BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered on Play Store

Somebody has just put BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered "scanlation" on Play Store. Well, it's not really manga "scanlation" quality. But, I'm rather surprised someone put the effort to do that: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appjik.book.bios. You might want to give it a try. 

In my opinion, the PDF version in github is much more readable. Perhaps, I should make it available on Play Store, or is there anyone want to volunteer to do that? Cheers.

BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu PDF Moved to GitHub

The primary download site for BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu PDF (free) is now moved to https://github.com/pinczakko/BIOS-Disassembly-Ninjutsu-Uncovered  (direct download at https://github.com/pinczakko/BIOS-Disassembly-Ninjutsu-Uncovered/archive/master.zip). The previous download at 4shared is a malware-invested place, thus the change.

The addendum to the book is also included in the GitHub repository.

BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered (1st Edition) [Unedited] PDF released

Hi guys,

I have released the BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered (1st Edition) [Unedited] PDF in GitHub. You can clone it from this URL: https://github.com/pinczakko/BIOS-Disassembly-Ninjutsu-Uncovered.git or download the zip https://github.com/pinczakko/BIOS-Disassembly-Ninjutsu-Uncovered/archive/master.zip for free. Well, the (copy) rights have expired and I guess lot's of people look forward to it. I don't have enough bandwidth to host it. If somebody wants to host it, please do so but please notify me via email.

Anyway, mind you that this is the unedited version, not the shipping version. You might find it a little rough here and there, but the manuscript is complete. If you remember, the English version of the book is 450 pages, but the Russian version is more than 600 pages. I haven't had time to check what was missing in the English edition compared to the Russian edition.

There are two alternative places to download the book at present (but be advised to try downloading from GitHub first in order not to burden the other two sites):

• The Rebels Haven forum: http://www.lejabeach.com/sisubb/BIOS_Disassembly_Ninjutsu_Uncovered.pdf. Thanks goes to Polygon who have provided the bandwidth to host the book
• Teddy Rogers' tuts4you: http://tuts4you.com/download.php?view.3296. Thanks goes to Teddy Rogers who have provided the bandwidth to host the book

Happy reading :-)

PS: I have created a new group over at linkedin, i.e. "BIOS/UEFI Vulnerability and Reverse Engineering" if you want to discuss a thing or two.


BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered Errata:
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1. The address aliasing mentioned in Chapter 4 section 4.1.1 page 4 (the paging messed-up in the PDF) should cover both E-segment and F-Segment (E_0000h-F_FFFFh), not just the last 64-KB segment. Somebody used a sort of CPU logic analyzer to confirm this fact.
2. Chapter 9 section 9.2: The Flash_n_burn utility mentioned there is now named flashrom and become a quite independent part of the Coreboot (previously LinuxBIOS) project. See: http://flashrom.org/Flashrom

Anyway, if you found another errata please post it below. Thanks.

BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered 2nd Edition Works/Research Update

It's been "dormant" months on this front for a couple of months. Well, actually I'm working on BIOS and middleware stuff and keeping-up with real life.

Now, into the BIOS Disassembly Uncovered 2nd Edition matters. After working on BIOS related research and stuff these last few months I realized that there are a lot of research and works need to be done before I could continue writing stuff for the book. You may ask why? Well, first and foremost. The first book is an important hallmark in my life. Therefore, I won't just "write another book" for the second edition. I prefer it to be "groundbreaking", rather than just mediocre. A lot of subjects still needs research, particularly in the area of Coreboot, UEFI and cryptographic stuff related to BIOS/UEFI and other firmware in general. I found it rather surprising that after the publication of the first book, there has been quite a "surge" in BIOS-related protection out there (at least judging from patent applications). I know it has been researched prior to the first book. But, perhaps, its publication accelerates some of them.

Ok. So now, I would reiterate that I'm more than merely enthusiastic about the second edition book. But, after reflecting on present condition and the current state of the research I don't want to be rushed and produce a mediocre book. I actually want it to be much better than the first because back then I was newbie. I even barely able to use IDA Pro properly despite being able to write several not so complex IDA Pro plugin.

If you have any inquiries, especially in cryptographic-related BIOS stuff. Let me know. Perhaps, you have a link to sample binary out there I haven't know of?

Thanks..

