Show HN: Compile C to Not Gates

(github.com)

116 points | by tomhee13 hours ago

16 comments

  • bangaladore12 hours ago
    Reminds me of movfuscator [1]. This can compile programs to movs and only movs.

    [1] https://github.com/Battelle/movfuscator

    • LPisGood11 hours ago
      Battelle is great. They also created some software called Cantor Dust [1] that turns files into images to allow humans to easily spot obfuscated data or files.

      The sad thing about this kind of work, because I love it, is that to get paid to do it you need clearances and polygraphs and periodic reinvestigations/continuous monitoring and all sorts of things that I find unpleasant.

      [1] https://github.com/Battelle/cantordust

      • mmastrac9 hours ago
        I'm not sure what you mean but I was a security researcher for a large company for a bit and required none of that. I was required to work airgapped at home, however.
        • LPisGood9 hours ago
          Really? You were doing offensive security work not for a government (/contractor)? What sorts companies, aside from some enterprise pen testers, employ these roles?
          • saagarjha7 hours ago
            The tools you’re talking about are not exclusive to offensive security. They’re plenty useful for malware analysis and other reverse engineering tasks.
          • mmastrac9 hours ago
            Email is in my profile -- happy to clarify/share some very rough details if you'd like.
    • beng-nl9 hours ago
      Agreed that is a fine piece of work. But the author is Chris Domas. Which is plain from the repo readme, but it’d be clearer to link to his repo.
  • eimrine22 minutes ago
    I was expecting to see a way to translate hello_world.c into an electronic schematic full of NAND elements, kind of Mealy machine.
  • tromp12 hours ago
    Am I right in deducing that this language gets its power from self-modifying code? I.e. flipping bits within addresses of the opcodes of the running program?
    • tomhee11 hours ago
      You are indeed right
      • tromp11 hours ago
        I would have expected the language documentation to focus more on this observation and to explain for instance how self modification is used to implement while loops. But I don't even see the term mentioned anywhere?!
  • tomhee12 hours ago
    There is also a brainfuck to flipjump compiler: https://github.com/tomhea/bf2fj
    • david-gpu11 hours ago
      Ah, the convenience of brainfuck with the performance of flipjump. Excellent.
  • jkrshnmenon10 hours ago
    I wonder if someone has already made a Reverse Engineering CTF challenge for this concept.
  • tonetegeatinst9 hours ago
    Looking forward to the poor security researcher who gets to reverse engineer some malware sample they compiles this into for obfuscation... Its going to be an interesting blog post.
  • pizza10 hours ago
    Ah interesting.. wonder if you can model this with a recursively expanded algebraic expression. I've been thinking lately along similar lines about polynomials that encode pushdown automata, so this is cool to see.
    • tomhee10 hours ago
      If you have an answer I'd be happy to hear it!
  • dlcarrier11 hours ago
    Maxim (now owned by Analog) actually manufactures a single-instruction processor series, called MAXQ. It uses a single move instruction, with a flag for literals, and a transport triggered architecture.
    • Zamiel_Snawley2 hours ago
      What is the intended use case for such a processor?
  • tomhee11 hours ago
    By the way, as a challenge, try how you can program an "If" statement in Flipjump.
  • 11 hours ago
    undefined
  • platz12 hours ago
    How is a jump realized by Not Gates?
    • tomhee11 hours ago
      I dont think that the jump can be realized by NOT gates, but it's essentially "where to find the next NOT command". The jump is indeed a crucial part of the language, as it allows going back, and especially to make self-modifying code.
    • Jerrrry11 hours ago
      I'm guessing by not jumping into a terminating/ halting NOOP.

      The logic is within the branching.

  • jumploops11 hours ago
    AND, OR, NOT - pick 2
  • artemonster11 hours ago
    Id appreciate more explanations from the power of combined bitflip & goto
  • dang13 hours ago
    Looks like we banned you and this domain because of the egregious vote manipulation and bogus comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34856792.

    That was a long time ago, though, and the project is interesting enough, so I'm going to assume you've learned your lesson and unban you. Please stop using multiple accounts for this though!

    • tomhee12 hours ago
      Thanks man, I appreciate it.
    • jimbob4512 hours ago
      Dang, I have to know what triggered you to say this. It’s not the same user account so you would have had to have recognized the URL and written based on that.

      Do you keep notes on each astroturfed submission and auto-trigger reposts to notify yourself? Or did you just happen to recognize this? 20 minutes from his post to your comment is absurdly good moderation.

  • jpcookie10 hours ago
    [dead]
  • kuringganteng2 hours ago
    [flagged]