whether this is the right way to go about this or whether it is sufficient to \"delete\" the misspelled version?!
\n", "Title": "Could someone alias [tag:dissasembler] (see spelling) to [tag:disassembler], please?", "Tags": "|support|status-completed|tag-synonyms|", "Answer": "There is no need for misspelled versions of a tag. As the tag has now been removed (and is not used by any question), it will get deleted in some time.
\n\nAlso, as we are following the policy of having plural tags, disassemblers created.
\n" }, { "Id": "164", "CreationDate": "2013-04-17T03:19:28.487", "Body": "How can we control what is shown in the \"see also\" of the mouse-over tool tip that is shown when hovering over a tag name?
\n\nAn example of this is given in the second screenshot over in this blog post.
\n", "Title": "Where does the \"see also\" come from in a tag excerpt?", "Tags": "|support|tags|tag-wiki|", "Answer": "The tags which appear in the see also field are the tags which are synonyms of the actual tag.
If you hover over your name in the top panel, you will see an expanded scorecard. On the top of the scorecard you will see Privileges. Clicking on it will take you to the complete list of privileges with the privileges that you have on the site clearly mentioned.
\n\nOne of the privileges is the ability to Suggest Tag Synonyms.
\n" }, { "Id": "183", "CreationDate": "2013-04-23T18:00:49.130", "Body": "Is there a method to embed an instructional video clip in a Q&A the way this can be done with images? Basically what I am asking is whether there is a dedicated space to upload such stuff to similar to how the default image embedding ends up on imgur.
\n", "Title": "Is there a way to upload instructional videos that will get embedded the way images get embedded?", "Tags": "|support|", "Answer": "Embedding videos is enabled on a per-site basis. They are enabled for Gaming.SE (example) and Music.SE. Only Youtube videos are embedded.
\n\nIf you think this will benefit the site, post a feature-request.
\n" }, { "Id": "186", "CreationDate": "2013-04-26T15:47:11.477", "Body": "I noticed that our new question per day is really low. What can we do to overcome this?
\n\nShould we seed more content ourselves?
\n\nI can think of few newbies questions I can ask an answer myself. Is it good practice to do so on beta?
\n", "Title": "How do we increase the number of questions being asked?", "Tags": "|discussion|site-promotion|questions|", "Answer": "get rid of downvoting very frustrating feature as it doesnt tell you why something is being downoted
\n" }, { "Id": "188", "CreationDate": "2013-04-28T01:45:43.467", "Body": "One way we can promote this site is to create a community promotion ad to be shown on other SE sites. Each graduated SE site has a meta question where people can submit these ads (math, physics), and if they receive enough upvotes (>6) they will be automatically shown by the system.
\n\nIf we are going to be advertising RE this way, I think it would be useful to have one designated ad to represent the site, and then submit it to the community promotion ad questions on all related sites. So I'm posting this meta question to collect ideas. After a few days we can take the top voted submission and \"distribute\" it.
\n\nWhen an actual community ad is submitted, it is required to be in the form
\n\n[![Tagline to show on mouseover][1]][2]\n\n [1]: http://image-url\n [2]: http://clickthrough-url \nThe image must be exactly 220x250 pixels, in GIF or PNG format (not animated), and hosted on SE's Imgur account. I don't think it's strictly necessary for answers to this question to follow that format, but it would be convenient. Answers posted here should definitely include the three required elements:
\n\nTarget Sites :
\n\nOther possible sites :
\n\nI suggest that whichever post gets >=6 votes, and is the maximum voted post, be used.
\n\nAnd we have a winner!
\n\nDoes that mean this thread is over? Of course, not!
\n\nThe more ideas we have, the more ads we can put across the network. So, dont hesitate to post.
\n\nPost taken from Mathematica Meta
\n", "Title": "Our Community Promotion Ads", "Tags": "|discussion|site-promotion|", "Answer": "I am very bad at making pictures, but what about a picture of a magnifying glass on a bunch of lines of code. And, through the magnifying glass we can see the hexadecimal code ? Something like this (but better shaped):
\n\n
Questions can be closed.
\n\n\n\n\nRelated Questions on Meta Stack Overflow
\n
\n How do you challenge the closing of one of your questions?
\n Etiquette for closing your own questions
\n How do you reopen a closed question?
\n How soon should I \"vote to close\"?
Taken from MSO
\n", "Title": "What is a \u201cclosed\u201d question?", "Tags": "|discussion|faq|closed-questions|close-reasons|", "Answer": "When a question is closed, no additional answers may be posted to it, although the question and existing answers can still be edited (by users with edit privileges) and voted upon, and will continue to count for badges. The asker of a closed question may still accept an answer. Questions that are particularly bad should be flagged for moderator attention so they can be closed quickly.
\n\nClosed questions can be re-opened by users who have sufficient reputation.
\n\nWhen closing a question, a reason must be provided for the action. If none of the reasons for closing the question apply, you should strongly reconsider voting to close.
\n\nQuestions in these categories may be closed:
\n\nExact duplicate: Questions that cover exactly the same ground as earlier questions on this topic should be closed. See How to handle duplicate questions?
Off-topic: Questions are generally expected to be on-topic for the site, in accordance with the site faq.
\n\nNot constructive: \"This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion.\"
\n\nFor more about what makes a question Not Constructive, see QA is Hard, Let's Go Shopping, Gorilla vs. Shark., and We Hate Fun Here.
Not a real question: \"It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form.\"
\n\nFor more information, see What is a Real Question and What Have You Tried.
Too localized: \"This question is unlikely to ever help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet.\"
\n\nFor more information, see What questions should be closed with reason \u201ctoo localized\u201d.
If a moderator participates in the closure, the reason the moderator selects is displayed. Otherwise, the question gets closed with the most frequently given reason. If there is a tie, the latest reason is used. However, if multiple potential duplicates were suggested, all of them will be displayed in the automatically generated \"possible duplicates\" box.
\n\nFor more information on the etiquette around closing questions:
\n\n\n\nDefinitely not. Closed questions can and should be edited to improve them and address the reasons why they were closed in the first place. Once this is done you might need to either flag the question for moderator attention or raise a meta question to bring it to everyone's attention so it can get the necessary views that might translate into reopen votes.
\n\nIt's only when a question can't be salvaged that it should move onto the next state - deletion.
\n\nClosed questions become eligible for deletion by the community after 48 hours, but users with 2K reputation or more are not subject to this restriction. See here for the rules governing question deletion. See also Do closed questions ever get deleted?
