Fi 🏳️⚧️munin@infosec.exchange
Oct 15, 2026, 5:16 PMso evidently, ~4 MB of nintendo DS decompiliation is worth $56k and has a 1-month lead time.
consultants, adjust your pricing schedule accordingly.
Replies
- Fi 🏳️⚧️munin@infosec.exchangeOct 15, 2026, 5:21 PM
it's worth noting that a cursory search on "decompile ds rom" reveals multiple tutorials and toolkits - many of which predate the claudepocalypse - that could do the job in a weekend or, if you're motivated, a few hours.
llm users never bother checking for prior art and this is a Problem.
- Fi 🏳️⚧️munin@infosec.exchangeOct 15, 2026, 5:21 PM
(but ofc this is because I know what to look for, and I'm hardly starting from scratch here, and I have skills from the Beforetimes on how to find and identify reliable information, which the Kids These Days do not.)
- Fi 🏳️⚧️munin@infosec.exchangeOct 15, 2026, 5:24 PM
it's also worth noting that this incandescent personality has also failed to engage with extant projects that have been working on the same concept: https://github.com/pret/pokeheartgold
- Fi 🏳️⚧️munin@infosec.exchangeOct 15, 2026, 6:23 PM
ah, there is greater scope when I go looking into things.
so the botsuckers are basically killing off communities by having problems understanding the is/does distinction*
which sucks, because this means that expertise is being removed from the human sphere - deskilling at the "humanity" level - and opportunities for people to obtain that skill via human interaction** are thus made unavailable.
- Fi 🏳️⚧️munin@infosec.exchangeOct 15, 2026, 6:26 PM
* the "is/does" distinction is a model I've been contemplating for a while, about whether a concept is seen as an inherent trait of something, or as a quality that relies on intentional engagement with the thing - "this is blue" vs. "this looks blue" as a trivial example.
there's probably something in actual philosophy about this, but I haven't found the name for it yet.
** the botfuckers insist that you can just learn from the llm, but this makes several supply-chain assumptions behind the scenes that tend to be a bit of a Wimp Lo situation when they get applied in reality.
- Fi 🏳️⚧️munin@infosec.exchangeOct 15, 2026, 7:43 PM
Anyway I asked a friend who has binary ninja on hand to do a similar decompile and it took her 30 seconds, so your month-long llm decompile situation is pretty bullshit.
abadidea0xabad1dea@infosec.exchangeOct 16, 2026, 6:19 AM@munin Fi, I don’t like LLM stuff either but hitting the decompile button on a rom and getting thousands of pages of `func127593(*var2973839);` is 0.01% of the work for an actual decompiled pokemon game
Nullstring 🏴☠️0x00string@infosec.exchangeOct 16, 2026, 6:22 AM@0xabad1dea @munin was the llm decompile way better?
- abadidea0xabad1dea@infosec.exchangeOct 16, 2026, 6:30 AM
@0x00string @munin it is certainly more legible, but obviously I haven’t and won’t have the time to go over it with a comb and assess how accurate its variable names, comments etc are.
She mentioned it “cost $56k at API prices.” Which means *she* didn’t actually pay $56k because someone is giving her free or 99% discounted tokens. The problem isn’t even so much the quality of the result, which at a glance looks usable, but the fact that people are rushing to replace human skill with this based on the idea that they, too, can always get more tokens at a 99% discount
- Nullstring 🏴☠️0x00string@infosec.exchangeOct 16, 2026, 6:33 AM
@0xabad1dea @munin word i agree with all of that, but you brought it up to caution someone elses criticism of it, so i asked 🤷♂️
- Fi 🏳️⚧️munin@infosec.exchangeOct 16, 2026, 4:57 PM
Ayup. Which became apparent from all of the githubs collecting decompilation projects with five-year timespans, when I spent a while looking over what people'd been doing with DS games.
I'm fucking furious about the way in which llms are destroying communities, and spent half an hour ranting at my partner last night about that.
Jamie Gaskinsjamie@zomglol.wtfOct 15, 2026, 5:46 PM@munin Every time I hear about stuff like this I wonder who has that much money to spend on side projects.
A little jealous, if I'm being perfectly honest.
Xe :verified:cadey@pony.socialOct 15, 2026, 6:34 PM