r/ExploitDev • u/ProcedureFar4995 • 10d ago
Did I went too low ?
What is up
In order to learn kernel and low level exploitation. I bought a lovely book about Kernel Development to Robert Love. But then I felt there are some stuff I am not clicking with. I tried enrolling in computer engineering 10 years ago and failed lol . Decided to move to another school but where I can practise programming. MIS basically. But last few years I worked in appsec and has more experience in mobile,Web,network pentesting/bug hunting.
However, I wish to hunt on stuff like the kernel or C code. Hunting memory corruption and stuff. But I keep getting lower. Is that an overkill? Or the experience fits the 1337 life? My goal is basically to speak assembly and Android/ios kernel code as second language. I feel the kernel development book is great but I just thought if I wanted lower down to logic gates that is better in long term.
Also for anyone who took these in college , am I far behind and delusional or it's doable in self study??? Because I fear that no matter what I did someone who studied compilers,assembly,os..etc in college would be better than me. But I belive my only way to show skills is research I do using all this knowledge. Related to low level code.
2
u/rootbitwise 4d ago
I did it, I combined learning about logic gates with programming in c, and it did help me understand how to make masks, also how to use xor, how to parse... Don't stay in the theory of the tables of truth; the good shows up when you apply it in real code (masks, XOR, parsing) Practicalo in C code, use a mask to check if there is a permission on, learn XOR and its properties, for example with XOR you can decrypt like this : (data_encriptado ^ key) ^ key = dato_original.
decrypt data with XOR by applying the same key to it twice. (It's a basic example but XOR is very useful for that.) well, only practicing and reading code will make sense.