\n" }, { "Id": "209", "CreationDate": "2013-05-17T13:47:21.003", "Body": "The tag ida is a synonym for idapro, so there should only be questions tagged idapro. However, as the tag page reveals, there are three questions tagged ida. 1 3
\n\nHow does this happen, despite these tags being synonyms?
\n", "Title": "Questions exist tagged 'ida' and 'idapro'", "Tags": "|bug|status-completed|tag-synonyms|", "Answer": "Poof! They are gone.
\n\nOn a serious note, that is normal behavior. Those questions were tagged with ida before the synonym relation to idapro was made. Tag synonyms affect future associations, whereas past tagging needs to be handled explicitly/manually. I just did the retags.
\n" }, { "Id": "212", "CreationDate": "2013-05-23T12:52:57.713", "Body": "The irritating thing about it is that apparently Igor was the one to introduce the synonym. As he points out in this comment to another meta question:
\n\n\n\n\nActually, the official name of the program (since a few years ago) is just \"IDA\". \"IDA Professional\" is what was previously called \"IDA Pro Advanced\".
\n
Considering there is IDA Professional, IDA Starter and a freeware version it would make more sense to call all of them \"IDA\" (ida) instead of \"IDA Pro\" (idapro) which refers to a single edition out of three possibilities. In short: ida is a superset of idapro and should be the one to use, unless we want to add other tags for the starter and freeware editions of IDA.
\n\nI know this is probably not going to be popular with the moderators, perhaps not with Igor either, but as a matter of fact it would be:
\n\nI had a look at the IDA website, and the software comes in three versions as stated in the question, freeware, IDA Starter and IDA Professsional. IDA seems to be the correct tag that encompasses all these. Hence, ida is now the master tag. idapro is the synonym.
\n\nI havent retagged the idapro questions as of now.
\n" }, { "Id": "221", "CreationDate": "2013-06-01T03:00:58.910", "Body": "We all love Reverse Engineering Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
\n\nThe Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
\n\nRating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!
\n", "Title": "Let's get critical: Jun 2013 Site Self-Evaluation", "Tags": "|discussion|site-evaluation|", "Answer": "How to display memory zones content on IDA Pro?
\nNet Score: 7 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 8, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nWhat is "overlapping instructions" obfuscation?
\nNet Score: 10 (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nHow to detect a virtualized environment?
\nNet Score: 6 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nHow do I see the parameters passed to RegOpenKeyEx, and set a conditional breakpoint?
\nNet Score: 10 (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nCreating IDA Pro debugger plugins - API documentation and examples?
\nNet Score: 3 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nWhat are the different types of packers?
\nNet Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nWhy does an executable give an error when opened in $tool?
\nNet Score: 1 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 4)
\nHow to handle stripped binaries with GDB? No source, no symbols and GDB only shows addresses?
\nNet Score: 9 (Excellent: 9, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nHow can I check I've moved outside the stack without triggering a protection fault?
\nNet Score: 2 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nWhat is fault-injection reverse engineering? What are the techniques involved?
\nNet Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nTake the tour is floating at the wrong place.\n![\"\"](\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/ClnU9.png\")
The position varies by a few pixels from time to time.
\n\nMy browser is Chromium Version 25.0.1364.160 on Ubuntu 12.04.
\n\nObserved on multiple sites which have long blurbs.
\n\nThe blurb has been changed making it of almost constant length for all sites.
\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/iMlLc.png\")
If you're a Twitter fan and spend time retweeting questions, you may want to consider following @StackReverseEng.
\n\nhttps://twitter.com/StackReverseEng/
\n\nStackReverseEng is the official Reverse Engineering Stack Exchange Twitter account created by the Stack Exchange team. It's configured to automatically tweet certain questions. It tweets about two posts daily.
\n\nThis could help expose RE.SE to more of your followers and encourage us all to retweet more questions.
\n", "Title": "Are you following the official RE Twitter account?", "Tags": "|discussion|site-promotion|community|", "Answer": "The event is now over.
\n\nOur Twitter account went from having 13 followers to 23 followers during the event!
\n\n@StackReverseEng is the second most followed account for all beta sites <1 year old.
\n" }, { "Id": "243", "CreationDate": "2013-07-19T15:27:24.377", "Body": "Currently, the hashtags added by the Twitter bot is just the most popular tag from the question. In many cases, the tag may be obscure, too broad (#python) or different from common usage (#pe -> physical education, private equity).
\n\nSo, to make the Twitter bot more effective, what should be done?
\n", "Title": "What can be done to make the Twitter account more effective?", "Tags": "|discussion|feature-request|site-promotion|", "Answer": "Two solutions that come to my mind are :
\n\n![position varies](\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/OIXtW.png\"){kind=link}
#reverseengineering#reverseengineering be usedWe have a tag career-advice with one popular question. Career advice is generally considered a can of worms and is off-topic across the entire Network. The main reason being that this attracts a huge number of low quality localized questions (as they are valid for a specific person/situation).
\n\nSo, should we make career-advice off-topic as well?
\n", "Title": "Do we want to give out career-advice?", "Tags": "|discussion|scope|", "Answer": "I would agree that career advice is probably a bit too noisy and specific to be of much use to anyone but the person asking the question.
\n" }, { "Id": "250", "CreationDate": "2013-08-17T02:57:42.433", "Body": "Spam is unsolicited commercial advertisement. Fundamentally, spam tries to sell you something when you didn't ask for anything.
\n\nSome spam is after your money. Sometimes it's indirect, such as spam that wants you to visit a website and click on the ads. Some spam wants you to visit a website with malware that may be able to infect your computer. Sometimes spam is after things other than money; political spam is still spam.
\n\nSometimes you'll see posts from broken spam bots that only have the framing but are missing a reference to the brand or site being advertised. Treat them as spam. Stack Exchange has some technical measures designed to limit spam, so the proportion of spams from bot tests rather than from working bots is quite high.
\n\nSome things, how ever, are not spam:
\n\nFlag as spam.
\n\nFlagging as spam is the most effective way of dealing with spam. A post that receives 6 spam flags is automatically deleted and locked.
\n\nDon't raise a custom flag, select the \u201cit is spam\u201d predefined reason. That gives extra work to moderators as they need to handle the custom flag separately. Moderators see spam flags, and generally react to them by destroying the account.
\n\nDon't bother downvoting spam. It's actually counterproductive for questions as they are taken off the front page if their score drops below -4. A spam flag already reduces the post's score by 1. (But don't upvote either: we don't want to risk giving the spammer privileges, or to say to the quality control system that there is something worth saving on that account.) There's also no need to vote to close a spam question.
\n\nDon't edit the post to blank out the spam, except for when the post contains p*rn. This makes it harder for others to notice that the post is spam and must be removed pronto.
