HELLO,
my name is mhemara fay. i have a q for you.
Anyone has successfully extracted a preprogrammed 8051 chip with fuse locked? I want to retrieve the binary image from a programmed 8051 micro any ideas? Thanx
"All it can be used for is programming into more devices"
Well, that's not entirely true:
It would be possible to disassemble the binary and, from the disassembly, it could be possible to create some usable assembly "source".
But that would be a non-trivial task for an experienced addembly programmer - and one would hope that such a person wouldn't be so careless as to lose the entire source code in the first place!
It is almost always cheaper to review the original specification, mails etc and recreate from that and a working unit than to fight with reverse-engineering. It also makes sure that the original source didn't contain a copyright clause that is reauired to have in the reverse-engineered source too doesn't result in inadvertent law violations. Remember that the compiler vendor may also forbid reverse-engineering of their runtime library. With a binary image, you don't know what instructions are from the runtime library and what instructions are from the application until a significant part of the application has been reverse-engineered.
A friend of mine had to do a full reverse-engineering of a project after a company spent a lot of money to have a consultant write some software for them. The consultant was a crook. He supplied a secretly time-limited binary image, and then demanded ransom for the contracted source - and finally ended up supplying the source (in return for a job position) to a competing, larger, company... The bad thing was of course that small companies can't afford the legal fees - especially if they have to fight a much bigger company.
"It is almost always cheaper to review the original specification, mails etc and recreate from that and a working unit than to fight with reverse-engineering."
Absolutely!
I was just pointing out that it would - in principle, at least - be possible. Whether it would be sensible or worthwhile is, of course, an entirely different question!
;-)
Yes, I saw the italics on the "entirely" :)
I just wanted to point out the non-obvious fact that it may be illegal to reverse-engineer your own project.
I once was tasked with recreating the code for a unit where the sourcde was lost (the factory burned and the i....s did not have off-site backup). I spent a lot of time with a disassembly and then realized that recreating the code from scratch is far faster than deciphering a disassembly. This is even worse if the original is in C.
Erik
PS the chips were not locked the recereate was to add a feature.