Insights from the MAME project into hardware reverse engineering
Proposta de palestra enviada para a conferência LibrePlanet 2016
Insights from the MAME project into hardware reverse engineering: a path towards free-firmware.
Resumo
This talk presents how libre hardware designs have been helping the software freedom movement to acchieve its goals. But, at the same time, it is also discussed how reverse engineering of digital electrocnic devices is still an extremely important tool for the effective freedom of computer users.
Bio
Felipe Sanches é ativista e desenvolvedor de software livre e projetista de hardware livre. Co-fundador da Metamáquina, empresa brasileira de impressão 3d, é um entusiasta das tecnologias de fabricação digital. Participa do desenvolvimento de softwares livres nas áreas de design gráfico, CAD e modelagem/impressão 3D como Inkscape, OpenSCAD, Pronterface e GNU LibreDWG. É também co-fundador do Garoa Hacker Clube, primeiro hackerspace brasileiro, e do PoliGNU: Grupo de Estudos de Software Livre da Escola Politécnica da USP.
Descrição
This talk presents how libre hardware designs have been helping the software freedom movement to acchieve its goals. But, at the same time, it is also discussed how reverse engineering of digital electrocnic devices is still an extremely important tool for the effective freedom of computer users.
By inspecting a pile of electronic junk, byt reading detasheets and by studying the source code of projects like MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) and MESS (Multi Emulator Super System), we can better understand how several digital electronics devices work internally and, with that knowledge, we can interact with these devices even after they become rare and inaccessible. We can also leart more about hardware design techniques and about embedded software development, computer architectures, etc.
The techniques that we need to master in order to develop new emulators include reverse engineering procedures that are also very useful for aiding in the creation of free firmware solutions to replace the non-free blobs used in a broad variety of daily-use devices. These techniques are also useful for the development of free drivers fo undocumented devices and in the porting of operating systems and BIOSes to new hardware platforms.
Nesse sentido, estes conhecimentos de engenharia reversa são ferramentas essenciais para a reconquista da autonomia no uso de computadores de hoje em dia. Precisamos formar uma comunidade de hardware hackers habilidosos na prática de engenharia reversa, para que possamos solucionar os problemas de liberdade dos usuários denunciados por projetos como o Linux-Libre.
Por fim, a criação de dispositivos de hardware livre tem se mostrado um forte aliado do movimento do software livre, em um momento em que mecanismos maliciosos gradativamente migram dos softwares proprietários para dentro dos próprios chips dos nossos computadores pessoais.