\n\nMost spammers post questions or answers but some try to sneak in spam via edits.
\n\nReject spam edits, or edits that are testing bots, as vandalism. There is currently no separate tracking for spam and other kinds of vandalism.
\n\nPay attention to edits that add links \u2014 most are helpful (adding a link to a paper or to Wikipedia), but occasionally the link is to a spam or phishing or malware site, so check the targets of links when you review suggested edits.
\n\nFlag as spam and move on. Really, that's the most helpful thing.
\n\nThere is one other thing: if other people with a Stack Exchange account are around (in real life, or in chat), you might ask them to flag as well, especially in the slow hours when there are few people around on the site. Anyone with 15 reputation can flag. If you have 200 reputation on one Stack Exchange site, you get an association bonus which is sufficient to raise flags on any site (if you've never interacted with that site before, you'll need to create an account on that site by clicking the \u201clogin\u201d button).
\n\nThanks to Gilles on CS Meta.
\n" }, { "Id": "252", "CreationDate": "2013-08-30T03:01:00.390", "Body": "We all love Reverse Engineering Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
\n\nThe Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
\n\nRating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!
\n", "Title": "Let's get critical: Aug 2013 Site Self-Evaluation", "Tags": "|discussion|site-evaluation|", "Answer": "How can I change the Read/Write/Execute flags on a segment in IDA?
\nNet Score: 11 (Excellent: 11, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nHow to get virus body of Polymorphic Malware
\nNet Score: 6 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nUnable to set a breakpoint in IDA 6?
\nNet Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 10, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: 8 (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nIs there any tool which parses ollydbg run trace?
\nNet Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nWhat are nullsub_ functions in IDA?
\nNet Score: 9 (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 0, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: 1 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nModifying step value that affects xmm# float value
\nNet Score: 1 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nMixed 16/32-bit code reversing using IDA
\nNet Score: 7 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nReverse engineering a VC++ video game
\nNet Score: 0 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nReverse Engineering is clearly a 'gray'-area with law. Thus this is why I wonder, what to do when you detect a string of questions or a single questions that is clearly leading to mal-behaviour.
\n", "Title": "Detecting malicious behaviour", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "I posted an answer on A51 regarding a similar issue with the TOR proposal. That answer largely covers the same ground.
\n\nBasically, unless a question itself is mentioning or linking to something that can be construed to be illegal or immoral, then moderators may act on it. However, in most cases, questions may not directly imply an illegal activity and it would be more a matter of judging intent.
\n\nIntent is, quite rightly, not mentioned at all in the TOS, and hence, moderators or users cannot reasonably act (delete) on the basis of perceived intent alone (You are however free to comment and downvote as needed). In such cases, the post is treated as normal and we defer to the Community Team's decision, if at all the situation so demands.
\n\nJust to be explicitly clear, everybody is welcome to comment, clarify and vote on such questions howsoever they feel, to bring out the intended use case/scenario. Moderators however, cannot unilaterally act (delete, close) against such posts for reasons of possible intent.
\n" }, { "Id": "267", "CreationDate": "2013-11-28T03:01:12.163", "Body": "We all love Reverse Engineering Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
\n\nThe Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
\n\nRating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!
\n", "Title": "Let's get critical: Nov 2013 Site Self-Evaluation", "Tags": "|discussion|site-evaluation|", "Answer": "Which calling convention to use for EAX/EDX in IDA
\nNet Score: 5 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nHow to use sysenter under Linux?
\nNet Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nAre those code snippets and file paths in a C++ binary some sort of standard debug information?
\nNet Score: 3 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nInserting resources.properties file into an APK - language compatibility
\nNet Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nWhat does this memory pattern pointing from the thread-local storage mean?
\nNet Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nMoving from Windows to Linux for Malware analysis. What should I consider?
\nNet Score: 0 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nSome programs have always same addressing and some different
\nNet Score: 0 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nHow to find file compression or obfuscation type
\nNet Score: -3 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 3)
\nJust now, I have edited a question of type \"Decompile this assembler code\".
\n\nIt is not the first one and it will not be the last one...
\n\nI know that, whatever we do, we will encounter this kind of question a lot. So, there is absolutely no way to fight against. But, at least, is there some recommendations, ways to handle it, specific tags to add to it, to make it easier to browse in and relevant as an answer ?
\n\nAny ideas, comments, or opinion about this issue is more than welcome ! (I, personally, have no real ideas on what is the best way to handle it... my only certainty is that it will come again and again with no possible way to avoid it).
\n", "Title": "What to do with questions of type \"Decompile this assembler code\"?", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "Binaries have protection. Source code has protection, but not as much as the binary. Disassemblies are smart guesses. You can't take a disassembly from IDA or objdump and recover a working program. You equally can't recover the source. RE has more than enough plausible deniability.
\n" }, { "Id": "275", "CreationDate": "2013-12-20T18:18:55.283", "Body": "What are the rules and question Limitations in Reverse Engineering?
\n\nSome Questions seems to ask for help in cracking. Is that legitimate? Are we allowed to answer him even if he specifies the program which is working on?
\n\nHope you got the point
\n", "Title": "Question Limitations", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "See https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/help/asking
\n" }, { "Id": "279", "CreationDate": "2014-02-26T03:01:17.123", "Body": "We all love Reverse Engineering Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
\n\nThe Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. \nRun a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
\n\nRating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!
\n", "Title": "Let's get critical: Feb 2014 Site Self-Evaluation", "Tags": "|discussion|site-evaluation|", "Answer": "Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nNet Score: 5 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nNet Score: 3 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 0, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nNet Score: 2 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nNet Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: 1 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nNet Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: -2 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 3)
\nNet Score: -2 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 3)
\nI would like to have added [mips]as a new tag:
mips - 41 currently, although I think some might not fit under the spirit of such a tag[x86], which has 47 questions tagged currentlyif I click on 'Improve Tag Wiki' for an existing tag I get:
\n\nYou do not yet have tag wiki edit privileges. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed., which is expected, but if I enter a non-existent tag from the TAGS page there is no button or prompt to add a new tag.
I just attempted to add on a single question as an edit, so perhaps it needs to be peer reviewed first.
\n\nI guess my question is, how can I propose the description / edit for the tag wiki for a new tag if I can't see it yet because it is waiting for peer review?
\n", "Title": "Tag wiki for MIPS assembly / disassembly, etc", "Tags": "|discussion|tags|", "Answer": "Makes sense in my opinion. We have x86, ARM.. I approved one of your edits.
\n" }, { "Id": "295", "CreationDate": "2014-08-25T03:01:24.577", "Body": "We all love Reverse Engineering Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
\n\nThe Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. \nRun a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
\n\nRating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!
