IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Reverse Engineering Unknown File Formats with ImHex

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Hex‑editor driven reverse engineering
Users repeatedly praise tools like ImHex (or homemade hex dumpers) for probing binary formats and writing file parsers.
- “I’ve had a lot of luck with ImHex looking at various binary formats and even using it to aid in writing some file magic.” – jonhohle
- “I've been reverse engineering some old Minecraft Legacy Console Edition save files with ImHex and the pattern templates work pretty well…” – xiej

2. Frustration with spoiler warnings and ideas to bypass them
Several commenters find spoiler alerts annoying and discuss ways to neutralize them, ranging from mental tricks to technical solutions.
- “Damn a video game spoiler warning, guess I can't read the rest of the article.” – someperson
- “spoilers aren't real, it's like declaring you're immune to propaganda only it actually works” – monster_truck
- “Unironically, this is a browser extension I wanna make lol” – odo1242

3. LLMs as aids for pattern spotting and reverse‑engineering tasks
Large language models are highlighted for their ability to quickly recognize structures in data, whether for stripping spoilers or deciphering file formats.
- “LLMs are, of course, scarily good at reverse engineering and spotting patterns that take me way too much effort to spot.” – xiej
- “I may feed it into an LLM to strip out the spoilers actually.” – someperson

🚀 Project Ideas

Generating project ideas…

SpoilerShield Browser Extension

Summary

  • A browser extension that uses an LLM to detect and redact spoilers in web articles, allowing users to read content without accidental reveals.
  • Core value: seamless, on‑the‑fly spoiler filtering that respects user‑defined sensitivity.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience General web readers, gamers, movie fans
Core Feature LLM‑based spoiler detection and inline masking (blur/replace)
Tech Stack Manifest V3 extension, TypeScript/JavaScript, optional local LLM via WebGPU or remote API (e.g., OpenAI)
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • HN users expressed desire to feed articles into an LLM to strip spoilers (“I may feed it into an LLM to strip out the spoilers actually”) and odo1242 said they’d make a browser extension for this.
  • Practical utility: enables reading news, reviews, forums without spoiler anxiety; could spark discussion about LLM safety and content filtering.

ImHex C‑Header Roundtrip Tool

Summary

  • A companion utility that converts C struct definitions to ImHex pattern templates and vice‑versa, simplifying reverse engineering of binary formats.
  • Core value: eliminates manual syntax translation and lets engineers roundtrip between source code and hex views.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Reverse engineers, firmware developers, hobbyist binary analysts using ImHex
Core Feature Bidirectional conversion (C ↔ ImHex pattern) with support for arrays, enums, bitfields, and runtime‑sized expressions
Tech Stack Python (or Rust) parser library, Qt/GUI or VS Code extension, uses libclang for C parsing
Difficulty High
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • jonhohle mentioned wanting to roundtrip C headers with ImHex and frustration that pattern templates don’t match C struct syntax.
  • xiej noted debugging pain with runtime‑sized arrays; this tool would generate safe patterns.
  • Potential for discussion: could improve ImHex ecosystem, lower barrier to entry for new reverse engineers.

ZipSQLite Explorer

Summary

  • A lightweight desktop/cli tool that automatically scans unknown binary files for embedded ZIP archives containing SQLite databases, extracts them, and opens the DB with a built‑in viewer.
  • Core value: turns the common “unknown file is a zip+sqlite” pattern into a one‑click inspection workflow.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Forensic analysts, software tinkerers, developers dealing with proprietary file formats (e.g., Outlook, motel DB, game saves)
Core Feature Automatic ZIP detection, SQLite extraction, optional schema preview and query editor
Tech Stack Rust (zip crate + sqlite crate), optional GUI with egui or Tauri
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • hmartin observed that half the time unknown file formats are just a zip containing a SQLite DB.
  • kstrauser’s story about reverse engineering a motel DB file in BASIC would have been much easier with this tool.
  • Practical utility: speeds up file format discovery, encourages community sharing of templates, could be bundled with ImHex as a plugin.

Read Later