HN Hall of Fame Weekly email

Static analysis of an unknown compression format

blog.lse.epita.fr Essays & writing Essays & articles Computer science Candidate

Resurfaced independently across 3 calendar years, with breakout response in 2 of them.

submissions
3
submitters
2
observed span
2012–2019
peak thread · 12 comments
222 pts
latest 20+ return · 2019-10-31
111 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

That's a fairly common compression technique on PS3 titles. Breaking the file into regularly sized chunks about 64kb (for lzma) permits decompression of the file in parallel on the SPUs as the dictionary and decompressed data can fit entirely in local store. Since optical drives have terrible seek times and low bandwidth most assets are stored compressed on disc.

This guy's a genuine detective. Love how he documented every small insight and what it led to.

lbj·111-point thread·

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
2

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
335

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
13

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2012-04-07Static analysis of an unknown compression formatFirst breakout · Best threadkalenz22212
2015-03-15Static analysis of an unknown compression format (2012)luu20
2019-10-31Static analysis of an unknown compression format (2012)Latest 20+ point returnluu1111