Disable Inference Stage

[bendrissou]

Hi,

Is there some documentation about the AFL Inference Stage? How can I disable it?

Thank you

[vanhauser-thc]

Please elaborate what exactly you mean, need and what for

[bendrissou]

There is an AFL Inference stage, which I see on the AFL Dashboard. It normally executes in the early stages of fuzzing.

What is the inference stage?

What is purpose of the inference stage, and what does it do?

Can I disable it?

[vanhauser-thc]

Can you please make a screenshot and circle what you mean?
Also if you don’t know what it is, how do you know you don’t want it? :)

[bendrissou]

Hi,

Below is a screenshot of my dashboard, where I am circling the inference stage label. I would like to know the purpose of this stage? And whether it's possible to disable it?

[vanhauser-thc]

it is for the deterministic fuzzing phase. you can skip deterministic fuzzing with -z, but it has shown to improve fuzzing results

[bendrissou]

If I understand correctly, inference is part of the deterministic stage. But what's the purpose of the "inference" step here? Can you elaborate more please? What does AFL trying to infer exactly?

[vanhauser-thc]

How about you read the code? :) it would cost me a lot of time to explain