MissingMethodException when using zxing.Monotouch on iOS6 - xamarin.ios

I have updated my development system to the new MonoTouch (6.0.1) and now whenever I'm referencing zxing.Monotouch types I get MissingMethodException on the constructor.
System.MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'MyClass..ctor'.
It's been 3 days now...
Anyone got any idea? I'm even willing to give up zxing if that what it takes (even though it's a wonderful library).
Edit
When I include zxing.Monotouch in the solution and reference it as a project the problem does not reproduce. If that's a clue I've missed it...

It's likely that the binary version of zxing.Monotouch is trying to access something that does not exists in 6.0.1. That's uncommon as we try to maintain source/binary compatibility unless the code is really broken (e.g. it would cause a crash anyway). I cannot be more precise without more data (e.g. a full build log).
If you include zxing.Monotouch as a reference then it will be rebuilt. If it works then it really looks like source compatibility was preserved (but not binary compatibility).
Whenever you have the source code available I encourage you to use .csproj (not .dll) references. Is has a few advantages, including the source/binary compatibility (above) and the fact that it makes things easier to debug from your project.

Related

How to Decompile Bytenode "jsc" files?

I've just seen this library ByteNode it's the same as ByteCode of java but this is for NodeJS.
This library compiles your JavaScript code into V8 bytecode, which protect your source code, I'm wondering is there anyway to Decompile byteNode therefore it's not secure enough. I'm wondering because I would like to protect my source code using this library?
TL;DR It'll raise the bar to someone copying the code and trying to pass it off as their own. It won't prevent a dedicated person from doing so. But the primary way to protect your work isn't technical, it's legal.
This library compiles your JavaScript code into V8 bytecode, which protect your source code...
Well, we don't know it's V8 bytecode, but it's "compiled" in some sense. All we know is that it creates a "code cache" via the built-in vm.Script.prototype.createCachedData API, which is officially just a cache used to speed up recompiling the code a second time, third time, etc. In theory, you're supposed to also provide the original source code as a string to the vm.Script constructor. But if you go digging into Node.js's vm.Script and V8 far enough it seems to be the actual code in some compiled form (whether actual V8 bytecode or not), and the code string you give it when running is ignored. (The ByteNode library provides a dummy string when running the code from the code cache, so clearly the actual code isn't [always?] needed.)
I'm wondering is there anyway to Decompile byteNode therefore it's not secure enough.
Naturally, otherwise it would be useless because Node.js wouldn't be able to run it. I didn't find a tool to do it that already exists, but since V8 is open source, it would presumably be possible to find the necessary information to write a decompiler for it that outputs valid JavaScript source code which someone could then try to understand.
Experimenting with it, local variable names appear to be lost, although function names don't. Comments appear to get lost (this may not be as obvious as it seems, given that Function.prototype.toString is required to either return the original source text or a synthetic version [details]).
So if you run the code through a minifier (particularly one that renames functions), then run it through ByteNode (or just do it with vm.Script yourself, ByteNode is a fairly thin wrapper), it will be feasible for someone to decompile it into something resembling source code, but that source code will be very hard to understand. This is very similar to shipping Java class files, which can be decompiled (there's even a standard tool to do it in the JDK, javap), except that the format Java class files are well-documented and don't change from one dot release to the next (though they can change from one major release to another; new releases always support the older format, though), whereas the format of this data is not documented (though it's an open source project) and is subject to change from one dot release to the next.
Certain changes, such as changing the copyright message, are probably fairly easy to make to said source code. More meaningful changes will be harder.
Note that the code cache appears to have a checksum or other similar integrity mechanism, since directly editing the .jsc file to swap one letter for another in a literal string makes the code cache fail to load. So someone tampering with it (for instance, to change a copyright notice) would either need to go the decompilation/recompilation route, or dive into the V8 source to find out how to correct the integrity check.
Fundamentally, the way to protect your work is to ensure that you've put all the relevant notices in the relevant places such that the fact copying it is a violation of copyright is clear, then pursue your legal recourse should you find out about someone passing it off as their own.
is there any way
You could get a hundred answers here saying "I don't know a way", but that still won't guarantee that there isn't one.
not secure enough
Secure enough for what? What's your deployment scenario? What kind of scenario/attack are you trying to defend against?
FWIW, I don't know of an existing tool that "decompiles" V8 bytecode (i.e. produces JavaScript source code with the same behavior). That said, considering that the bytecode is a fairly straightforward translation of the source code, I'm sure it wouldn't be very hard to write such a tool, if someone had a reason to spend some time on it. After all, V8's JS-to-bytecode compiler is open source, so one would only have to look at those sources and implement the reverse direction. So I would assume that shipping as bytecode provides about as much "protection" as shipping as uglified JavaScript, i.e. none that I would trust.
Before you make any decisions, please also keep in mind that bytecode is considered an internal implementation detail of V8; in particular it is not versioned and can change at any time, so it has to be created by exactly the same V8 version that consumes it. If you want to update your Node.js you'll have to recreate all the bytecode, and there is no checking or warning in place that will point out when you forgot to do that.
Node.js source already contains code for decompiling binary bytecode.
You can get a text string from your V8 bytecode and then you would need to analyze it.
But text string would be very long and miss some important information such as a constant pool. So you need to modify the Node.js source.
Please check https://github.com/3DGISKing/pkg10.17.0
I have attached exported xml file.
If you study V8, it would be possible to analyze it and get source code from it.
It keeping it short and sweet, You can try Ghidra node.js package which is based on Ghidra reverse engineering framework which was open-sourced by NSA in the year 2019. Ghidra is capable of disassembling and decompiling the v8 bytecode. The inner working of disassembling is quite complex, this answer is short but sufficient.

