Hey all, I'm new to the forums but not exactly a 'new user'. I've got a little bit of coding knowledge and all that jazz. I just wanted to ask a question or two.

First, I'm interested in both win32-specific assembly as well as linux assembly. I've done a little bit of both, and I'm in love with both. The more I get into reversing, the more I want to know about the 'why what when where' of it.. almost to the point of obsession for the knowledge gained.
I'd love to get highly proficient in both gdb (it's really the only one I've been introduced to) and ollydb. Any decent guides rather than a reference manual that you guys know of? I've looked into softice, but it seems outdated to me and cumbersome. That's just my observation, but perhaps biased as I don't know yet know how to use it effectively.

I'd also like to learn assembly at it's base, and work my way up. I have a basic understanding, and can complete a few operations but nothing more than a simple program.

I have also tried several newbie crackme programs, and while I can usually complete them without much headache, I feel like I'm not learning a damn thing while doing it. Perhaps I need more advanced crackmes to play with? I'd rather be able to disassemble the code, understand it, rather than going in and filling jmp operations with nops just to bypass something and say I win. I want to investigate the problem, map it out, and come up with a solution to it, then crack it.

I'd like to think I'm of a pretty high caliber as far as wanting to learn this stuff. I'll read advanced tutorials, code that I cannot understand, and manuals, and then fill in the gaps until I can understand it and reproduce it on my own time. The more complex, the better in my head. I want to not just 'do it', but I want to 'know it' and contribute to it.

Now that I'm done writing all these, I don't even know if I asked any questions at all rather than just talking. Hmm..

I dont know the other debugger but for info on Olly you could take a look at Lena's tutorials. Do a SEARCH on this site for Lena and Olly.

Regards,

I'll find it. Thank you sir

ya thou..in my own experiance i found the best way to learn..was to set a goal ..like..." i wanna make it run without trial " or something similar..and then use the tools to achive that..ofcourse reading a few tutorials..to get the basics..but to get really good with em..you just gotta use them allot..but everybody's differnt just my 5 cents

your well on your way the urge to do can get you far

honestly, I'd love to get off tutorials asap. I hate being hand-held through. The problem is that more often than not, I'm not sure what I'm looking for exactly other than comparisons and jumps (I know this is probably the most simple form) -- as all programs aren't exactly the same. Logic is different to each person, but still maintaining certain rules bound by the system.

This is where I think I need to learn and write assembly fluently (I love what I know of the language as it stands, so this won't be difficult). I highly dislike just guessing my way through a crackme even if I have completed it successfully. If there's no understanding of it, then really what is the point?

I can't bring myself to go further if I have no idea what logic was behind the preventative measure set forth by the program developer for the software I'm cracking, nor can I go further if I can't even make a diagram of the crack I just made. If I can't explain it, what's the point?

If you want to look at some routines and are interested in C then you could take look at Programming in C by Kernigan & Ritchie if you look on the net you can find it in pdf.

I've actually got a copy of that book at home. I used it years ago when I was getting into linux kernel mods. I'll have to bust it out again and brush up.

I personally found Kris Kaspersky's books to be a good introduction for the mature reverser tht wants to learn and understand IN-DEPTH instead of following a recipe to steal some shareware. . .

Haha.. Stealing shareware is the last reason I want to learn reversing. Actually, I take that back, it's not even a reason I want to learn reversing.

I'm highly intrigued by the inner-workings of just about anything I go near.

Reversing, to me, is the best way for me to learn some of the most challenging code and concepts. For me, coding has become a passion, a half-career (still working my feet into the real world) and 'safeplace' for a lot of life's bs at this point I'd love to see how deep this rabbit hole goes.

Thanks for all the information everyone, I really appreciate it.

I'll definitely check out Kris Kaspersky's books. I've already completed one of the Lena guides, which proved to have some valuable ollydbg info fosho. I should probably work at work, and not learn at work right? Hehe.