Reverse Engineering Raw Binary Files

Join us for the August Pyowa meetup on Tuesday, August 26th from 5:30 to 7:00 PM, hosted at Source Allies. This month, we’re excited to welcome Nicholas Starke, a professional reverse engineer with deep experience in software analysis.

Nick will be presenting on determining the file offset and base load address when there's no metadata available, one of the key challenges in reverse engineering raw binary files. These components are essential for accurately analyzing binaries like microcontroller firmware, embedded bootloaders, and boot ROMs, yet they’re often missing or impossible to deduce from disassembly alone.

In this talk, Nick will share the evolution of a project he developed to brute force the base load address. He’ll walk us through earlier versions that were either too slow, inaccurate, or resource-intensive, and explain how the latest iteration dramatically improves performance while trading off disk space. You'll get an inside look at the tool’s implementation, its practical application, and how it helps reverse engineers make sense of raw binary firmware.

Whether you're into Python, reverse engineering, or just curious about the kinds of tools that power low-level analysis, this will be a great event to see. Food/Drinks provided.

📅 Tuesday, August 26
🕠 5:30–7:00 PM
📍 Source Allies or Online