\n", "Title": "Let's get critical: Aug 2014 Site Self-Evaluation", "Tags": "|discussion|site-evaluation|", "Answer": "Net Score: 9 (Excellent: 9, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nNet Score: 7 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nNet Score: 6 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 8, Needs Improvement: 0)
\nNet Score: 5 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: 4 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: 3 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 2)
\nNet Score: 2 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 3)
\nNet Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 11, Needs Improvement: 1)
\nNet Score: -1 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 4)
\nNet Score: -2 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 9, Needs Improvement: 3)
\nOn both StackOverflow and at the healthy beta Cryptography we get a lot of questions about decryption of a certain ciphertext. Sometimes they are just base 64 blocks, but often there is a bit more to it than that. On neither site they are on topic.
\n\nDo you allow such questions or are they considered off topic? If they are on-topic, what would be the minimal requirements for said questions? Note that there would be quite a few persons that have a ciphertext because of a hack or because they just want to decrypt a random binary.
\n\nStrictly optional question: If they are off topic, would you know a place where they could be posted instead?
\n\nAnyway, good luck with the beta!
\n", "Title": "Decryption of ciphertext", "Tags": "|discussion|questions|migration|", "Answer": "I think posting ciphertext is totally fine. If we want to develop techniques to decode/decrypt/deobfuscate, we will need diverse examples.
\nYou have some unknown binary data and you don't know what it is?
\nIf this isn't the forum for it, what is?
\nI find it more than a little humorous that xoring 4 bytes across a stream makes IDA users lose their chill.
\n" }, { "Id": "299", "CreationDate": "2015-01-08T07:33:35.757", "Body": "At times I close vote a question because it belongs on another site within the SE network. Most of the time it belongs on SO and there's a default entry in the menu under offtopic -> question on SW dev belong at SO.
However sometimes it belongs on the crypto or unix (or another one) sites. Looking at the close voting menu I see just 2 options.
<your own comment>The first choice, although sounding like the right one, only gives me 1 option to choose from. I don't see how I add custom menu entry there. This leaves only the second option and writing a custom message.
\n\nWhat is the right/preferred way of close voting while suggesting other sites within the SE network?
\n", "Title": "Closing and suggesting other sites within SE network (not SO)", "Tags": "|support|", "Answer": "If there is no option for users with closing privileges to migrate a question to specific site, the way to get a question migrated to some site is to flag this question for moderator attention with \"Other\" flag (\"This question belongs to {site}, because...\") - you are right about your second option. Moderators will have an ability to migrate this question.
\n\nYour flag, however, can be declined if the moderator who reviewed it felt inappropriate to migrate this question.
\n\nAnother way would be to raise a meta-question to discuss if the question you want to be migrated is really off-topic there (moderators will see your question most likely).
\n\nAnd please don't request migration / migrate of crap.
\n" }, { "Id": "301", "CreationDate": "2015-02-22T03:02:35.487", "Body": "We all love Reverse Engineering Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
\n\nThe Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. \nRun a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
\n\nRating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!
\n", "Title": "Let's get critical: Feb 2015 Site Self-Evaluation", "Tags": "|discussion|site-evaluation|", "Answer": "I think that newcomers are treated too harshly. If you disagree with something, by all means down-vote it, but do you really need to down-vote if it is already -9? I would vote to stop the display (though not internal count) at -1.
\n\nAnyway, people like to nit-pick and be pedantic, which is both appropriate and fun, but it really hurts morale in some cases.
\n\nSometimes, let things slide, help, don't intimidate and run people off.
\n\nEDIT: (now in 2017) - Why have all the questions become about questions themselves, e.g. 'Can I ask this?' or 'Can I ask that'? Sad state of affairs, IMHO. We must have a more inviting community and not be so strict and pedantic.
\n" }, { "Id": "310", "CreationDate": "2016-01-26T22:58:31.850", "Body": "I'd like to explain my dissection of a data dump hold against the code to get another opinion or to check my analysis. Is this on topic or off topic?
\n\nI'd show the data dump with markings which bytes or bits describe what in a datastructure while the frame is parsed by the code.
\n\nE.g. it might look like this ...
\n\n\n\n\nThis is the data:
\n\n\n \n00 ff 12 01 22 01 00 00 00 01\n\n\n
\n This is the code:\n \nint version = readByte();\n\nif (version > 1) {\n byte flags = readByte(); // read flags as byte\n} else {\n int len = readWord(); // read next two bytes\n} \n1. Read version:\n
\n\n\n \nint version = readByte();\n\n[00] ff 12 01 22 01 00 00 00 01 <= version\n2. Read length, since this is version 0:\n
\n\n\nif (version > 1) {\n byte flags = readByte(); // read flags as byte\n} else {\n int len = readWord(); // read next two bytes\n} \n\n\n00 [ff 12] 01 22 01 00 00 00 01 <= length: 0x12ff (4863)\n
And so on ...
\n", "Title": "Letting you check my analysis of a data dump against the source code - on topic?", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "Since you seem to be trying to reverse-engineer a data structure, this looks on-topic too me.
\n" }, { "Id": "314", "CreationDate": "2016-03-31T20:01:35.867", "Body": "I was looking for an answer that involved CallWindowProc and I stumbled upon this question
Looks like this user has posted the question already knowing the answer, answered it right away (by the look on the timestamps) as a \"different person\", and got upvotes for it.
\n\nMaybe it was supposed to be a Community Wiki question. I don't know, just found it weird
\n", "Title": "Possible reputation abuse", "Tags": "|discussion|reputation|", "Answer": "The question was answered by the same user and it's perfectly fine since our goal is to share knowledge and make the internet better, so further users can benefit from it.
\n\nSee: Help Center > Answering on Can I answer my own question?
\n" }, { "Id": "316", "CreationDate": "2016-04-12T17:33:53.270", "Body": "Are questions related to sniffing traffic (tcpdump) or debugging command-line tools are on-topic?
\n\nFor example tracing php, memcached processes using dtrace or strace?
\n", "Title": "Are sniffing/debugging questions on-topic?", "Tags": "|discussion|scope|", "Answer": "It depends on who you happen to encounter to be honest. I would say Yes, but some people are so pedantic that almost nothing seems on-topic. I mean, what kind of community do we have when a person has to ask if their question is on-topic before asking it?
\n" }, { "Id": "318", "CreationDate": "2016-08-17T05:59:43.973", "Body": "Why is asking about the concepts of a game hardware design is considers to be off topic?
\n\nI'm trying to find out the concept of hardware design of a game, which is reverse engineering of the game, I think.
