Based on the language and details in that quote, I’d put the odds
heavily toward “trying to sound like an expert” rather than actually being one — though it’s not pure nonsense, and some of the terms are plausibly used in real reverse engineering.
Indicators they might be a doofus emulating expertise
- Overly cinematic phrasing
- “Which means it’s thinking, and I don’t like when software thinks” and “If you don’t hear from me…” read more like showboating for an audience than documenting technical progress.
- Buzzword stacking without context
- “Checksum traps,” “decoy data,” “payload dump,” “jittering response windows,” “metadata manipulation” — all of these are real words in the field, but they’re strung together in a way that could easily be parroted from reading scene releases or forums.
- No concrete, actionable detail
- A genuine update from someone cracking DRM usually includes specific toolchains, offsets, API calls, debugger quirks, or disassembly notes. This person’s “promising run” lacks those.
- Theatrical time estimates
- “Give me a few more weeks” without technical rationale is a storytelling beat, not a progress report.
Indicators they could know what they’re talking about
- The decoy data angle
- Anti-tamper systems do sometimes return plausible-but-wrong values to frustrate attackers. That’s a real tactic, though Denuvo’s exact implementation is proprietary.
- Timing drift/jitter
- Introducing deliberate micro-delays to desync timing analysis is a legitimate protection method. Recognizing that suggests they’ve at least read credible RE discussions.
- Awareness of verification subtleties
- The “keeping the changes subtle enough” line hints they understand that DRM often validates entire structures, not just isolated keys.
My read
If this is someone
actually working on a Denuvo-protected title, their write-up is
massively simplified for a lay audience and padded with theatrical flair — the real technical work would be uglier, dryer, and far more specific. If they’re not legit, they’ve at least absorbed
enough authentic RE vocabulary to fake plausible shop talk.
I’d call it ~75% chance they’re posing, ~25% chance they’re genuine but hamming it up.