As a freshman at Drexel University, I was a member of the Pennoni Honors College and a program known as STAR, Students Tackling Advanced Research.  The STAR program pairs freshmen with faculty mentors with whom the students will partake in research projects during the summer after their freshmen year.   The program also pays the students a stipend and provides them with free campus housing for the summer.

The STAR program was my first glimpse into research and what academia is.  It was an awesome oppurtunity to meet faculty members and network within the college.  I was also able, through the connections I made during the STAR research program, find my first co-op job at Lockheed Martin Marine Systems and Sensors (MS2) in Moorestown, NJ.   The STAR program proved to be a stepping stone for me into what proved to be a successful undergraduate academic career, and one that I hope will continue to be successful as I pursue my graduate education.

This page provides an overview of the project I worked on during my freshman year in the STAR program, as well as a link to the final paper.

Faculty mentor

I had the privilege of working with Drexel faculy members Moshe Kam and Spiros Mancoridis on this project.  Matthew Oyer, also a freshmen at Drexel University, was also part of the project.

Reverse engineering survey

Prior to STAR, I had little experience in the field of reverse engineering.  I had coding experience in Java and C/C++, but limited knowledge of operating systems and debugging.  As such, the reverse engineering survey was a huge learning experience for me.  I spent ten weeks over the summer gaining experience on a wide range of reverse engineering tools, including:

  • Hex Editors
    • HHD Hex Editor
    • WinHex
    • Hex Workshop
    • Hackman Hex Editor
  • Disassemblers/Debuggers
    • OllyDbg
    • IDA Pro
  • Decompilers
    • Reverse Engineering Compiler (REC)
    • DCC
    • DISC
    • JAD
    • JODE
    • DAVA
  • Related technologies
    • Source code obfuscators
      • Semantic Design’s Source Code Obfuscators
      • Dasha
    • Binary code obfuscators
      • ASProtect
      • Y0da’s Cryptor
      • NFO
      • Armadillo
    • PE editors
      • ProcDump
      • LordPE
      • PEditor
    • Memory dumpers
    • Unpackers
      • Generic Unpacker for Windows (GUW)
      • PEiD