\n\nI asked about the most proper SE site to post my question on, and reverseengineering SE sited seemed appropriate.
But when I asked my question on the site, it received negative votes, which means that it's not on topic question,but why is that?
\n\nWhy are such questions considered to be off topic, and how can I, if possible, make them on topic questions?
\n", "Title": "reverse engineering of electronics of games - off topic?", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "The hardware RE is most definitely on-topic, as you can check by looking at the hardware tag.
\n\nNegative votes do not necessarily mean \"offtopic\". The close votes so far were for \"too broad\"; not sure I agree with the reason but it's understandable since you don't provide much information. The questions work best when you have something concrete to answer, otherwise you get some vague handwaving answers which do not much help the asker or other visitors.
\n" }, { "Id": "322", "CreationDate": "2016-09-30T21:57:26.190", "Body": "The bindiff tag has the following description:
\n\n\n\n\nCommercial binary diffing tool sold by Google (formerly zynamics/Sabre)
\n
and until recently 9 questions. Out of those, only 4 (this, this, this and this) discuss the actual BinDiff tool, while the other 5 (this, this, this, this and this) ask questions related to binary differencing in general. 7 out of the 9 are questions by the same user, user3119546, and those are all of his questions. He also have 2 answers, one of which is about BinDiff.
\n\nI will now remove and retag the bindiff and bin-diffing tags to be faithfully representing the current tag intentions, but I think we should discuss this tag.
The current name is quite confusing, and I would suggest replacing it with something a bit more clear, such as tool-bindiff instead.
\n\nAlthough there's no such convention (and this might justify another discussion), in the particular case of BinDiff the name is actually the same as the action, and perhaps written in a more intuitive manner (compared to bin-diffing). IMHO the current tag names make it unclear to users that haven't seen these tags before.
\n\nEdit:\nI've replaced bindiff with tool-bindiff, and copied the updated description from the old tag to the new tag.\nI would now like to remove bindiff altogether and make it a synonym of bin-diffing but it appears I'm unable to do that.
\n" }, { "Id": "326", "CreationDate": "2016-11-17T21:15:53.757", "Body": "I have just asked a question about legacy iPod click wheel games here:
\n\nReverse Engineering Legacy iPod Click Wheel Games
\n\nI do not have the required reputation to create an ipod tag just yet. Could someone with 150+ rep edit my post and create the tag?
\n", "Title": "Need a tag for Legacy iPod (pre-iOS/touch) questions", "Tags": "|discussion|status-completed|tags|", "Answer": "\n\nIgor Skochinsky created the ipod tag for my question.
\n" }, { "Id": "338", "CreationDate": "2017-02-03T08:10:43.630", "Body": "There has been discussion about too broad questions here, but we lack the analogon for too narrow questions. Motivation for this question are the comments under Can Radare2 support word-based architectures?.
\n\nOur current guidelines for questions encourage asking specific questions. I never saw StackExchange as a collection of generic answers in the fashion of Tutorials, but I can see some specific answers are only valuable to very few people. Thus, I would like to discuss this question:
\n\n\n\n\nIs there something like a 'too narrow' question? And what to do about it?
\n
The only statement I could find is about questions about reverse-engineering a specific system are off-topic, unless they show sufficient effort.
\n\nIn my opinion, even though many of these questions may remain unanswered, answers to questions like these are especially valuable. I hope to see more answers to these questions (e.g. example).
\n", "Title": "Too 'narrow' questions", "Tags": "|discussion|questions|specific-question|", "Answer": "Well, actually even your question was asked before (the way I read it, anyway). The tag specific-question seems to be the focal point for the matter.
\n\nYour particular example is different, and I have to agree with @SYS_V's comment:
\n\n\n\n\nIt could be argued that the radare2 question is more about features of a specific tool/product and less about a reverse engineering problem or concept
\n
That said, it doesn't invalidate your other points.
\n\nWhat we should keep in mind, though, and that goes with a statement I made here (emphasis added):
\n\n\n\n\nFurthermore I think that for a Q&A site the relevance for the reader (and future internauts) needs to be considered as the prime aspect when decisions are made what to allow and what not.
\n
... and I think I find that echoed in this statement from your question (emphasis mine):
\n\n\n\n\nIn my opinion, even though many of these questions may remain unanswered, answers to questions like these are especially valuable.
\n
I have to agree. As reverse engineers (\"reversers\") we often struggle to find the pieces of huge puzzle. I have often found myself using the smallest shreds of information I could find to \"get to the next level\" when reverse engineering a target. Be it information about a very similar target, be it clues about an instruction set, be it clues about that library I've never heard about before. Reverse engineering is in no small part the aspect of researching a topic, as an intrinsic part of the craft.
\n\nThese questions are very specific. But they don't seem to fall into the don't-ask category, although the effort/understanding isn't always obvious.
\n\nGiven how narrowly scoped this site already is, we should not always jump at the first chance of closing a question as too specific. Instead we should aim to create value for future internauts by guiding the inquirer (the person asking the question) to scope their question in a way that will encourage answers valuable to others. If the inquirer decides to ignore these efforts from the community, we can still go ahead and close such questions.
\n\nQuestions such as this one should still be considered off-topic, though. They don't show the effort and are homework-like \"I would like to RE this, could your do it for me\" style questions.
\n\nAnd as a side-note: I find the notion of Real Questions Have Answers ambivalent. It's true that real questions have some kind of answer. What's not true is that a question in a very specialized fields with comparably low numbers of experts (when compared to, say, developers) which doesn't have an answer yet, is a bad question.
\n\nThe distinction here being that while answers exist for real/good questions, it's by no means certain that these answers exist here and now on this Q&A site.
\n\nI remember many a case where years after initially dealing with a target, I return to it - or a newer version of it - and happen to crack the puzzle this time. Whenever I have asked a question before and remember/find that, I'll go to the effort of answering it to leave a \"memo\" to myself and others.
\n\nSimilarly I've found myself answering questions that were years old, because there weren't any answers or the answers were outright dodging the question.
\n" }, { "Id": "339", "CreationDate": "2017-02-06T10:43:06.213", "Body": "Should we use symbols for all questions related with any symbol information?
\n\nI think it is too broad for all symbol related operations. It can be used for analysing executable file types, operating systems or understanding linker, loader and compiler mechanisms.
\n", "Title": "About symbols tag", "Tags": "|discussion|tags|", "Answer": "Yes, in theory we could add more fine-grained tags but I don't think there are so many questions on the site yet that such distinction is necessary.
\n" }, { "Id": "341", "CreationDate": "2017-02-13T15:24:15.267", "Body": "Today I found out this SE site and browsed a little. A question caught my interest and while reading the answer, I edited it to improve readability. The edit then went to the approval queue and after that I actually joined the site.
