0

I'm a high level programmer and starting to know hardware stuffs and assembly. I'm just curious how do hardware programmers or maybe hackers know the specific address of a component like for example a bluetooth in a mobile phone. How can you read the value of the address where the bluetooth stores its frequency and perhaps change it?

I'm also a new arduino programmer and arduino lets you change/read the value of a component on depending on the pin you used. I'm sure that's how it works with other hardware too but what if you are just hacking a hardware without the description of the actual hardware like a mobile phone?

dgzz
  • 2,929
  • 6
  • 34
  • 56
  • 1
    "What if you are just hacking without the description of the actual hardware...?" Well, if that's painful, don't do that. Most engineers work off designs and communicate by documenting those designs. If you don't happen to know the design data, that's either because you haven't bothered to chase it down, or somebody has decided not to give it to you. Then you are left to guess, if you insist. – Ira Baxter Jul 28 '14 at 00:47

2 Answers2

2

Reverse-engineering or the documentation.

The docs are the first place to look. After that it's logic analyzers, disassemblers, and perseverance.

Dave Newton
  • 158,873
  • 26
  • 254
  • 302
  • Do mobile companies provide documentation of their hardware? and for open source OS of mobile like android, do they have the same address where they store a particular information or it varies? – dgzz Jul 28 '14 at 00:47
  • Ultimately, there's almost always going to be *something* at a fixed address, just to provide a "starting point" for discovering devices. – Drew McGowen Jul 28 '14 at 13:21
  • @DrewMcGowen: Arguably, there's a Turing machine behind every I/O port in system. How are you going to guess what it does? What it does relative to the port next to it? What it does, to something else in the hardware, or the external environment? Suggesting this without any supporting documentation is just crazy talk. – Ira Baxter Aug 19 '14 at 07:30
0

It's much easier to build an attack for well known target. So hackers often choose this way. They just can take one the latest top model of smartphone, open it, read the names of everything, find documentation and build an attack, virus or whatever.

Ruslan Gerasimov
  • 1,752
  • 1
  • 13
  • 20