Just Wondering: Code

[playaj20008]

When I was in elementary school our printer used to sometimes print gibberish looking computer code. I was just wondering if it is actually possible for a person to understand this gibberish. It looks like this. "݇ñÚ52ÌÐÚ<ÙšsŸÇ¸%pj‹f¶ž“.M²7r¨Qô&{9Ø2$û5£" . If it is possible to read this stuff where can I learn how.

[Scarecrow Man]

Your printer probably had a bad driver, and was printing out random characters. There is no secret code, it really is just random.

[playaj20008]

No there is definately a code. If you open up any config file for almost any program in wordpad you'll find it full of this junk. I actually got the segment above this way.

[leefan]

lol, the bunch of apparently "random junk" is actually improperly encoded font values, which is most likely just a subsitution for a font or other language. (when printed randomly)

when you open a config file, normally that file is the end result of a compiled program, which is already encrypted. opening the file is similar to opening the hex of any program, and each character represents the hex value which was a result of the program. it is possible to edit hex, although it is really hard, due to the fact that it is hex. basically, any programming language from basic macros such as pascal to basic scripting like actionscript to high level language such as C++ to low level language like Assembly all are just a friendly user interface. all require the use of a compiler, which converts the text and programming to binary, which is the system of 0's and 1's. Hex is used as a substitution, because it is easier to comprehend for us than binary, even though interpreting a page of hex and understanding what the hell its talking about is alot harder than assembly. for example, if you were to open a simple "hello world" program using a hex editor or notepad, you would find the words "hello world" but there would be tons of other symbols near it. This is because the programming launguages use strings, assigning each letter a hex value. the programming code itself would be assigned hex values, which interpreted by the computer gives commands, yet when interpreted by notepad or a hex editor, which only calls the letter replacement, show wierd symbols.

[Scarecrow Man]

No there is definately a code. If you open up any config file for almost any program in wordpad you'll find it full of this junk. I actually got the segment above this way.

Quite right, but the fact that it was printed is most likely random. It would print out what it understood to be the command, but since it was corrupted, it would print out gibberish.

@Leefan

68 65 6c 6c 6f 20 77 6f 72 6c 64 - That's 'Hello World' in Hex. What playaj is seeing is as I said above, the result of a corrupted driver. It would print a command, but since the command was not understood, it was printed in random characters that the printer knew. I do not think there is any sort of code, rather an anomaly due to a corrupted driver.

In a program however, this is much different. Every character means something. Without a decompiler, it would be very difficult to understand.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

A good program to see the actual hex code instead of gibberish is FileAlyzer (from the same folks who made Spybot Search & Destroy) at http://www.safer-networking.org/en/filealyzer/index.html.

In a program however, this is much different. Every character means something. Without a decompiler, it would be very difficult to understand.

Even with a decompiler there will be very little understanding, as it will just give the assembler instructions. There is practically no way to get the original meaning of the code without the source code.

[leefan]

yea, thats basically what i said, i know what hex is, like how 70 72 6F 67 72 61 6D is "program", its only because the program stores it as a string, so the hex actually shows as hello world... all the other coding, instead of showing some familiar "for" "while" or even "{" and "}" are all summed up as

15B812D04A53FF763C8985E4FDFFFFE83B8AFFFF381D64FAD24A8BF00F84E10100006A046800CCD3

4A56FF15F010D04A83C40C85C00F85C80100000FB77608663BF30F850A8000008B85E4FDFFFF89470

4C605A0FAD24A01FFB5F8FDFFFFE8818CFFFF8B85E8FDFFFF8B4DFC5F5E5BE85D71FFFFC9C2040090

909090908BFF558BEC53565733DB53FF7508E8BF89FFFF8BF0668B06663D3A000F85C000000046468

07D14000F84C300000033FF837D1000668B3E

which basically becomes

....JS.v<.......;...8.d..J........j.h...JV.....J.............v.f;..............G......

J...................M._^[.]q.............U..SVW3.S.u........f..f=:.......FF.}....

....3..}..f.>

and these all contain data, but because its not a string it shows up like this

lemme send you a screenie of what i normally do to help out with a project me and my friends are working on

(just for curiosity's sake, im editing the patcher for ragnarok online for our private server[im using a legal emulator, so you cant sue me or anything]) if you want to see the copyright stuff, heres my flashpage:

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f216/leefan0/PaRO.swf

besides, i did say that if it came from the printer, its most likely gibberish, since my printer use to print out aparently empty sheets, except once you exam them they have "?" on them-this was fixed when i changed the driver

im just emphasizing that the random letters do mean something, except it looks more like an attempt to encode a foreign language

[andsome]

All this seems very technical, are you sure it isn't Klingon? :D

[playaj20008]

Thank you all very much for clearing this up.