\n\nNow the edit is approved, but the attribution is to the \"Community\" user.
\n\nIs it possible to retroactively change the user to my proper username?
\n\nThe intention is that the activity shows in my activity history view when looking at he profile.
\n", "Title": "Change the edit attribution", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "Alas, this is not possible, sorry. There is no link between your edit (which was accepted before you joined) and your current account.
\n\nBut I'm sure you'll find other ways to improve the site now that you're a member :)
\n" }, { "Id": "344", "CreationDate": "2017-03-07T00:38:06.673", "Body": "Currently there are a total of 3,749 questions on this site. On SO there are 2,166 questions tagged \"reverse-engineering\" and on Security.SE there are 122 questions tagged \"reverse-engineering\". Not all are focused specifically on RE but quite a few are. Here are some examples:
\n\nFrom SO:
\n\n\n\nIs it possible to extract function signatures from object files?
\n\nUnable to set breakpoints in gdbserver via IDA\nReading from already open COM (serial) port?
\n\nprotect python code from reverse engineering
\n\nFrom Security.SE:
\n\nIdentification of TPM accesses in UEFI firmware
\n\nExploitation: EIP refuse to jump to the stack although it's executable
\n\nVolatility Plug-ins to investigate packed exe files
\n\nI've been using this site since roughly December 2016, so I'm not exactly a grizzled veteran, but these exemplars strike me as on topic and focused on or directly involving RE concepts.
\n\nI took a look at this question from 2013 about the same kind of thing: Is it possible to migrate a question from other stackexchange sites to Reverse Engineering?
\n\nThis site has been in beta for 1448 days now and has unquestionably proficient moderators and an enthusiastic and knowledgeable core group of users. The idea that this site is not \"well established\" simply because it's still in beta strikes me as laughable (unless I am misunderstanding what it means for a site to be \"well established\"). The number one problem seems to be getting more people to ask more questions here.
\n\nHere is my question: given that questions from other sites cannot be migrated to a site in beta (like this one), how can the number 1 factor keeping this site in beta - the low number of questions per day - be addressed? It seems like a chicken-and-egg problem: this site needs more questions to get out of beta, but people do not know about this site and so ask on another site, depriving this site of needed traffic (and the person asking an RE question a good answer), and then the question can't be migrated here, keeping the site in beta. Furthermore, due to its technical nature RE is never going be as popular as something more accessible like Bicycles or Worldbuilding.
\n\nOthers and myself have commented on people's questions, telling them directly that it would be good idea to ask a RE question here rather than SO or wherever, but it does not seem to do any good. Personally I believe that if a question is on topic for this site and in unanswered, it should be allowed for that question to be migrated here, now that it is 2017 and this site is 4 years old.
\n", "Title": "Directing users who post RE questions elsewhere on SE to this site and/or migrating questions", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "Following up in Igors explanation there seem to be two solutions:
\n\nMaybe a feature proposal is the best way:
\n\nSE already checks is there were similar questions when you post a question. Principally, the same could be done to check if there may be a SE community better suited for this style of question. In the end, the user can still decide where he wants to post his question, but it may help some people realize there are more specialized communities for the question.
\n\nI can see a feature like this helping most smaller SE sites with similar problems.
\n\nOn the downsite, I'm well aware that this is no trivial task. My proposal is to have moderators of subsites to provide keywords indicating relationships to their community.
\n\nedit:
\n\nOn a site node, I actually think the chat might be essential for the growth of this site. I#ll try to lurk some more...
\n" }, { "Id": "347", "CreationDate": "2017-03-14T02:18:28.950", "Body": "Edit: just found this question from 2014: Decryption of ciphertext. This is essentially an updated version of that question with more data and a request for clarification since there is nothing in the help center specifically about this.
\n\nMany of the unanswered questions here are about decoding checksums/CRCs, identifying compression/packing/obfuscation/encryption, decoding file formats etc but I wanted to focus specifically on encryption.
\n\nA noticeable proportion of these questions involve presenting either a sample of data or a file alleged to be encrypted in some way with a request for assistance in either identifying the encryption or decrypting it or both. In essence, they are requests for ciphertext analysis.
\n\nTo be more clear, these questions typically do not include the following information:
\n\nIn other words, a hypothesis is presented in the hope that someone else tests it while at the same withholding information that would arguably be essential to such an endeavor.
\n\nHere are some examples:
\n\nReversal of unknown obfuscation or encryption with known plaintext
\n\nReverse Engineering Android binary file
\n\nDecrypting/Decoding encrypted/encoded data
\n\n\n\n\n\nFile reverse engineering - .tbl format
\n\nThere are plenty of questions like this involving compression and checksums as well but I wanted to focus on encryption specifically because a similar issue was addressed on crypto.SE:
\n\n\n\nExcerpt from the accepted answer:
\n\n\n\n\nI think any question of the form \u201chere's a bunch of bytes, how do I break them\u201d should be summarily closed. This blanket ban could be mentioned in the FAQ.
\n
From the crypto.SE Help Center:\n![\"No\"](\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/hliNL.png\")
Edit: For comparison purposes, here are examples of questions involving problems with encryption in which enough information was provided to arrive at an answer (note: some did not initially provide enough information to be solvable and more information had to be requested):
\n\nHaving keys and binary, how do I reverse/decrypt a stream encryption?
\n\nHelp deciphering binary that creates 3 passwords
\n\nHow can I determine if a piece of code is an encryption algorithm?
\n\n\n\nArgument: RE != cryptanalysis
\n\nOne does not need to be a pro to know that encryption of \"malware\" is a major issue in analysis. Additionally, vulnerability analysis of software (IoT device firmware, for example) can be complicated by encryption. Many more examples can be given. Clearly then dealing with encryption can be significant component in the process reverse engineering software/a system of interest. However, reverse engineering is not synonymous with cryptanalysis. \"Reverse engineering\" should not imply \"reverse engineering how a supposedly encrypted binary blob is encrypted by looking at the ciphertext and nothing else\". Currently some conflate the two.
\n\nRequest: clarification
\n\nShould all manner of \"reverse this encrypted data\" / \"analyze this ciphertext\" questions be considered \"on topic\"? If not, what criteria should a question involving encrypted data meet in order for it to be considered \"on topic\" for this site?
\n\nThis could be extended to include \"reverse this checksum\" / \"how is this file compressed?\" type questions as well.
