# Claude 3.5 Sonnet Can Decompile Firmware, Your Hardware Moat is Gone > A developer's claim that Claude 3.5 Sonnet can reverse-engineer proprietary firmware signals the end of security through obscurity for hardware IP. **Source:** Broke It (https://brokeit.dev/posts/claude-3-5-sonnet-can-decompile-firmware-your-hardware-moat-is-gone/) **Published:** 2026-10-16 **Original source:** https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50260713 **Topics:** intellectual-property, reverse-engineering, ai-agent, security, discussion --- Claude 3.5 Sonnet appears to dramatically lower the barrier to reverse-engineering proprietary firmware. A developer claims to have used the model to decompile complex audio algorithms from hardware, and based on the model's known capabilities, the process is plausible. This effectively nullifies the "moat" for any business relying on security through obscurity for their intellectual property. ## What was the claim? In a recent Hacker News discussion, a developer working with pro-audio hardware described feeding a competitor's firmware to an AI agent powered by Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet. The claim is that the model successfully reverse-engineered award-winning algorithms from brands in the vein of Strymon or Lexicon, converting the logic into a usable C++ library. This wasn't just code analysis; it was a full functional replication. ## What's the implementation detail? The reported process wasn't a magic "decompile" button. The developer guided the AI to first build an emulator for the specific DSP chip. Then, the agent executed the original firmware blob within this emulator, observed the input/output transformations, and translated the underlying logic into clean C++. The real breakthrough here is the speed and cost reduction. A task that once required a specialized team months of painstaking work with a disassembler is now potentially an afternoon's work with an API key. ## Is hardware IP officially dead? The "black box" is dead. If your product's only competitive advantage is a secret algorithm embedded in firmware, that advantage is gone. This commoditizes a niche, high-cost skill. It doesn't mean hardware is pointless, but it means the value has to come from somewhere else: build quality, user experience, brand, or a service ecosystem. Relying on keeping your code secret was always a losing game; AI just massively accelerated the timeline. My verdict: I'd use this. Not for IP theft, but for interoperability and security analysis. For years, I've had to manually untangle undocumented protocols or binary formats to make systems talk to each other. Using an AI agent to build an emulator and translate logic from a blob is a legitimate and powerful technique for that. If your business is built on a secret algorithm, it's time to find a new business model. Software has, once again, eaten hardware. ## FAQ ### Was this really a "one-shot" success? Unlikely. The original post implies it, but this kind of result typically requires iterative prompting and a human expert guiding the AI. The agent does the heavy lifting of code translation, not the initial creative problem-solving. ### What kind of hardware is most vulnerable? Any device where you can get a firmware dump. The post mentioned audio effects processors, but this applies equally to IoT devices, automotive components, and industrial controllers. If it runs code from a readable chip, it's a target. ### Does this make tools like Ghidra or IDA Pro obsolete? No, but it changes their role. They become tools for validating the AI's output or for handling the parts the AI gets wrong. The primary workflow shifts from manual analysis to AI-assisted analysis, with human experts in the verification loop.

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