WILL POST ON EVERY MESSAGE BOARD IF I HAVE TOO!!!

thomas_d9

Hello,

I am inquiring about 2 things:

1) How do you Identify what language a program is written in (I.E. Notepad is written in (C++, Assembly, or ...)). I would like to know how to tell what any given program or applicaton is written with.

2) What or where would you recommend I start to learn programming? I learned TRS-80 Basic in middle school. I then went on to learn Basic for the Commodore VIC-20. I was taught very little assembly and some Visual Basic 6.

I would like to learn about the lowest level of programming possible. I understand it to be the most difficult, but also the most powerful (by powerful I mean it will undermine an operating system, where Visual Basic runs on top of the operating system).

I believe I have a pretty good idea already about this, but would like to get the opinions of some experienced programmers regarding their beliefs and experiences.

As a Network Administrator I believe the best defense is knowing how people infiltrate systems. That means being a good Hacker/Cracker. Likewise being good at stopping viruses or knowing when one is or is not a virus is knowing how and what language they are written in.

I intend to decompile some programs labeled viruses, because there is controversy surrounding one that the publisher insists is not a virus even though the anti-virus claims it is.

The biggest reason for the concern is if the anti-virus labels a given program a virus, then you must trust the person giving it to you or risk being violated. The recommendation that I place this program in my exclusions list so that the anti-virus ignores it is ridiculous to me. I would never consider that.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Tom Daniels

WEBMASTER

1.
.EXE's from different compilers may have "signatures" that are common for that language or complier that you can detect. like symbolic or variable names.....

2.
I would recommend that you learn C or Assembly to really get a understanding of what is going on under the hood. Languages like .NET, Visual Basic, Java, C++ shields you from low-level issues.
But a lot of todays viruses don't use assembly at all, intead they use scripting languages like VB-Script or VBA scripts to execute their attacks. So the virus writers are attacking using all kinds of languages, not just assembly/C.

Try and search for "Decompiler" on google.




[blue][italic][b]/WEBMASTER[/b][/italic][/blue]

franz192

: 1.
: .EXE's from different compilers may have "signatures" that are common for that language or complier that you can detect. like symbolic or variable names.....
:
: 2.
: I would recommend that you learn C or Assembly to really get a understanding of what is going on under the hood. Languages like .NET, Visual Basic, Java, C++ shields you from low-level issues.
: But a lot of todays viruses don't use assembly at all, intead they use scripting languages like VB-Script or VBA scripts to execute their attacks. So the virus writers are attacking using all kinds of languages, not just assembly/C.
:
: Try and search for "Decompiler" on google.
:
:
:
:
: [blue][italic][b]/WEBMASTER[/b][/italic][/blue]
:
:

Franz1927.
Many of the decompilers are giving the wrong answers. Many higher languages have theyr own routines that are many times specific for that language. I think also on the referral of subroutines to specific addresses. This is many times gicen as an assembly code.
Franz.

franz192

: Hello,
:
: I am inquiring about 2 things:
:
: 1) How do you Identify what language a program is written in (I.E. Notepad is written in (C++, Assembly, or ...)). I would like to know how to tell what any given program or applicaton is written with.
:
: 2) What or where would you recommend I start to learn programming? I learned TRS-80 Basic in middle school. I then went on to learn Basic for the Commodore VIC-20. I was taught very little assembly and some Visual Basic 6.
:
: I would like to learn about the lowest level of programming possible. I understand it to be the most difficult, but also the most powerful (by powerful I mean it will undermine an operating system, where Visual Basic runs on top of the operating system).
:
: I believe I have a pretty good idea already about this, but would like to get the opinions of some experienced programmers regarding their beliefs and experiences.
:
: As a Network Administrator I believe the best defense is knowing how people infiltrate systems. That means being a good Hacker/Cracker. Likewise being good at stopping viruses or knowing when one is or is not a virus is knowing how and what language they are written in.
:
: I intend to decompile some programs labeled viruses, because there is controversy surrounding one that the publisher insists is not a virus even though the anti-virus claims it is.
:
: The biggest reason for the concern is if the anti-virus labels a given program a virus, then you must trust the person giving it to you or risk being violated. The recommendation that I place this program in my exclusions list so that the anti-virus ignores it is ridiculous to me. I would never consider that.
:
: Any help would be greatly appreciated.
:
: Thank you,
:
: Tom Daniels
:
:

I have seen the reply from Webmaster and agree with him that even learning a higher language wil improve if you know the basics of programming.
Personally I have studied at a younger age assembly language on my own on one of the first computers ever sold in Sydney. At a later age of 60+ I studied C, C++, Pascal, HTML and at this moment I am trying to know more about PHP.
I mention this all to show you that with a basic knowledge many other programming task will be made easier.
Franz1927.

DrMarten

: Hello,
:
: I am inquiring about 2 things:
:
: 1) How do you Identify what language a program is written in (I.E. Notepad is written in (C++, Assembly, or ...)). I would like to know how to tell what any given program or applicaton is written with.
:
: 2) What or where would you recommend I start to learn programming? I learned TRS-80 Basic in middle school. I then went on to learn Basic for the Commodore VIC-20. I was taught very little assembly and some Visual Basic 6.
:
: I would like to learn about the lowest level of programming possible. I understand it to be the most difficult, but also the most powerful (by powerful I mean it will undermine an operating system, where Visual Basic runs on top of the operating system).
:
: I believe I have a pretty good idea already about this, but would like to get the opinions of some experienced programmers regarding their beliefs and experiences.
:
: As a Network Administrator I believe the best defense is knowing how people infiltrate systems. That means being a good Hacker/Cracker. Likewise being good at stopping viruses or knowing when one is or is not a virus is knowing how and what language they are written in.
:
: I intend to decompile some programs labeled viruses, because there is controversy surrounding one that the publisher insists is not a virus even though the anti-virus claims it is.
:
: The biggest reason for the concern is if the anti-virus labels a given program a virus, then you must trust the person giving it to you or risk being violated. The recommendation that I place this program in my exclusions list so that the anti-virus ignores it is ridiculous to me. I would never consider that.
:
: Any help would be greatly appreciated.
:
: Thank you,
:
: Tom Daniels
______________________________________________________________________

Hi,

A lot of anti-viirus programs search for a specific sequence of bytes in a file that can be anywhere ( but usually at a fixed location ) within a file that is checked for a virus.

Therefore some files are mistakenly seen as a virus when they are completely harmless, hope that answers a question for you. :-)


Regards,

Dr M.