Avoiding CA2122 from Code Analysis in VS2012 with SecuritySafeCritical fails

I have here a C++/CLI solution which isn't mixed with native C++ (although we have this type too). It consists of three projects, where are two relevant for my question.
The first one is a static library (.lib) and deals with Acitve Diretytory matters.
The second one is the executable main project (.exe) which depends on the other projects.
I'm new to Visual Studio 2012 and want to use the advantages of tools like the code analysis. Running the code analysis over the solution reveals several CA2122 warnings:
CA2122 Do not indirectly expose methods with link demands
I understand the security concerns related to this warning and I think I understood how to deal with it, although I'm also new to this security stuff. This warnings are related to the Active Directory code when the whole solution is examined, while examining only the lib-project they will not appear and everything seems to be ok.
Now to the core of the problem:
I tried to mark all methods where I'm warned with the SecuritySafeCritical attribute
--> no changes, same warnings
I've solved this warning in another project by marking the whole assembly as SecurityCritical and adding the SecuritySafeCritical to the problematic method. This will not work since adding a AssemblyInfo.cpp with marking the assembly as SecurityCritical will not affect this problem. (I know that *.cpp seem to be obsolete in managed static librarys since the code seem to have to be complete in the header files making this kind of project obsolete... but we don't want to have .dll for every small part and we also want to have this stuff capsulated in an own project instead of having some loose header files or have it mixed with other regions)
After that I tried to mark the whole assembly of the main project as SecurityTransparent because so far I understand this SecuritySafeCritical marked code can be called by SecurityTransparent or SecurityCritical code (what is for me every kind of security). --> My as SecuritySafeCritical marked methods now are marked with CA2141 warnings and many other methods produce new warnings (most of them are related to exception handling):
CA2141:Transparent methods must not satisfy LinkDemands
CA2140: Transparent code must not reference security critical items
So I decided to try marking this assembly as SecurityCritical too.
--> My SecuritySafeCritical methods finally produce no warnings, but there are still all these other warnings from methods having exceptionhandling.
So I don't know how to solve this problem. I assume that having a managed static library is the problem and when having just a dll-project maybe I could solve the problem as mentionend in 2., but I want to avoid to share another *.dll project with our programs.
I searched for a solution but found nothing which would help in this case. Also informations on this topic are rare, out of date (because related to .Net Framework 2.0 while the whole security thing seems to be changed massively with .Net Framework 4.0) or hard to understand for me. So I hope someone has an idea what I could try or what I should do.

