Pulling code off a MOD54415

[monfire]

Hi,

I know that a code image can be uploaded to a MOD54415 via Autoupdate. I'm curious if code can be downloaded from a MOD54415. In particular, I'm interested in the safety of code that's on the device. Can an unauthorized person that happens to obtain the MOD54415 view and/or extract the code? If so, is there a way to protect the code image?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

[pbreed]

Depends on what you mean by code...

If you mean the compiled image its executing... yes its possible...

If you mean the source code that made the image... not really.

Basically one could get the <whatever>_APP.s19 file back off of the unit....

So you cant really recreate the code used to make the image... (IE the .c .cpp code etc...)

You could probably clone the image and run the exact same code on another MOD54415....

[pbreed]

think of it like an exe file....

You can give someone an exe file of an app...
They can run it on their computer...
They could also run it on another differnt computer...

IT would be difficult to turn the exe file back into the C source...

[monfire]

Hi pbreed,

Thanks for the replies. So if someone can get the *.s19 file, and that person were really determined, he or she could hack the code using a disassembler and figure out what the code is doing.

Do you know how someone could pull the *.s19 file off a MOD54415? Are there NetBurner utilities that do this? Is there any way to prevent people from doing this?

[pbreed]

Its compressed... and we don't publish the format of the decompressor....

If someone can get physical access to the unit and is determined its pretty much impossible
to prevent code access on any deivce that has external memory....

[monfire]

Great, thanks for the info! Much appreciated.

[monfire]

One follow-up question (apologies!): If we were to deter people from trying to pull off the .s19 file, by dumping epoxy over the MOD54415 board, would someone still be able to get the .s19 file via the Ethernet connection and/or the usb/serial port connection?

Thanks again!

[mbaybutt]

Hi Paul,

I stumbled across this thread while trying to determine if it was possible to clone an image that is on a Nano54415. The position that I am in is that I have one Nano with firmware that we really like the latency performance between ethernet and CAN transmission. Since I programmed that module the code has evolved and we haven't been able to hit the same latency spec. What I would like to do is extract the program from the known good module and push it down to a second module to support testing while we delve into figuring out exactly what we changed to augment the timing performance.

Any info on how I could go about performing this clone?

Thanks,

- Mark

[rnixon]

How about swapping the memory chips?