Archive for the 'Programming' Category

Nov 25 2007

AutoIt Decompiler for v3.2.6+

Published by Nerdmaster under Programming, Security

I’m a huge fan of AutoIt - I think the program is a wonderful tool for administrators as well as casual programmers who just like to mess with stuff. However, I recently discovered that the developer of AutoIt, in an ongoing quest for “security,” has disabled the ability to reverse-engineer autoit scripts!

Now, I’m all for security when people write software, but giving scripts this level of security actually introduces security risks! I just don’t like running some random AutoIt script without being able to look at the source code. If I run a “normal” compiled app, my virus scanner will generally let me know if it’s safe to run. But a script written in AutoIt can so easily be a trojan (or other destructive tool) and nothing can likely catch it because of the nature of scripted programs.

Yes, I’m aware somebody could write a C++ app that’s just as dangerous as AutoIt can produce, but this requires a lot more intelligence and effort than just writing an AutoIt script. AutoIt is made to be pretty friendly for non-programmers.

So to me, this is an absurd limitation - all scripts should be reversible for the sake of security! Luckily for the world, somebody has written a usable decompiler called myAutToExe, and I’m providing a local copy of 2.00 Alpha since the site is hard to find and hosted on Angelfire. For the original and latest versions, go to http://defcon5.biz/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&p=5735.

Note: I haven’t contacted the author of myAutToExe about this (the page has no contact information). I can’t imagine he’d complain, but if anybody knows a way in which I can contact him, I’m all ears. I’d love to set up a proper mirror.

UPDATE: I’ve updated the link to the latest version since being contacted by cw2k (the author of myAutToExe).

UPDATE UPDATE: Fixed the URL for getting the latest version - apparently the forum site moved.

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Aug 29 2007

ActionScript 3.0 (AS3) ToolTip for Flash 9 (CS3) programmers!

Published by Nerdmaster under Flash, Programming

I’m learning Flash right now. My next few games are going to be built in Flash in order to help me learn, and then hopefully build a nice PBBG using Flash and a dedicated C++ based network server. Should be highly exciting!

Anyway, after scouring the net for an amazing amount of time, I could not find a ToolTip component for ActionScript 3.0 (AS3). Tons for 2.0, but if I am going to be working with Flash, I have to go with 3.0. It’s much nicer for a serious programmer, as well as people who just want to be on the cutting edge.

I pretty much gave up after a few hours of digging, and decided it was time to rewrite somebody else’s code. So the one I found is apparently originally written by “Versus”, then modified by Joseph Poidevin. No idea who they are, no idea how to give them proper credit, because I honestly can’t remember where I found the original, and I changed about 80% of the code so hell, it really doesn’t much matter. The only thing that’s important is their work helped me to write a ToolTip that’s slightly customizable.

The class is fairly basic right now, but it does its job and does it well. You can customize opacity, text alignment, and delay (time before ToolTip shows up). I planned to add more customizations to the thing, but so far I really haven’t had a need, and I’m big on adding features only when you see a real-world use for said features. (Yes, I am aware font customizations will be very useful, but until I need them, I don’t write them)

If you find anything you’d like to add to this, please don’t hesitate to tell me. I may not incorporate all changes, because I want this thing to stay simple, but I’ll certainly consider anything I see.

Without further ado, here it is: ToolTip.as, or a tarball with the directory structure if you’re just too lazy to build it yourself: tooltip.tgz

Example usage:

This is actual code that yours truly is using in an exciting new game that may or may not ever be finished: 


ToolTip.init(stage, {textalign: ‘center’, opacity: 85, defaultdelay: 500});
ToolTip.attach(btninstructions, ‘Learn how to play\nScraboggle!’);
ToolTip.attach(btnstart, “Begin a game of scraboggle.”);
ToolTip.attach(btn_scores, “View the best scores and words, and who got ‘em!”);

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Aug 15 2007

Nerdmaster does something useful…

Published by Nerdmaster under Programming

No, children, this isn’t the unbelievable (and fictitious) story of a bad little nerd who finally finds redemption via some amazingly-selfless act. This is, instead, the true story of me, the very selfish nerd who offers something useful to the world in order to make himself (myself) feel superior.

I’ve been into statistics lately, and built a really slick hypergeometric distribution probability calculator. I offer the C++ and Ruby source for free, so if you’re interested in statistics and programming, check it out.

Why do I do this? Simple - for starters, I can always use the publicity. I linked to my page from wikipedia’s article. I never would have bothered to put my code up until I noticed that the only other link (here comes the superiority complex) was to a calculator that’s dog slow and gets odd values in some cases - if your desirables (white marbles) are set to 10 and your sample size (marbles drawn) are set to 20, it will actually show drawing 11 desirables as being possible! Plus it doesn’t show data in a very friendly way, doesn’t really explain the algorithm, and doesn’t offer source code. So I figured I could get some math nerds onto my site by throwing that link there, and more visitors is always good, even if they’re icky math nerds.

The other reason is to impress some C++ loving weirdos at Arena Net. I guess they think a client/server game with strict performance requirements should be written in C++ or something stupid like that. I tried to explain that VB is the only language for programming a serious game, but they just wouldn’t listen.

Anyway, enjoy the code. I licensed it as a “use however the frack you want” kind of license, so if it’s useful to you, just let me know you like it.