The Long Silence and News on the Second Edition Book

Hi guys. It's been a very long silence since March. Well, real life got in the way. I was busy with a middleware project and the need to learn from scratch made it very difficult to allocate time for the BIOS research. Well, now I'm back researching BIOS again full-throttle at least 3 days per week. Therefore, the book content would be coming in the coming weeks hopefully. I have several semi-official works in BIOS baking in the kitchen. You will see some of it in the new book. Just FYI, the first book took 5 years for the research because I'm complete noob in (believe it or not) computer. Not just programming but using computer as well. It took several years just to learn to write Windows Device Drivers for experiments. Certainly a lot has changed since those years. Therefore, several months of research I think would be sufficient this time around as long as I can keep my "mood level" and "focus" to finish this one. Thanks for the suggestions in my post from last March. I'm preparing a reworked ToC to accomodate those ideas. Regarding my plan to release the first edition of the book for free. I'm still doing some cautious reading on the contract to see whether it will violate my contract or not. Actually, I stopped receiving royalties in mid-2010. However, I don't want to violate any IP transferred to my publisher as per the contract.

Latest State of The BIOS Disassembly Book

Hello guys. First I would like to apologize for the very late delivery of the book. I've been dragging my feet with other works over the past few months and hadn't been able to do considerable work on the book. Anyway, I have discussed everything with my publisher and co-author Luis Miras and we decided that we should push forward much more aggressively. Well, I decided to do a "restart" because the first four chapters that I have finished last year requires a lot of rework. If you have ideas on new stuff which you think should be included, feel free to talk about it in the comment section. Thanks. Darmawan

Last news about BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered 2nd Edition

OK. First, I'd like to apologize because of the very lengthy delay on the BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered 2nd Edition. I've got the got to go sign from No Starch Press, but I'm still waiting for my co-author (Luis Miras) to be ready. For sure, you'll get more computer-security-related stuff in the second edition. I have finished the materials for several hardware oriented chapters but they still requires a huge amount of edits. Well, hopefully this second edition don't need to wait until Christmas to complete. I'll be posting more regularly in this blog from now on.

BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu 2nd Edition Progress

Hello all. I just want to inform about the latest status of the manuscript. It'll be considerably longer than the previous one and the chapter count will increase rather dramatically because I decided to divide the "monster" chapters in the previous edition into smaller chapters which hopefully easier to understand. I didn't realize about the really huge (read: hard to grasp) chapters prior to re-reading the copy that I have at hand. Some reorganization happens in it as well. Aside from those issues, I really want to dedicate a chapter to Coreboot this time around. Hopefully, I can make it in time. Cheers :-)

UPDATE:
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You can check the latest state of the book in this post: http://bioshacking.blogspot.com/2011/03/latest-state-of-bios-disassembly-book.html

BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered 2nd Edition is in the works!

I've just signed up with No Starch Press. And after discussing the last state of the original book, I decided to just go ahead and make a new edition because I considered the coverage in todays bus protocol implementation in the original book lacking so much. I will try to give enough coverage on HyperTransport and PCI Express. QPI will have a section devoted for it but probably not too deep because I don't have its in-depth technical documentation at the moment. Probably the coverage on UEFI/TianoCore won't be sufficient in the new edition due to lack of time to explore the subject. The current schedule is very tight. I planned to switch the discussion in BIOS reversing more toward AMIBIOS because it has been more widespread recently. Of course Award BIOS will have its place as well. If you have any ideas, please drop it in the comment section. I'd like to hear about it.

BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu English Edition Status Update

After much waiting finally I received the contract termination document for the English edition of BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered. I plan to print the book in Indonesia and make it available again for those interested. The book will differ a bit from the book published by A-List in which it will contain a tad more materials because the original (unedited) manuscript actually a bit more than 450 pages ,i.e. 579 pages to be exact but it has to be cut-down to 450 pages due to the contract terms. However, the Russian version of the book is based on the complete manuscript and doesn't contain such a restriction.

All in all, I will announce when the book is ready to be sold and where it will be sold and how to purchase one, considering that I live in Indonesia. If anyone has idea how I can make it available, don't hesitate to give your comments. I'd love to hear it.

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UPDATE

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I'm currently in talks with NoStarch Press to re-publish the book, very probably with some content revisions and updates. Stay tuned.