Sigma released their SD14 camera a while ago and as I have an SD10, I don’t see a very compelling reason to upgrade. The feeling I got from the camera was that it was underwhelming, the Photo Pro software original released was horrible, and then I started to see an endless release of firmware version after firmware version to correct bugs.

Now, of course many of these issues have been fixed, the Photo Pro software is now based off the excellent 2.x version as opposed to 3.0 (I’ve got some details on the company behind the 3.0 mess), and the firmware releases have seemed to subside. Perhaps they are now getting the bugs worked out of the camera.

The firmware however intrigued me, never before had sigma done this, released so many firmware versions for a camera. Recalling from memory, the SD9 had 1 update and the SD10 didn’t have any. If I have this wrong I’m sure someone will be so kind as to correct me. With all these versions of firmware sitting around out there, I got to thinking, I wonder whats in there.

It dawned on me that even though I have an engineering background, and at least some experience with embedded device programming (an old school project on a PPC 405GP) I really have no idea how to reverse engineer firmware.

You hear about it all the time, these l33t h4×0r$ reverse engineering DVD encryption, great work has been done hacking the low end Canon Powershots, and even phones getting a workover.

How do these people do it? How is the firmware decoded, how do they reverse engineer it? What does the firmware even look like? I decided that since the nice folks at Sigma gave us so many firmware versions, and even an excellent changelog between them, I figure that will a little time and effort, I could probably at least figure out what the firmware looks like, how to decode it, and hopefully how to change it and re-encode it. This would motivate me to buy an SD14!

Why? Because I’m curious. I like to make my own things. I like to understand how something works from the ground up. There are some features I want, and I don’t particularly think that Sigma is going to listen to me much (I tried once - didn’t happen) . I also think there is a good chance that I can actually do a better job.

So, what I’m going to do here is chronicle my adventure in attempting to become some elite firmware hacker. I’ll tell you all I know, and maybe, if anyone is paying attention, someone else might find it interesting.

Matt

Categories: SD14 Firmware Hacking