Lab Assignment 2: Defusing a Binary Bomb

Introduction

The nefarious Dr. Evil has planted a slew of “binary bombs” on our machines.  A binary bomb is a program that consists of a sequence of phases.  Each phase expects you to type a particular string on standard input.  If you type the correct string, then the phase is defused and the bomb proceeds to the next phase.  Otherwise, the bomb explodes by printing “BOOM!!!” and then terminating.  The bomb is defused when every phase has been defused. 

There are too many bombs for us to deal with, so we are giving each group a bomb to defuse.  Your mission, which you have no choice but to accept, is to defuse your bomb before the due date.  Good luck, and welcome to the bomb squad! 

Step 1: Get Your Bomb

Each group of students will attempt to defuse their own personalized bomb.  Each bomb is a Linux binary executable file that has been compiled from a C program.  To obtain your group’s bomb, one (and only one) of the group members should point your Web browser to the bomb request daemon at

http://cycle1.csug.rochester.edu:15213

Fill out the HTML form with the email addresses and names of your team members, and then submit the form by clicking the “Submit” button.  The request daemon will build your bomb and return it immediately to your browser in a tar file called bombk.tar, where k is the unique number of your bomb. 

Save the bombk.tar file to a (protected) directory in which you plan to do your work.  Then give the command: tar -xvf bombk.tar.  This will create a directory called bombk with the following files: 

If you change groups, simply request another bomb and we’ll sort out the duplicate assignments later on when we grade the lab. 

Also, if you make any kind of mistake requesting a bomb (such as neglecting to save it or typing the wrong group members), simply request another bomb.  If you change groups, simply request another bomb and we’ll sort out the duplicate assignments later on when we grade the lab. 

Step 2: Defuse Your Bomb

Once you have received your bomb from the bomb daemon, save it in a secure directory.  Your job is to defuse the bomb. 

The bombs are limited to run on the cs undergraduate network only. We have tried to enable all machine on the undergraduate network, but machines come and go. If your machine doesn't want to run the bomb executable, ssh to one of the cycle servers (cycle1, cycle2, cycle3.csug.rochester.edu) and run it there. Contact the TA with any problems related to this issue.

You can use many tools to help you with this; please look at the hints section for some tips and ideas.  The best way is to use your favorite debugger to step through the disassembled binary. 

Each time your bomb explodes it notifies the TAs, and you lose 1/4 point (up to a max of 10 points) in the final score for the lab.  So there are consequences to exploding the bomb.  You must be careful! 

Each phase is worth 10 points, for a total of 60 points. 

The phases get progressively harder to defuse, but the expertise you gain as you move from phase to phase should offset this difficulty.  However, the last phase will challenge even the best students, so please don’t wait until the last minute to start. 

The bomb ignores blank input lines.  If you run the bomb with a command line argument such as bomb_codes, it will read the input lines from bomb_codes until it reaches EOF, and then switch over to standard input.  In a moment of weakness, Dr. Evil added this feature so you don’t have to keep retyping the solutions to phases you have already defused. 

To avoid accidentally detonating the bomb, you will need to learn how to single-step through the assembly code and how to set breakpoints.  You will also need to learn how to inspect both the registers and the memory states.  One of the nice side-effects of doing the lab is that you will get very good at using a debugger.  This is a crucial skill that will pay big dividends the rest of your career. 

Logistics

As noted above, you may work in a group of up to 2 people. 

Any clarifications and revisions to the assignment will be posted to the course blackboard.

You should do the assignment on the class machines.  In fact, there is a rumor that Dr. Evil really is evil, and the bomb will always blow up if run elsewhere.  There are several other tamper-proofing devices built into the bomb as well, or so they say. 

“Trivia” Assignment

Before noon, Wednesday, Feb. 6, submit answers to the following questions using blackboard (each student, regardless of whether in a team, is required to submit answers individually): 

  1. Are you working alone or in a team of two?  If the latter, who is your partner? 
  2. Give the names of all the functions in the bomb executable. 
  3. In gdb, how do you print a string whose base address is stored in the register eax?  (Hint: Something similar to C)
  4. What does bomb print when you run it without any arguments?  (Be careful not to accidentally set if off while doing this!) 

Turn-In

There is no explicit turn-in.  The bomb will notify us automatically after you have successfully defused it.  You can keep track of how you (and the other groups) are doing by looking at spring08.html.  This web page is updated continuously to show the progress of each group. 

DUE DATES:

For the “trivia” assignment: noon, Tuesday, February 5. 

For the main assignment: 11:59pm, Thursday, February 14. 

Hints (Please read this!)

There are many ways to go about defusing your bomb.  You can examine it in great detail without ever running the program, and figure out exactly what it does.  This is a useful technique, but it is not always easy to do.  You can also run it under a debugger, watch what it does step by step, and use this information to defuse it.  This is probably the fastest way of defusing it. 

We do make one request, please do not use brute force!  You could write a program that will try every possible key to find the right one.  But this is no good for several reasons:

There are many tools which are designed to help you figure out both how programs work, and what is wrong when they don’t work.  Here is a list of some of the tools you may find useful in analyzing your bomb, and hints on how to use them. 

Looking for a particular tool?  Don’t forget, the commands apropos and man are your friends.  In particular, man ascii might come in useful.  Also, the web may also be a treasure trove of information.  If you get stumped, feel free to ask the TAs for help.