Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Questions about disassembling

Author: Vasik Rajlich

Date: 01:17:38 02/17/06

Go up one level in this thread


On February 17, 2006 at 02:33:32, Jouni Uski wrote:

>Is it possible to disassemble exe-file, which is zipped and/or copy protected
>like Fruit 2.2.1? Where are disassemblers downloadable?
>
>thanks
>
>Jouni

IDA Pro is easily the best. Technically it is not legal (although even this is
not quite that simple, there have been a number of court cases, etc), in
practice in computer chess you can do it.

Just a general comment though: it is _extremely_ hard to figure out the
innovations in a program. Basically, I would say that in practice it is
impossible. Yes, you can locate the move generator, because you already know
what that looks like and what it does. But understanding the evaluation terms,
or adjustments to search depth, would require an ungodly effort, especially for
a complex program. Let me put it like this: every aspiring computer chess
programmer has been very strongly tempted to try his hand at disassembling. When
I started computer chess, Shredder was the king. We all wanted to know what he
was doing. And nobody found out. Not Chrily Donninger. Not Frans Morsch. And not
any of the then-amateurs.

You'll find some people posting here for example about what they "found" in
Rybka. So far it has always just been transparent guessing based on program
behavior, with the disassembly argument used to make it seem legit.

Vas




This page took 0.01 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.