NSA and Ghidra
from needthosepylons@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 12:59
https://lemmy.world/post/19186678

Do people trust Ghidra? How come it’s been developed by the NSA? From an outsider perspective, that sounds so weird!

Thanks in advance to anyone able to enlighten me!

#nostupidquestions

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ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca on 29 Aug 13:29 next collapse

What is there not to trust? There are lots of disassemblers for binary files. Ghidra just comes with tools to make analyzing the resulting assembly code easier by doing things like graphing the jumps in code, allowing the user to give custom names to variables and functions, and attempting to convert the assembly into C code.

It would make sense that the NSA spends a lot of time reverse engineering programs. Not all hackers share their exploits publically, so one way to find unpublished exploits is by reverse engineering viruses and malware to find out what vulnerabilities are being exploited.

needthosepylons@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 13:51 collapse

Yeah but… isn’t it weird that they share their tools then?

I’m not into conspiracy stuff. It’s just that when I downloaded Ghidra for the first time, when I saw it was being published by the NSA, I had a “wow, didn’t expect that” reaction and it somehow became a shower thought.

It may be important to say that I’m not from the US. Where I live, I’m not sure things like that would happen or have happened. Well, or it did and I didn’t really pay attention.

listless@lemmy.cringecollective.io on 29 Aug 14:23 next collapse
  1. There is always some level of distrust of secretive organizations like the NSA/FBI/CIA/
  2. Usually it’s the previous gen / obsolete tech filters out of them, because they do want people to protect themselves a bit. I’d almost guarantee they have better / more advanced tools they aren’t sharing.
needthosepylons@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 19:32 collapse

Indeed, that makes sense

InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 14:26 next collapse

They might enjoy the benefits of collaboration. Still the fact they are intimidating you with a public tool is also of benefit to their image as a powerful group. A large part of police work is intimidation.

needthosepylons@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 19:32 collapse

Ah, yes, that’s also true. Thanks!

CameronDev@programming.dev on 29 Aug 22:03 collapse

The NSA has two semis conflicting jobs. They are meant to gain access to foreign adversaries, as well as protecting american interests. Publishing ghidra goes towards the later.

There is also a law in the US that stuff developed by government agencies needs to be open sourced. I can’t find the law, but there have been other bits of OSS stuff released by other agencies.

Selinux was developed by the NSA.

slazer2au@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 15:23 next collapse

The problem is the alternative costs thousands of dollars and is out of the reach of some people.

[deleted] on 29 Aug 15:59 collapse
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