Re: [PATCH v3 09/12] fuzz/x86_emulate: Make input more compact

[George Dunlap <george.dunlap@citrix.com>]

On 10/10/2017 06:11 PM, Andrew Cooper wrote:
> On 10/10/17 18:01, George Dunlap wrote:
>> On 10/10/2017 05:59 PM, Andrew Cooper wrote:
>>> On 10/10/17 17:20, George Dunlap wrote:
>>>> At the moment, AFL reckons that for any given input, 87% of it is
>>>> completely irrelevant: that is, it can change it as much as it wants
>>>> but have no impact on the result of the test; and yet it can't remove
>>>> it.
>>>>
>>>> This is largely because we interpret the blob handed to us as a large
>>>> struct, including CR values, MSR values, segment registers, and a full
>>>> cpu_user_regs.
>>>>
>>>> Instead, modify our interpretation to have a "set state" stanza at the
>>>> front.  Begin by reading a 16-bit value; if it is lower than a certain
>>>> threshold, set some state according to what byte it is, and repeat.
>>>> Continue until the byte is above a certain threshold.
>>>>
>>>> This allows AFL to compact any given test case much smaller; to the
>>>> point where now it reckons there is not a single byte of the test file
>>>> which becomes irrelevant.  Testing have shown that this option both
>>>> allows AFL to reach coverage much faster, and to have a total coverage
>>>> higher than with the old format.
>>>>
>>>> Make this an option (rather than a unilateral change) to enable
>>>> side-by-side performance comparison of the old and new formats.
>>>>
>>>> Signed-off-by: George Dunlap <george.dunlap@citrix.com>
>>> I am still of the opinion that this is a waste of effort, which would be
>>> better spent actually removing the irrelevant state in the first place;
>>> not building an obfuscation algorithm.
>>>
>>> I'm not going to nack the patch because that is probably over the top,
>>> but I'm not in favour if this change going in.
>> Did you look at the evidence I presented, demonstrating that this
>> significantly increases the effectiveness of AFL?
> 
> I can easily believe that you've found an obfucation algorithm which
> does better than the current state layout.
> 
> I do not believe that any amount of obfuscation will be better than
> actually fixing the root cause of the problem; that the current state
> really is mostly irrelevant, and can easily be shrunk.

Right; well I've already explained why I don't think "obfuscation" is
the right term.  For the time being, we have something which improves
efficiency; let's check it in now, and in the future if you or someone
else finds a way to fix it "properly" we can do that.

 -George

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