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11 changes: 9 additions & 2 deletions docs/analysis.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -12,6 +12,14 @@ The following example shall help understanding the thought process when trying
to get behind the meaning of unknown data. Mind that this takes a lot of time.
It often starts with the simple question: What is this?

A first helpful step is to try to identify headers and formats. Binary data
structures often start with markers called signatures, _magic_ bytes or numbers,
commonly four ASCII characters or significant numbers that suggest a meaning.
There are tools such as `file` to recognize them, as well as lists of common
[file signatures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_signatures) and
[magic bytes](https://tool.lu/en_US/magicbytes/). Search engines and communities
are quick to assist with a first effort.

Often enough, other researchers have already performed initial work to build on
top of. In the case of Intel ME generation 3 hardware, there are manifests with
lots of metadata, described through what are called _extensions_ by Positive
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -128,6 +136,5 @@ Which yields:
514:d=0 hl=2 l= 0 prim: EOC
```

Success! Next up, we need to find a suitable library to parse this data. Further
Success! Next up, we need to find a suitable library to parse this data. Further
development is omitted here.