Do you guys think this noobie bought some good starter material?

[leetone]

C++ Programming in Easy Steps - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1840784326/ref=ox_ya_os_product_refresh_T1
Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764574817/ref=ox_ya_os_product_refresh_T1
The IDA Pro Book: The Unofficial Guide to the World's Most Popular Disassembler - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593272898/ref=ox_ya_os_product_refresh_T1

These are all reccomendations I've picked up through research, especially the last two. The first was a good reccomendation with solid reviews and it cost $12 so why not?

Total: $80 USD

I'm self teaching via tutorials and have been for a year now, still pretty much a noob with C# but being that these books are coming I am ready to take it seriously. Do you think these will provide the info I need to jump headfirst into reversing?

[Loki]

To be honest, for me the best way to learn is to get hands on. Try and solve something simple and work your way up. Even the simple ones will teach you new thigns.

The books will give you solid principles but spending a few weeks with Olly/IDA will help most.

After that, some of these books can help you understand things like PEB/SDT/IDT etc which dont often get covered in tutorials (unless you read deroko's stuff )

[leetone]

Awesome thank you for the quick response mate. I know hands on experience is important so that's why i'm getting these books! I know they have so many code snippets, crackmes, etc...the book just teaches me the functions and all that.

anyways, I will keep you guys updated on my progress...I'm sure I'll have a lot of questions, do you mind if I add you to my friends list? Or PM you my skype?

[Git]

I don't think many of the reversers here have ever bought a book on the subject, they're more likely to write one

Git

[AlexAltea]

Well, all I can say is that those books won't harm you. :P I guess the fact that you actually payed for something sets an extra pressure on you that will probably make you not to give up so easily. As soon as you make progress I would recommend to switch from theory to real cases, e.g. the website CrackMes.de has a nice collection of test programs to test your skills which often include nice tutorials.

Oh, btw, I have "Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering". It's a great book. I haven't finished it since there was "too much text" about stuff that was not relevant for me. But I still recommend it as well as "Practical Reverse Engineering".

[leetone]

Absolutely I don't want to spend money on this and give up, it was exactly what I was thinking!!!

The book teaches through application not theory, but I will actually use real cases that interest me.

Also thanks for lettin me know about the reversing book. I am fine with "too much text" as I like a programming book to have some cool 80's hacker stories too :P

[TechLord]

There are quite a lot of PDFs available for free on the internet if one spends an hour or so doing a serious search. Then, for those who prefer a paper or hardcopy, they can just purchase the same from Amazon or somewhere if they liked the contents in the PDF one... This is what I frequently do, not only for books on reversing but other subjects as well...

[Conquest]

This is my suggestion- download pdf/epub/other softcopy formats from torrents or somewhere else (TPB has great torrents for them which contains like 1000+ books) download all of them at once and then do a google search with something like "best book on <name of teh subject>" and read the soft copy a few pages . if you like it buy the hardcopy . i usually rely on comments on stackoverflow since you can actually find questions like these there a lot .
for example this link gives you a detailed list of good c programming books
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/562303/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list
similar threads exist for other topics as well.
Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering - this is a great book you bought. but i will say buy something on x86 asm as well.
About the IDA pro book . its more like a reference style . Definitely worth buying . it doesnt teach you much new things if you are already using IDA but solves a lot of problem and gives you a lot of tricks
Goodluck

[leetone]

Originally Posted by TechLord

There are quite a lot of PDFs available for free on the internet if one spends an hour or so doing a serious search. Then, for those who prefer a paper or hardcopy, they can just purchase the same from Amazon or somewhere if they liked the contents in the PDF one... This is what I frequently do, not only for books on reversing but other subjects as well...

I know this mate
I have a 2TB hdd filled with everything you can think of generally from B*tM* (ALL tutorials and ebooks) and have probably 1000+ books on programming....I just check what I want to buy and see if it looks like I can wrap my head around it, but honestly the reviews are more important. I'm looking at a bunch of jargon when I open the PDF, i don't know what it means and how well it teaches. But thanks for the suggestion, I rarely buy books but when I do I DEFINITELY get a PDF first. I kinda hate PDF's in general even with split screen

Originally Posted by TechLord

Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering - this is a great book you bought.

Yay! I knew it!

Originally Posted by TechLord

but i will say buy something on x86 asm as well.
About the IDA pro book . its more like a reference style . Definitely worth buying . it doesnt teach you much new things if you are already using IDA but solves a lot of problem and gives you a lot of tricks
Goodluck

Ah I see...The reviews seemed really good for introductory users, it sounds like someone who is intermediate with C++ and a basic assembly of assmebly can start from the beginning and not be swamped with information they don't understand. Is this not true; it's more like a reference guide like the 1000+ page C++ 11 reference books?

either way I am not worried; I just need some way to learn IDA. That is not a priority now though.

[Conquest]

Originally Posted by leetone

Ah I see...The reviews seemed really good for introductory users, it sounds like someone who is intermediate with C++ and a basic assembly of assmebly can start from the beginning and not be swamped with information they don't understand. Is this not true; it's more like a reference guide like the 1000+ page C++ 11 reference books?

either way I am not worried; I just need some way to learn IDA. That is not a priority now though.

Reading this book wont harm you anyway . if you cant understand something just skip that part. Completely mastering IDA requires extensive knowledge in PE and windows internals and compiler documents etc.

I will just say, start with olly for debugging and use ida for diassembly purpose. Some people abuse the hexrays for its c++ pseucde generate ability but i will say just focus how to use ida to make things easier, not automated.

[DMichael]

books?dont know but lena151 videos and blackstorm videos really good to learn of

[AlexAltea]

@DMichael: Oh, those contain nice stuff as well. I think books are relevant as well: Since videos are done live, it is quite likely that the authors overlook somethings or forget to say something relevant. I have done some written tutorials and video tutorials in the past. And the videos were always easier for me (press record and talk) but I must admit I wasn't as good as the written tuts. But whatever, maybe it was just me, hehe

Anyway, it's also required to pay a lot of attention to everything that goes on the screen (sometimes is too slow, and sometimes too fast) whereas with books/ebooks you can go at the speed you want, and basically read them everywhere. :-)

[bolzano_1989]

You should start with these books:
Practical Malware Analysis (you will learn basic concepts with this book easily)
IDA Pro Book, 2nd Edition (IDA is the standard tool for reverse engineers)
Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering
Reverse Engineering for Beginners by Dennis Yurichev

[leetone]

I have the middle 2 of those 4 books, I should be good to start...

IDA Pro Book, 2nd Edition (IDA is the standard tool for reverse engineers)
Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering