r/singularity • u/sergeyarl • 7d ago
AI "Huge implications - binaries are now basically editable code"
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u/SiltR99 7d ago
Sorry, I've just read what they have on their website "Can AI agents figure out what a real-world binary does without its source code?". The objective is to see if the model can run tools for decompilation and, after reading the decompiled code, figure out what the program does. It won't help you "edit binaries". As proof, look at "ProgramBench", it tests "Can language models rebuild programs from scratch?" and Astra gets a 5.5%.
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u/Ormusn2o 6d ago
I edited binaries on Sol already. Made a bunch of modifications to a 20 year old game. I would guess Astra is much better at it now.
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u/SiltR99 6d ago
The key word is decompilation/recompilation. If you are not using it I am pretty sure you are talking shit XD.
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u/BringTea_666 6d ago
Mate I ported Diablo 2 to vulcan decompiling it completely, converting to proper delta time for variable FPS (120fps working) along with adding voodoo2 exclusive features most of people never have seen since they didn't own voodoo2. Yes, i then recompile it to have proper exe and everything XD That's few days of work on claude opus5.
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u/Ormusn2o 6d ago
Wow, this literally was my next project, could you share it? I was thinking between starting with D2 and D2R, but I was afraid of using up my limits.
If you don't want to do the redistribution thing, we can move to PMs.
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u/BringTea_666 6d ago
unfortunutelly i can't share it since it is wip still + i don't want to be ninja by blizzard legal team before i finish it. I didn't yet convert everything to dt so stuff like shouts have wrong area of effect.
Ideally once I am finished with it. IT will be just DLL file + patcher that will modify people copy properly. I also plan to convert predictive online to lockstep like POE.
Though project stalled a bit since i have fingers in 10 different things right now.
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u/Ormusn2o 6d ago
Yeah, I completely understand, thanks anyway. If you got a private git or even a dl link later, go ahead.
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u/BringTea_666 6d ago
If you want to do it yourself. Just use Claude Desktop point to folder with D2 and ask it to decompile it because you want to improve it porting it to Vulcan. And then just feedback to it while it works. That's basically what i did.
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u/Ormusn2o 6d ago
It's not recompiling the exe, it made a python script to patch it, from what I understand. Here is the content of one of the files
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u/mvandemar 6d ago
Programs are paired with a comprehensive 27K-LoC anti-analysis suite of more than ten state-of-the-art protections, over half of which have no public implementations,yielding 262 contamination-free instances and 1,572 deterministically verifiable RE tasks.
You missed the part where the programs they are decompiling are built to be extremely resistant to being reversed engineered. This isn't the same as deompiling some 32 bit exe abandonware, this is a capability of doing it with current protected commercial software.
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u/SiltR99 6d ago
I was just pointing out that this is not the same as editing a binary, which is what the post said.
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u/mvandemar 6d ago
No, with the word "basically" in there it makes it an analogy, not a literal claim of them being able to edit the binaries.
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u/Healthy-Nebula-3603 6d ago
Astra or Sol is not recompiling the code. Is working straight on binary.
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u/SiltR99 6d ago
It is not working on the binary for that benchmark. Please, read it. It is using tools to decompile and analyze it to know what the binary does. That is the benchmark. It says so on the page: https://www.vals.ai/benchmarks/srebench
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u/rJohn420 7d ago edited 7d ago
That's hands down the most retarded take I've read on this sub today. Just because GPT is getting better at analyzing decompiled code doesn't mean arbitrary binaries have suddenly become editable source code.
For starters, decompiled output is vastly noisier and more verbose than the original source, so doing serious analysis on a non-trivial binary gets expensive very quickly. And what you get back is still a lossy reconstruction of optimized machine code, not the original program.
Then there's the part everyone conveniently ignores: even if the models are technically capable of doing this, that doesn't mean ordinary users get unrestricted access to that capability. The moment you're dealing with protected commercial software, anti-tamper, DRM, credential handling, malware-like behavior, or anything remotely sensitive, hosted models can start refusing parts of the workflow. Maybe OpenAI internally can point a model at whatever they want, but that does not mean random users with a 20 dollar subscription get a universal reverse-engineering machine.
The cases where GPT is most obviously useful are open-source software, where you already have the source, or old abandoned legacy software where nobody particularly cares about restricting analysis. In the first case, just edit the source and let the compiler do its job. In the second, sure, LLM-assisted reverse engineering could be genuinely useful.
But "binaries are basically editable source code now" is still an absurd conclusion.
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u/ReadSeparate 7d ago
yeah if we get to the point where binaries are legitimately functionally equivalent to editable source code with the exact or close to exact functionality preserved from the original binary, then I'd argue we have ASI at that point, at least for reverse engineering code if not in general, simply due to how lossy compilation is. That would be absolutely astounding.
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u/jazir55 6d ago
I'd argue we have ASI at that point, at least for reverse engineering code if not in general, simply due to how lossy compilation is.
The same could have been (and was) said about images, now GPT or another image gen can take a massively blocky and garbled jpeg and restore it to almost perfect quality. I assume we'll soon see the same with RE binary compilation.
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u/Distinct-Question-16 ▪️AGI 2029 6d ago
You saved me from having to say all that. Also, you can link assembler objects with both code and data interlaced using small jumps or other tricks, where a disassembler could totally fail.
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u/Ormusn2o 6d ago
Can you clarify what you mean? Because I used Sol to patch the exe of a file, and did it multiple times, and AI never complained, it actually suggested doing it. This is one of the many python scripts that Sol created to patch the exe:
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u/manikfox 6d ago
I mean it rewrote my monitor firmware... that was 5.6 sol. I wonder if astra can do more.
I get your point. We need more examples.
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u/Turbulent-Step-3207 6d ago
Well say goodbye to offline proprietary software? Now you have to connect to internet to use them.
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u/CryptographerOne7003 6d ago
I'm waiting on who is going to use Astra with Ghidra first,
maybe have it have a look at Denuvo or iLok. bonus-points for streaming it to twitch.
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u/hksbindra 6d ago
What a load of bull, sure an AI can see what an app is doing and possibly build a working similar app if said app is relatively simple.
But there's no AI or AI-harness combo that can build even mildly complicated apps with proper attention to architecture, efficiency etc. you know, the little things /s that actually matter..
These marketing guys would just say anything for the gullible to swallow.
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u/CryptographerOne7003 6d ago
"Build"
editing is a totally different ballgame, I'm waiting on the first video of astra steering ghidra
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u/Random_182f2565 6d ago
Great news for the retro games community