Fravia's TOOLS OF OUR TRADE Messageboard ~ Moderated
controlled environment
Wednesday, 03-Feb-99 20:11:22
I've been toying around with bochs the last hour or so, and while I have different intentions for it, some of the more adventurous among you may find it useful for cracking purposes.
First of all, check out this page:
http://www.bochs.com/
BOCHS is an ix86 emulator that will run on ix86 machines [and other ones of course] How does it work? You create a disk image --much like in doublespace, but uncompressed-- and install an OS of your choice to it [also like DOSEMU]. The OS can be *any* i386 OS, including DOS, Win95, and linux. The OS will then run on your current platform in a window, thinking it is on its own computer but actually isolated from your OS and the hardware itself.
Now take a look at this page:
http://www.bochs.com/debugger.html
BOCHS has a built in debugger and disassembler. You have access to *everything* on this 'virtual machine', down to the TR registers. Bueno, que no?
I hope some of you are starting to see the possibilities here. We are talking about the perfect laboratory, completely isolated from your normal machine but without costing you for new hardware. Need to write virii without endangering your executables? Want to do some cracking at work without the boss finding your files? Do you want absolute control over the program's runtime environment? Would you like an OS that you can back up onto a ZIP or CD and carry to any other machine, taking up where you left off? Want to test VxDs without constantly rebooting?
This puppy has some /distinct/ possibilities.
_m
mammon_