Category Archives: Software

Undocumented MSVC

Posted on 2023-07-02 by Oliver

Some ongoing research. For obvious reasons I can only share results and tools, but not actual sample data.

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Aiding reproducibility in builds with MS Visual C++

Posted on 2023-02-01 by Oliver

<AdditionalOptions>%(AdditionalOptions) /d1trimfile:”$(SolutionDir)\”</AdditionalOptions> In your .vcxproj file or a Directory.Build.props when passed to the compiler (cl.exe, ClCompile) this should trim the leading path used for __FILE__. The backslash is actually required here, because SolutionDir ends in a backslash itself, but we … Continue reading →

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Enabling RSA (with SHA-1) again in OpenSSH server

Posted on 2023-01-24 by Oliver

The sshd version that ships with Ubuntu 22.04 seems to have abandoned RSA authentication. Well, that’s not true. It’s about the hash algorithm used by the “old” protocol by the name ssh-rsa, which is deemed insecure by today’s standards. RSA … Continue reading →

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IDA and Hex-Rays decompiler keyboard shortcut cheat sheet

Posted on 2023-01-22 by Oliver

Find it on GitHub: assarbad/some-latex/releases/tag/v1.0-ida-cheat-sheet LaTeX source can be found in the repository itself.

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Reminder to self: IDA load all sections

Posted on 2023-01-20 by Oliver

Just a reminder to myself. Edit cfg/pe.cfg inside the IDA installation folder to configure the PE loader to load all sections: // Always load all sections of a PE file? // If no, sections like .reloc and .rsrc are skipped … Continue reading →

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ASR rule “Block Win32 API calls from Office macros”

Posted on 2023-01-19 by Oliver

Microsoft says it’s fixed. It may be, but I think there’s more to it than meets the eye. Colleagues of mine noticed that, aside from shortcuts disappearing, Defender also started acting up on TortoiseProc.exe from TortoiseSVN. Notably, checkouts would fail … Continue reading →

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dumbin.exe, editbin.exe, lib.exe …

Posted on 2023-01-05 by Oliver

They’re all just slim wrappers around the actual link.exe, not using a common DLL or so, but actually invoking: dumpbin.exe simply invokes “link /dump” and failing that “link.exe link /dump” editbin.exe simply invokes “link /edit” and failing that “link.exe link … Continue reading →

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Certum Open Source Code-Signing certificate

Posted on 2022-11-10 by Oliver

In the past I used a variety of code-signing CAs. But for a few years now I am using Certums affordable offer for Open Source developers. Let’s assume you already have their latest hardware and merely want to renew or … Continue reading →

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PowerShell

Posted on 2022-10-12 by Oliver

Within the last two years or so I have started to use more and more PowerShell scripting at work and for my private administration tasks on Windows. The thing I find coolest about PowerShell is that you can tap into … Continue reading →

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(N)Ostalgie pur für mich

Posted on 2022-07-04 by Oliver

Irgendwann rund um die Wende verbrachte ich als Kind mit meiner Familie das Jahresende auf Usedom in einem alten Ferienheim. Ich könnte heute nicht mehr sagen ob es tatsächlich vor oder nach der Wende war. Jedenfalls gab es dort einen … Continue reading →

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FLOSS-Developers gone bonkers?

Posted on 2022-04-19 by Oliver

So as I understand under the hashtag #StandWithUkraine some idiots have started supply-chain attacks, targeting Russian and Belarussian targets. I’ll leave the exercise to find the respective repos on GitHub to the inclined reader. Has everyone gone bonkers now? Aside … Continue reading →

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Signing my code from within a (Windows) VM

Posted on 2022-01-26 by Oliver

My main workstation runs Linux. It has for quite some time now. I had some issues getting 3D acceleration passed through using my AMD GPU and VMware Workstation, but finally got it to work. However, this time it’s about signing … Continue reading →

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Running IDA 7.x/8.x inside Crossover 21/22

Posted on 2022-01-03 by Oliver

For a few versions I had issues running IDA Pro in Crossover with IDAPython enabled. Prior to the starting issues, everything worked fine, e.g. in the IDA 6.x version range. Please note that the setup of IDA Pro also succeeded … Continue reading →

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Changing local Git clone from master to main

Posted on 2021-11-30 by Oliver

I never understood why Git chose master as the default branch name, MAIN in CVS seemed more sensible, but perhaps Torvald’s animosity towards CVS and SVN plays a role. Presumably trunk in SVN is a reference to the tree-like structure, … Continue reading →

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Transition

Posted on 2021-11-23 by Oliver

After more than 17 years — it all started in April 2004 — I am no longer hosting the UltraVNC forum. To the users the only very visible recent change may have been that forum.ultravnc.net now forwards to forum.uvnc.com. The … Continue reading →

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Just booted a Windows 2000 VM I archived 15 years ago

Posted on 2021-07-11 by Oliver

This was certainly one of the stranger, but also very intriguing things I’ve done so far this year. Alone the fact it’d prompt you for the setup CD (!) when simply removing one keyboard layout and configuring another as the … Continue reading →

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Unprofessional, hopeless, Sectigo

Posted on 2021-04-21 by Oliver

In February I applied for an AuthentiCode code-signing certificate for personal projects. I decided to go with KSoftware, a reseller of Sectigo certificates. That was February 15th. TL;DR: More than two months and dozens of emails later I’m none the … Continue reading →

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Flashing Tasmota to the Gosund SP1, easy and hard way

Posted on 2020-12-29 by Oliver

If you ended up here it’s because you’re a subscriber or a web search led you here. Great. Tasmota is likely on your radar already and you’re trying to flash a Tuya-based ESP device with Tasmota. Easy way The easy … Continue reading →

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Running old Ubuntu versions as chroot with proot

Posted on 2020-11-13 by Oliver

Currently I am working on building a modern Clang/LLVM-based toolchain for ancient Ubuntu versions. In order to do that I wrote a few helper scripts I am using in conjunction with proot to run old Ubuntu rootfs1 inside a chroot … Continue reading →

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Alacritty as default GNOME terminal application

Posted on 2020-11-12 by Oliver

Personally I prefer Super+T as my primary shortcut for opening the terminal from anywhere in my desktop environment. However, how can I replace the existing terminal application in GNOME so that the keyboard shortcut setting applies to an alternative terminal … Continue reading →

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