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[288.44 --> 292.96] so that it got better over time, but still a place to improve. |
[293.56 --> 294.24] Yeah, absolutely. |
[294.24 --> 301.16] So if you tried reverse engineering Go programs something like maybe two years ago, |
[301.22 --> 306.62] maybe just one year ago, then you would be in a lot of trouble because the tools just weren't there. |
[306.72 --> 313.86] So it involved using some third-party plugins, some codes taken from, I wouldn't say suspicious, |
[314.14 --> 319.54] but GitHub repositories that weren't that well maintained or that didn't have really clear instructions. |
[319.54 --> 324.60] And so it was really a difficult path for the reverse engineer that had to do it. |
[325.12 --> 332.72] And thankfully, over the years, the developers from Ida, the company in Belgium called HexRace, |
[332.92 --> 335.94] they've been listening to the customer complaints, I suppose. |
[335.94 --> 344.68] And they have made a number of improvements that allow us to support Go programs a lot more easily. |
[344.92 --> 352.64] And that entails having some recognition for the various functions that come from the Go standard library, |
[353.08 --> 355.48] better support from the Go executables as a whole. |
[355.48 --> 361.18] In the very latest versions, if I recall correctly, a number of the things that were actually implemented |
[361.18 --> 365.72] in some of the third-party plugins that Juan Andres Guerrero, Satz from SentinelOne, |
[365.82 --> 368.36] as well as myself, had implemented manually in Python. |
[368.78 --> 374.20] Those kind of features, they included them into IdaPro, into the mainline. |
[374.20 --> 379.82] So I do expect that one year from now, maybe this won't even be a discussion anymore. |
[379.94 --> 384.36] I mean, sure, Go will still be a very kind of alien language for us to look at |
[384.36 --> 387.00] in terms of the assembly code that it generates. |
[387.40 --> 393.50] But at the end of the day, I do suspect that the tooling problems are going to be over in the near future. |
[393.68 --> 395.68] So that's a good thing as far as we're concerned. |
[396.58 --> 402.42] So is Go a better language for a security researcher to pick up or for a hacker? |
[402.42 --> 410.28] Well, when it comes to security researchers, we don't actually have to write that many programs. |
[410.60 --> 414.68] You know, most of the tools that we use are already provided to us by the community. |
[415.02 --> 418.12] Like I mentioned IdaPro, nobody is ever going to redevelop IdaPro. |
[418.22 --> 421.10] I mean, some guys did, so it wouldn't be fair saying that they wouldn't. |
[421.18 --> 423.30] But most people are not going to do this. |
[423.66 --> 428.82] And if they were going to do this, then I think that choosing either the Go language or C++ |
[428.82 --> 432.72] wouldn't make that big a difference considering the scale of such a project. |
[433.26 --> 440.30] When it comes to hackers, I think that for them, Go language is still probably a very good bet. |
[440.46 --> 448.44] Because as far as I can tell from a very unscientific polling of my co-workers and other reverse engineers in the field, |
[448.78 --> 452.50] it feels like most people still really dislike having to work on Go language. |
[452.76 --> 454.00] Like really, really dislike it. |
[454.00 --> 459.98] In my opinion, though, I think if I were to write malicious programs, I would use Rust. |
[460.18 --> 463.38] Because the code generated by Rust is actually even way worse. |
[463.82 --> 467.22] And at the moment, I'm not exactly sure how to approach that type of code. |
[467.30 --> 468.24] I have to work on that. |
[468.76 --> 471.72] But this would be my intuition to use Rust. |
[471.84 --> 476.34] Because I know that I'm going to make someone's day miserable somewhere in the future. |
[476.34 --> 482.68] And when you say worse, you mean basically because the steps that you need to do to reverse engineer |
[482.68 --> 486.16] and kind of figure out what's happening are actually more painful. |
[486.84 --> 487.24] Exactly. |
[487.56 --> 490.62] I say that in the sense that maybe it's just a personal thing, right? |
[490.68 --> 494.04] I have spent a bit of time trying to figure out how Go ticks. |
[494.20 --> 496.76] Like not at the language level, but at least at the assembly level. |
[497.26 --> 504.06] I would never pretend that I am a Go expert or that I have deep insights about the inner workings of the Go language. |
[504.06 --> 510.78] But if you give me a binary written in Go, then I expect that eventually I will be able to tell you what it's supposed to be doing. |
[511.16 --> 514.82] When it comes to Rust, it's kind of uncharted territory as far as I'm concerned. |
