Thread: Embeded language ?

  1. #1
    ... arjunajay's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    203

    Talking Embeded language ?

    In 1998, six Tomahawk cruise missiles fired at Taliban bases in Afghanistan by US destroyers mis-fired and landed in Pakistan. It is speculated that Pakistan and China seized upon the opportunity to reverse-engineer the Tomahawk and develop its own copy, though no evidence exists for this. Pakistan could not have salvaged the embedded systems of the Tomahawks, since they are likely to be in classified programming languages.
    I found it in wikipedia while looking for images of missiles.

    1)The last sentence does'nt make sense 'cause after you compile any program written in any language you get the machine lnaguage right ? So when you decompile it you should get more or less the same assembly code. Right ???
    And even if it is in a known language the reverse engineered code of a complex system will be highly obfuscated(?) right ?

    2) And what does embedded sysytems mean ? May be thats what I missed...

    Can someone clarify these for me?
    Thanks in advance...

  2. #2
    and the hat of int overfl Salem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    The edge of the known universe
    Posts
    39,660
    Sounds like hogwash to me.

    As you say, it's all asm in the end, so the source high level language is irrelevant.
    However, you also need to know the instruction set of the processor as well, and if that itself is secret, then all those bytes you have won't mean a damn thing. Embedded processors are not usually your x86 or motorola jobs.

    Oh, and the language was probably Ada, since the US DoD basically invented it, and mandated it's use for all defence programming.

    Other factors in the way
    - how much of the fragile electronics would survive a crash landing.
    - if the program is stored in volatile memory, then it's gone when the power is lost. Unless they caught the missile in a net, it's not likely.
    - some memory chips cannot be read (easily) with a PROM reader.
    - if the processor and memory are on a single chip, then the program code never appears on an external bit of wire you can attach a probe to.


    > 2) And what does embedded sysytems mean ?
    Despite the previous, this wiki looks ok
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_system
    If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
    If at first you don't succeed, try writing your phone number on the exam paper.

  3. #3
    ... arjunajay's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    203
    Thanks...
    I tend to believe all that I read. Got to stop that

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. What language did they make Java in?
    By jverkoey in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 17
    Last Post: 07-03-2005, 04:18 PM
  2. Strange loop
    By D@rk_force in forum C++ Programming
    Replies: 22
    Last Post: 12-18-2004, 02:40 PM
  3. assembly language...the best tool for game programming?
    By silk.odyssey in forum Game Programming
    Replies: 50
    Last Post: 06-22-2004, 01:11 PM
  4. Language of choice after C++
    By gandalf_bar in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 47
    Last Post: 06-15-2004, 01:20 AM
  5. Language Script..
    By vasanth in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 12
    Last Post: 03-30-2003, 06:48 AM