Backtraces in the mirror: mad science by secrets of elves & dwarves!! - Julian Squires at !!Con 2024

Backtraces in the Mirror: Stealing the Secrets of Elves and Dwarves to Perform Mad Science!! While writing an unobtrusive memory profiler, I discovered I needed to reconstruct a running program’s stack the wrong way around! I thought this was impossible, and it turns out I was wrong! So join me to learn about how stack unwinding works (and when it doesn’t!), how to use ELF and DWARF information all wrong(!), working with uncertain information (and why!), and the value of doing things that “can’t possibly work”!! Julian Squires is a lifelong programmer and eccentric layabout. He previously spoke at !!Con 2017 about “the Emoji that Killed Chrome” (!!). Presented at !!Con 2024 (pronounced, of course, "bangbangcon"!) in Santa Cruz, CA -- https://bangbangcon.com/ !!Con is a production of the Exclamation Foundation -- https://exclamation.foundation/ Video Production by Confreaks Follow Confreaks 👇 https://confreaks.com https://x.com/confreaks