Luke Wurst
Luke brings with him two decades of cyber security and IT experience, along with a passion for helping others. After years of struggling with the "boss fights" of professional life—specifically job interviews and corporate environments— Luke realised that his challenges were the way he was built and not personal failings. He is passionate about helping neurodiverse professionals reframe their unique traits as strategic advantages, using science-backed methodologies to navigate both life and work.
Session
Why do people spend years of their lives painstakingly recreating the source code of a 20-year-old video game? While the motivation is often nostalgia or speedrunning, the techniques used are the gold standard of modern reverse engineering.
This talk explores the fascinating world of game decompilation to demonstrate a spectrum of reverse engineering techniques—from the "lucky break" to the "meticulous grind." Four games will be detailed:
-Diablo: The impact of accidentally released debug builds.
-Transport Tycoon Deluxe: Leveraging commercial decompilers.
-Sonic Shadow: The magic of static recompilation.
-Zelda: Ocarina of Time: A deep dive into the rigorous process of MIPS clean-room reverse engineering.
Beyond the games, the "legal grey area" of reverse engineering will be covered. These skills can be applied to professional cybersecurity skills. Attendees will learn how these same techniques are applied defensively to harden software and offensively to discover vulnerabilities in closed-source systems.