Wildcard assembly reference in csproj

I'm using nuget (as many of you) a lot for referencing external and internal component-assemblies.
For debugging purposes, it would be nice being able to exchange the nuget-assembly for it's source-code.
Unfortunately, some "core-lib" is used pretty often by the solution itself and also some nuget-referenced packages (used by the sln). Simply removing the reference via VS and adding it's source-project often causes an ambigous relation to the "core-lib", because both (sln and package-src) use the "core-lib" - mostly in different versions.
The only way (I know) to solve that issue is to update all references to the same version (usually, the most actual one). That can be pretty annoying, especially in bigger projects.
Maybe there exists a way to make referencing more flexible - e.g. by using wildcards in the hint-path?
Thanks for all suggestions!
Did you try using symbol packages ? More details # http://docs.nuget.org/docs/creating-packages/creating-and-publishing-a-symbol-package

MonoTouch: Adding DLL references in sub projects

In a way I am looking for best-practice here.
I have a common project that is shared by many of my apps. This project has FlurryAnaylics and the ATMHud DLLs as references.
If I do not also reference these DLLs in the main project, the apps will often, but not always, fail in the debug-to-device test. In the debug-to-simulator I don't need to add these DLLs to the main project.
So, the question is: Do I have to include references to DLLs in the main project that I have in sub projects all the time?
Whenever possible I use references to project files (csproj files) over references to assemblies (.dll). It makes a lot of things easier, like:
code navigation (IDE);
automatic build dependency (the source code you're reading is the one you're building, not something potentially out-of-sync);
source-level debugging (even if you can have it without it, you're sure to be in-sync);
(easier) switch between Debug|Release|... configurations;
changing defines (or any project-level option);
E.g.
Solution1.sln
Project1a.csproj
MonoTouch.Dialog.csproj (link to ../Common/MonoTouch.Dialog.csproj)
Solution2.sln
Project2a.csproj
MonoTouch.Dialog.csproj (link to ../Common/MonoTouch.Dialog.csproj)
Common.sln
MonoTouch.Dialog.csproj
Large solutions might suffer a bit from doing this (build performance, searching across files...). The larger they get the less likely everyone has to know about every part of it. So there's a diminished return on the advantages while the inconvenience grows with each project being added.
E.g. I would not want to have references to every framework assemblies inside Mono (but personally I could live with all the SDK assemblies of MonoTouch ;-)
Note: Working with assemblies references should not cause you random errors while debugging on device. If you can create such a test case please fill a bug report :-)

Static libraries dependency

I need some basic clarification on C++ static linkage. I have a file called data_client.lib. There are three independant consumers for the library file a.exe, b.exe and c.exe. There is a service called data_server.exe for which data_client.lib is the interface. Actually, I added another function to data_server.exe and corresponding interface to data_client.lib. Since just a.exe needs the extra functionality, I build a.exe only. I shipped data_server.exe, data_client.exe and a.exe as patch. Now, b.exe and c.exe randomly/inconsistently crashes throwing
mfc42u!CException::`RTTI Complete
Object Locator'+0x10
Does it make sense? If I also build b.exe and c.exe, then the crash does not happen. Is this the way it works?
Actually, I added another function to data_server.exe and corresponding interface to data_client.lib.
It's a little unclear from this exactly what was added to your library. However, if it's a new method or methods added to a class (rather than just some new standalone functions), there's a very high chance that recompiling everything will fix your problem. The vtable may or may not have been thrown out of whack by your changes.
It's also possible that your crashes have absolutely nothing to do with this and there's some other problem going on... but from your description, my money's on a vtable issue. If it were me, I'd recompile b.exe and c.exe and test again before investigating other issues.
Maybe You don't have explicit dependencies, but some of Your project headers uses, or put information implicitly into your library.
I do not know about the error, but your applications b.exe and c.exe are using an older version of the binding lib to communicate with a newer version of the data_server.exe. Some v_table indexes might be off or something if you added a function. You definately have to rebuild all the libraries.

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