\n", "Title": "Should questions to the effect of \"How do I decrypt this file/data?\" be considered on-topic?", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "I don't have a specific suggestion just yet, but I think that improving the first custom close reason or adding another, more specific one, could alleviate the issue of the questions lacking info (not just crypto ones). For the history of it see this answer
\n" }, { "Id": "354", "CreationDate": "2017-07-05T14:47:23.400", "Body": "Question: is the definition correct? If not, what should the correct definition be?
\n\nHere is the definition:
\n\n\n\n\nDynamic linking is the process of resolving at runtime a program's external function calls or dependencies. It is usually performed at compile time by the linker.
\n
This definition seems to be wildly incorrect - the second sentence, itself incorrect, contradicts the first.
\n\nThe impression I am under regarding how things work in terms of binary creation and process creation can be summarized by the following (GCC + x86 Linux environment):
\n\npreprocessing -> compilation (compile time) -> assembly -> linking (link time)
then
\n\nexecve (user space) -> exec (kernel) -> dynamic linker -> process (user space)
Since I don't know anything about dynamic linking in the context of other systems such as MS Windows and since the definition needs to be sufficiently generic, I am not in a position where I can suggest a new, correct and broadly applicable definition.
\n\nFor reference, this question was prompted by some documentation I read over in order to answer Could not find ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 in strace output
\n", "Title": "Question about definition for tag \"dynamic-linking\"", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "You are right, that definition is incorrect because the second sentence contradicts the first. Who knows how the author got it wrong. Maybe he was distracted or thinking of something else. Maybe it was a copy and paste accident, but definitely it can be most simply corrected by deleting the second sentence.
\n" }, { "Id": "357", "CreationDate": "2018-02-01T18:46:08.740", "Body": "This question was prompted by a comment to a question in another discussion on EE.SE here.
\n\nFrom the tour page of this site I read (emphasis mine):
\n\n\n\n\nReverse Engineering Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for researchers and developers who explore the principles of a computer system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation.
\n
From that I infer that this site allows only questions with a certain degree of professionalism and that, consequently, questions by mere enthusiasts or hobbyists are discouraged (assuming the hobbyists doesn't formulate a question showing a sufficient degree of expertise, like what is expected from a professional in the field).
\n\nIs my inference right?
\n\nIn particular, for example, would a question from an hobbyist about reverse engineering the circuit of a cheap, china-made, microcontroller board of unknown brand like those usually found on Amazon or eBay be on-topic here?
\n", "Title": "Are questions from hobbyists, makers and enthusiasts on-topic?", "Tags": "|discussion|scope|", "Answer": "Beginners, enthusiasts and hobbyists are all welcomed in our community. Frankly, some of the most active users in our community enjoy reverse engineering as their hobby and this is not their profession. \"Researchers\" is a term that have more than one definition. As I sees it, people that are trying to reverse engineer a \"cheap, china-made, microcontroller board of unknown brand\" are considered researchers, even if they don't have tons of experience and a \"Researcher\" on their shiny tag title.
\n\nReverse-engineering is a broad subject and so can be the questions in our site, as long as they related to RE and considered good questions. When one asks a good question which demonstrates that this person thoroughly searched for an answer before clicking the \"Ask\" button, we will do our best to help. There are very talented members in our community with vast amount of knowledge about different subjects regarding to RE.
\n\nThe question should be on topic
\nsource: What topics can I ask about here?
\n\n\nIf you have a question about ...
\n \n\n
\n \n- software analysis (static or dynamic)
\n- disassembly or decompilation
\n- hardware analysis and testing
\n- tools commonly used for reverse engineering hardware or software
\n- deterring reverse engineering efforts
\nand it is not about ...
\n \n\n
\n- performance evaluation
\n- performance testing software
\n- forward engineering (hardware construction, software creation)
\n- bug hunting (debugging) during software development
\n
Be specific
\nsource: How do I ask a good question?
\n\n\nIf you ask a vague question, you\u2019ll get a vague answer. But if you\n give us details and context, we can provide a useful answer.
\n
Make it relevant to others
\nsource: How do I ask a good question?
\n\n\nWe like to help as many people at a time as we can. Make it clear how\n your question is relevant to more people than just you, and more of us\n will be interested in your question and willing to look into it.
\n
Regarding your example:
\n\n\n\n\nwould a question from an hobbyist about reverse engineering the circuit of a cheap, china-made, microcontroller board of unknown brand like those usually found on Amazon or eBay be on-topic here?
\n
Yes, this question would be on-topic as long it is detailed enough and with specific questions.
\n\nHere are similar good-questions that created a space for good answers:
\n\nI noticed since a few weeks that the rate of visitors/day has dropped down in an irrealistic manner. It went from about 5000 visitors/day to 5.
\n\nDid something change in the way it is counted or is it just a bug ?
\n", "Title": "Problem with visitors/day computation?", "Tags": "|support|bug|", "Answer": "Area 51 still looks broken however the network overview page seems to be working again (currently showing 4.5k/day).
\n" }, { "Id": "369", "CreationDate": "2018-08-23T19:31:32.097", "Body": "Right now we have a reverse-engineering tag. I would like to raise the question of whether we should keep it or not, and suggest we remove it.
\n\nIf my answer gains enough upvotes and not too many downvotes/objections, I plan on removing the tag from all related questions and thus delete it. Other users are encouraged to argue against removing the tag or perhaps offer alternatives in additional answers.
\n", "Title": "Should we keep the \"reverse-engineering\" tag?", "Tags": "|discussion|tags|", "Answer": "Right now the reverse-engineering tag has a dozen questions, four of which by a single user, who's also relatively new to stack-exchange. Eleven out of the twelve questions were asked by a user of under 200 reputation points in RE.SE and only two other questions were opened by a single user with a reputation slightly above 100.
\n\nThis tag seems somewhat redundant, as the entire site is about reverse-engineering and I can think of only a handful of questions that won't fit under it.
\n\nThis tag also has neither usage guidance nor wiki content, and I find it hard to say those questions share any common ground (except, obviously, generally being about reverse engineering)
\n\nEdit:
\n\nSo there's a single closed question I couldn't remove the reverse-engineering tag of (because that would lead to 0 tags) and there's no appropriate tag for it. I flagged it for deletion, hoping that'd let us get rid of the tag. I also edited the tag's wiki to point out it is redundant.
\n" }, { "Id": "373", "CreationDate": "2018-09-28T00:49:40.677", "Body": "The plugin tag is a little odd, and without usage or wiki content its purpose is unclear at least to me, and I suspect to other users as well.
\n\nHere is some analysis:
\n\nEdit:
\n\nI already removed the plugin from the following completely unrelated questions:
\n\nGiven the listing you gave it's clear that, while idapro-plugins is a subset of plugin (oddly the former being plural here, while the latter is singular), the number of questions with the former tag completely outnumber the latter.
