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anonym29last Sunday at 11:07 PM1 replyview on HN

This assumption about me is not accurate at all, I've done static analysis professionally on CIL, on compiled bytecode, and on source code. Instead of being condescending and patronizing to someone you don't know that you've made factually inaccurate assumptions about, can you please explain how having just a binary and no access to source code gives you more information about, greater confidence in, and a stronger basis for trust in the behavior of a binary than having access to the binary AND the source code used to build it?


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tptaceklast Sunday at 11:19 PM

I have no idea who you are and can only work from what you write here, and with this comment, what you've written no longer makes sense. The binary (or the lifted IR form of the binary or the control flow graph of the binary or whatever form you're evaluating) is the source of truth about what a program actually does, not the source code.

The source code is just a set of hints about what the binary does. You don't need the hints to discern what a binary is doing.

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