Okay i have not done a lot in this area because of legality issues but i say F*** it. As long as i dont sell or actually intend to use exploited products i think its fine. I plan on learning a whole ton of things from:
MIPS32 instruction set and Programming to IA-32 Instruction set and Programming.
The main goal or purpose of this is to gain perspective into how things work. Routers for example…
http://dd-wrt.com/site/index
“DD-WRT is a Linux based alternative OpenSource firmware suitable for a great variety of WLAN routers and embedded systems. The main emphasis lies on providing the easiest possible handling while at the same time supporting a great number of functionalities within the framework of the respective hardware platform used.”
I would love to be able to create modifications or fix things beyond the scope of the average repair person. Cracking things to do my bidding and such. It seems like a fun and interesting subject. I want to learn how to decompile firmware and see if i can alter to do what i want.
I might try this on a PIC micro at first or something like… Create a LED blink and compile to hex. The hex will then be placed on the mcu.. It should work as normal. Then i want to be able to decompile the hex and change the port at which the led blinks… and recompile and upload it to the mcu and see if i did it. This might seem silly or stupid to do to some people but i find it will teach me a whole lot.
Then i plan on doing the exact same thing but with ARM mcus… and learning how to use the JTAG from getting a device ID to trying to peek at some registers to change things while running 😀
This is going to be so fun and ill be sure to document what i can so others can learn.