\n\nI think, however, that plugin should be more aptly named tool-plugin [1] to denote that this is about a common extension mechanism in reverse engineering tools. However, this is probably a matter of taste and so I fully expect objections.
The real problem starts now. It would make sense to keep the plugin to subsum any other questions about (RCE) tool plugins without substantial number of questions. Whenever a the tag for a particular tool reaches a certain popularity threshold, questions could be moved into a ${tool}-plugin (e.g. for ollydbg -> ollydbg-plugin). But then you'd also have to define such a threshold.
We have to weigh two things here.
\n\n${tool}-plugin tags.[1] ... or rce-tool-plugin, where RCE isn't implied merely by the fact that this is RE.SE, since we also allow non-code RE questions.
ida-plugins. The fact that editions lower than \"Pro\" don't allow for plugins (not officially anyway) implies that the \"Pro\" edition is meant. So no need to repeat that fact in the tag name. Tags should be concise. The tag wiki on the other hand could mention the above facts in the outline or its body.When I went to the vendor's firmware download page linked to in Need help identifying main processor for Roland synthesizer I saw this in the EULA:
\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n- Restrictions: You may not make or distribute copies of the Roland Product, or electronically transfer the Roland Product from one\n computer to another or over a network. You may not decompile, reverse\n engineer, disassemble, or otherwise reduce the Roland Software to a\n human-perceivable form. You may not modify, sell, rent, transfer,\n resell for profit, distribute or create derivative works based upon\n the Roland Product or any part thereof. You may not export or\n reexport, directly or indirectly, the Roland Product into any country\n prohibited by the United States Export Administration Act and the\n regulations thereunder.
\n
I should note here that the EULA also states the following:
\n\n\n\n\nThis Agreement shall be governed by the internal laws of the United States of America and the State of California, without regard to its conflicts of law provisions.
\n
Since we must agree to the EULA in order to download the binary, and since the OP wants to reverse engineer said binary, what should be done?
\n\nPeople typically do not read the EULA, so I would assume that in general they are unaware that what they are attempting to do is in violation of it.
\n\nI did see Are questions that involve DRM reverse engineering allowed? but I am unsure of how relevant it is.
\n", "Title": "How should we handle posts in which reverse engineering is prohibited by a EULA?", "Tags": "|discussion|", "Answer": "I'll stick with the recommendation given elsewhere and succinctly paraphrased there as (bracketed addition by me):
\n\n\n\n\nIt is not our job [as moderators] to enforce third party agreements.
\n
Anything else opens a can of worms. IANAL. So I am very happy to be given the opportunity to ignore this for once.
\n\nFor example it's legal within the EU to reverse-engineer a software system for interop purposes. So for example the work on ReactOS w.r.t. Windows or on LibreOffice w.r.t. MS Office is acceptable as long as it's not about something like copying those ghastly \"innovative\" ribbon bars. However, if Microsoft decided to go after either of those projects (ignoring the PR disaster waiting for them in such a case), we'd have to defer the actual arguing about the text of the law to the judges. So let us not pretend that laws are at all something clear-cut and leave the worry about DCMA take-down notices to the community managers rather than the moderators pro tempore or elected moderators. So being in the shoes of a moderator at the time of this writing I'll happily make use of the opportunity to ignore the question of legality in those gray area cases.
\n\nAnd Igor has it right, I think:
\n\n\n\n" }, { "Id": "413", "CreationDate": "2021-12-03T10:20:15.550", "Body": "If you'd rather not violate EULA just don't download the binary, you don't have to solve every poster's issues.
\n
since the proposal in 2013, our site has steadily garnered interest and and influx of new community members. Igor also pointed out, that we probably owe the whole idea taking shape to Rolf pitching it over on Reddit.
\nAs with so many topics, when you search for reverse engineering topics, often a Q&A from our site will pop up in the search engine of your choice.
\nNow, on December 16th (2021-12-16) our site will graduate and lose its beta label, similar to how it happened to other sites in 2019.
\nCongratulations to the whole community.
\nNB: More information will be shared, but suffice it to say for now that this will also mean our first moderator elections for the site.
\n", "Title": "Upcoming site graduation: leaving beta on 2021-12-16", "Tags": "|discussion|events|community|", "Answer": "\n" }, { "Id": "427", "CreationDate": "2022-12-28T11:51:27.353", "Body": "As a newcomer to RE I recently asked a question about something that I was not understanding. I mentioned that I was using Ghidra and didn't understand why something wasn't working the way that I expected it to, although the answer to my question may or may not be more about understanding in general rather than a specific tool (I don't know because I don't know the answer and if I did know then I wouldn't be asking the question).
\nI was quickly rudely shut down and told to ask in the Ghidra GitHub issues page.
\nI then saw another Ghidra question being similarly shut down by the same person in the same way.
\nAm I correct in thinking that this person is being rude and going on a rampage against newbies who use Ghidra, or are these questions genuinely inappropriate to post here?
\n(Also, what happened to "don't bite the newbies"?)
\n", "Title": "Are questions relating specifically to Ghidra on-topic?", "Tags": "|support|", "Answer": "Ghidra questions are on-topic. This includes questions about the tool itself. There is nothing wrong with also opening an issue at their GitHub repo, and if an answer is provided there please share it here as well.
\n\n\nAm I correct in thinking that this person is being rude
\n
Yes, you are correct. If you see a post where it's clear someone is being rude, please flag it to bring it to our attention.
\n" }, { "Id": "432", "CreationDate": "2023-01-30T16:21:40.467", "Body": "I would like to once again put forward this old proposal. Let's activate syntax highlighting for RE.SE.
\n\nFor the record, JNat wrote in a comment over here, quote:
\n\n\n\n", "Title": "How about finally enabling syntax highlighting for RE.SE?", "Tags": "|discussion|feature-request|status-completed|syntax-highlighting|", "Answer": "Have a discussion on Meta; once a consensus is reached, create a separate post for the actual request (pointing to the discussion and consensus) and [status-review] it as per this post. A CM will then evaluate your request and discuss next steps depending on their assessment.
\n
I enabled the following default languages for tags. This is mostly thought as a reference for now:
\nlang-cpplang-clang-clang-pylang-pylang-javalang-jslang-cslang-cpp (debatable, but C++ is the better choice compared to C here)lang-cpplang-clang-pylang-pascal (no better match seems to exist)lang-lualang-phplang-cpplang-cpp (up for debate, we could also try lang-c, but this would also cover auto)lang-sqllang-golanglang-vblang-pylang-erlang