Title: [Article]-Book Review: The Art of Assembly Language 2nd Ed
Post by: don on August 03, 2010, 11:10:56 AM

In our continuing effort to bring you info that will help your knowledge and career, here's EH-Netter awesec with a book review. Look for many more in the coming months.

Permanent link: [Article]-Book Review: The Art of Assembly Language 2nd Ed (http://www.ethicalhacker.net/content/view/319/2/)

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Review by Michael Heinzl AKA EH-Net Member Awesec

People often ask if they should learn Assembly language - if it's worth the efforts, and if it's a necessity in order to become a good penetration tester. Short and personally answered, I'd say certainly yes. If you are interested in areas like Reverse Engineering and Exploit Development, Assembly knowledge is a must-have. The second question which often comes directly after “Should I learn Assembly?” is “How and where to start?” One of the few given recommendations often points towards Randall Hyde's “The Art of Assembly Language” (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1593272073?tag=thedigitalcon-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1593272073&adid=1YEQJX19WZEPWG9ZDACP&) (AoA) for which the second edition was recently published.

The revised >700 pages strong edition covers Hyde's High Level Assembly, short HLA, which was developed in order to teach Assembly language to students at university in an easy way without the need to know everything that might be necessary to know for real Assembly language. Therefore, it's not the real low-level assembly known by many readers, as it supports control structures such as loops and exception handling, and even OOP.

Don

Title: Re: [Article]-Book Review: The Art of Assembly Language 2nd Ed
Post by: hayabusa on August 03, 2010, 11:13:38 AM

LOL... you beat me to it, don... I was posting a comment, just as you did the same! :P Feel free to move mine to this thread, if you want, or you can leave it separate,

Edit: Moved it myself... here it is:

Great review, awesec. Sometimes it's helpful to have review material like this, available, and at your fingertips. I can't count the number of times a very simple concept, that I SHOULD know and had learned, long ago, slips my memory, and a good reference book saves the day. I'll have to pick this one up, for my reference library.

Thanks!

Title: Re: [Article]-Book Review: The Art of Assembly Language 2nd Ed
Post by: Ketchup on August 03, 2010, 10:06:24 PM

It's on my Amazon.com wishlist now. Great review awesec!

Title: Re: [Article]-Book Review: The Art of Assembly Language 2nd Ed
Post by: UNIX on August 04, 2010, 01:09:52 AM

Thanks. hayabusa, if you are more interested in a reference, i wouldn't recommend AoA for this. Personally I would recommend to look directly at e.g. Intel. They offered some time ago their manuals and references for free in printed form, free shipping included. Not sure if they are still doing it though, since I couldn't find the link right now.

Title: Re: [Article]-Book Review: The Art of Assembly Language 2nd Ed
Post by: Equix3n- on August 04, 2010, 05:35:03 AM

I've been reading about reverse engineering and exploitation for some time now. Presently, I'm studying from the securitytube's assembly primer for hacker series. I haven't thought about a book yet. AoA gets mixed reactions everywhere. It appears to be a general assembly language book and not devoted to any particular architecture.

@Hayabusa
If you want to spend your money, then look at Introduction to 80x86 Assembly Language and Computer Architecture (http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Assembly-Language-Computer-Architecture/dp/0763772232/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280917117&sr=8-2). I haven't read it but from the reviews it seems to be a good book. AoA is freely available online (http://homepage.mac.com/randyhyde/webster.cs.ucr.edu/www.artofasm.com/index.html)

@awesec
Yes, Intel manuals are only available as .pdf now.

From their website: http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/

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*Note: The Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer’s Manuals are no longer available to order as hard copy.

Title: Re: [Article]-Book Review: The Art of Assembly Language 2nd Ed
Post by: UNIX on August 04, 2010, 05:47:57 AM

Ah, exactly Equix3n-. It seems they no longer offer it in printed form though, however, pdfs should be fine for most users anyway. Highly recommend them.

I have a couple of books I'd like to review prior to Introduction to 80x86 Assembly Language and Computer Architecture, but it's on my list as well (next will be SQL Injection - Attacks and Defense).

EH-Net

Features => Book Reviews => Topic started by: don on August 03, 2010, 11:10:56 AM