[515.34 --> 519.40] As far as I know, again, this is not something that I've checked all that much. |
[519.54 --> 522.22] Although this is something that I probably will have to do very soon. |
[522.86 --> 528.56] It feels like the tooling, like IDA, for instance, the disassembler that we use on the job, |
[528.56 --> 534.30] doesn't seem to support the Rust language as well as it supports the Go language. |
[534.40 --> 535.98] It doesn't recognize as many things. |
[536.68 --> 540.80] And at the end of the day, Rust tends to generate constructs that really look like C++. |
[541.16 --> 543.98] And C++ is kind of a mess to begin with. |
[544.40 --> 545.62] It's a very powerful language. |
[545.76 --> 546.80] I really love C++. |
[547.00 --> 549.78] If I have to write some complex program, I will write it in C++ |
[549.78 --> 552.46] because this is the one I have the most experience with. |
[552.88 --> 557.38] But when it comes to reading assembly written in C++, oh my god, it's just so convoluted. |
[557.72 --> 560.82] And there are so many levels of indirection added at every level. |
[561.04 --> 563.54] So this is not something I would be happy with. |
[563.78 --> 570.46] And having Rust being a new, more complex or a new, more alien C++ is really not something I would be happy with. |
[570.46 --> 573.96] How about the easy cross-compilation of Go? |
[574.60 --> 579.78] The fact that you write your code and then you create one binary and then you kind of ship it as is. |
[579.88 --> 584.22] And on top of that, you just write one more command and then you have it for any architecture. |
[584.54 --> 586.06] Does this make any difference for you? |
[586.36 --> 589.90] It does in the sense that I think as a developer, it's pretty cool to have that. |
[589.90 --> 599.90] I also have always felt that this feature that is very often brought forward by defenders of the Go language was a bit... |
[600.56 --> 602.96] I don't think it's that important, right? |
[603.10 --> 607.28] Not that we don't want cross-compilation or that we don't want programs that can run anywhere. |
[607.88 --> 613.02] But I don't feel like the Go language is especially adding something new there. |
[613.16 --> 615.84] I mean, when I write C++ code, it can already run everywhere. |
[616.10 --> 617.92] Provided that I write it properly, of course. |
[617.92 --> 622.50] Way back when, probably 10 years ago when I was in school, I was learning Java. |
[622.94 --> 625.50] And I actually programmed a few projects in Java code. |
[626.10 --> 629.38] Supposedly, Java was supposed to be working on any platform as well, right? |
[629.48 --> 633.00] So it didn't work as well as we expected due to many reasons. |
[633.40 --> 646.10] But overall, it doesn't seem to me that this ability to run on any platform and to have a code that will compile everywhere is really something that Go is actually bringing to the table. |
[646.10 --> 651.42] I think this is something that we already had and that maybe Go is making easier for a lot of developers. |
[651.74 --> 656.26] But it's not something new and something that would make me switch languages by any stretch. |
[656.84 --> 658.54] By the way, maybe this is a question for you, right? |
[658.76 --> 659.10] How about... |
[659.72 --> 662.80] I have no idea about the support for Go on exotic platforms. |
[662.92 --> 667.32] What about running Go code for Solaris or for the ARM architecture? |
[667.32 --> 669.80] Is that something that is supported out of the box or isn't it? |
[669.96 --> 678.28] Because I know for a fact that when new CPUs come out, the first thing that the manufacturers release is going to be a C compiler or a C++ compiler. |
[678.40 --> 682.04] So we know that eventually those languages are always going to work. |
[682.16 --> 686.82] But I have the notion, and maybe I'm wrong about this, that when it comes to Go language, |
[687.04 --> 692.08] that if you have this new platform somewhere, then you will have to wait for Google to release the corresponding compiler. |
[692.08 --> 693.28] And that may take some time. |
[693.72 --> 694.28] Is that correct? |
[694.96 --> 700.94] So as you were asking, I googled the command of Go OS and Go Arch, which is what you run to do this. |
[701.10 --> 703.64] And for Solaris, it does come out of the box. |
[704.16 --> 705.40] What was the second one you asked for? |
[705.78 --> 711.32] This is one that is going to be supported, I would imagine, would be to compile for ARM or MISP, |
[711.48 --> 714.36] such probably less used architectures. |
[714.46 --> 717.02] But I would imagine that at least ARM is supported very well. |
[718.02 --> 721.06] Yes, ARM is out of the box indeed. |
[721.06 --> 721.62] Yeah. |
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