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Why the World Needs Reverse Engineering 158

Posted by michael from the and-forward-engineering-too dept.
bl968 writes: "Zdnet has an article entitled "Why the world needs reverse engineers." The article covers among many things the Cuecat barcode scanner and some of the reason the hardware or software manufacturers dislike reverse engineering of their products. Privacy violating serial numbers anyone? Security problems and the DMCA are also touched upon."
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Why the World Needs Reverse-Engineering More

Why the World Needs Reverse-Engineering

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  • It's about the only thing that keeps us in control of our environments. If everything is black-boxed, we're at the mercy of faceless corporations and their faceless products.


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • The nature of capatalism (Score:4)

    by Adam Wiggins ( 349 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:05PM (#715983) Homepage
    Reverse engineering allows capitalism to happen in the world of technology, where the "standard" (which is usually defined by whoever comes first) is all-powerful. It's not only just acceptable, it's absolutely necessary if we want the market to move forward.

  • Checks and balances (Score:5)

    by Adam9 ( 93947 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:06PM (#715984) Journal
    Reverse engineering is one of the few things consumers can do that can check the quality, integrity, and for the most part, ethics of a company's product. It can be most compared to the government's checks and balances system, except where the real power lies wit hthe consumer in this situation. Almost seems like the exploits that are released for security holes, it might seem evil, but it's needed to keep the corporations on their toes.
  • Has anyone thought of the idea that reverse engineering might actuallly help the product even become more so of a standard. If to anyone, this would be beneficial to the company. It helps by increasing the capital value of the product. It stupidity that they don't realize this. Luke

  • Blizzard (Score:5)

    by Goldberg's Pants ( 139800 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:09PM (#715986) Journal
    I seem to recall going back when Starcraft came out that someone reverse engineered it to write, I believe, a Battlenet server type program. Blizzard sent the guy a cease and desist order and said reverse engineering was illegaly, usual legal spiel. He stood up to them and said no and they threatened legal action but he stood his ground and they backed down.

    A collective community dedicated to reverse engineering, say, the Cuecat would stand a much better chance of fighting the stupidity of the designers claims than if the developers stay in disparate camps. One collective force will put up more of a fight then a bunch of little camps. I think that is probably the only way that reverse engineerings laws will be changed, and even then it is going to take a LONG time.

    ---

  • in a world of nearly free dissemination of ideas, the black box is the only way the media companies can keep control of their data. just look at the sdmi's 'watermarks.'

  • Reverse Engineering (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's somewhat hard to imagine why we -wouldn't- need reverse engineering, what with a world of privacy concerns and obscure (and sometimes rather obvious) bugs in commonly used software today. Believe it or not, some companies aren't actually as quick to repair bugs in their software as others are to report them ;> The reverse engineer, in this case, takes it upon themselves to understand and dissect the finished product, dividing it into its component parts until finding the flaw which the designers themselves are reluctant to fix; then code a quick hack to exploit the bug, and hand it out to the blindly gcc'ing script kiddies..once a high-level security flaw is made simple for the kiddiots, designers pick up the pace a little :P What we really owe to reverse engineers is gratitude for explosing the inner workings of that which most of us know little about.

  • Reverse engineering can help an industry (Score:4)

    by magic ( 19621 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:14PM (#715989) Homepage
    id, the makers of Quake & Doom have consistently supported the reverse-engineering community that has grown up around their products. Within days of the release of Quake III, independent developers were posting their own level editors because they had successfully reverse engineered the binary format of id's files.

    Not only does id not take action against these folks, they support them with code releases from the product and ongoing .plan files describing upcoming tweaks and the algorithms used in the games. Write to the id developers and they are likely to write back, answering questions about the game and encouraging you to write your own tools for it.

    These independent tools are what have allowed the game modification (mods) communities to grow around their games and have led to id's real cash cow: licensing game engines. Other game makers license id's engine in part because there are so many tools available for it. In a recent Gamasutra [gamasutra.com] article, the lead programmer for Soldier of Fortune, a new 3D game, talked about why his company chose to license the Quake engine: because the tools created by independent developers for level editing and cut scene creation were so good.

    -m

  • Maybe CueCat will use that wonderful "Oh we knew it was there but we told the engineers to turn it off but they forgot to" excuse like Intel did...



  • ...ESR's example of alchemists - admittedly, that was an argument for open source, but it applies about reverse engineering...

    Alchemists hid all their secrets from their peers - as they wanted no-one to have any kind of advantage over their own work... in the end, as they were all working for the same knowledge, they would've been further ahead if they had all shared in the first place...

    None of them managed to make gold anyway - as far as I know, that is. ;)
  • Man it's a scary world we live in when consumers can't tweak products that they own to make them work better. Can you imagine where technology would be today under this premise? How many decades of progress would we miss?

    I bet that PC makers would love it though. We'd get a big 2-inch thick steel-cased box and would have to throw it in the trash every two years to upgrade it...

  • Reverse engineering: bane or boon? (Score:5)

    by Kreeblah ( 95092 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:17PM (#715993)
    The benefits of reverse engineering apply not only to the consumer world, but also to the coporate world. Consumers get detailed info on the innards of a particular piece of hardware or software, and companies scream bloody murder. What they are ignoring, however, is the opportunity to improve their products. The reverse engineering people are a perfect target market. Companies can give (or sell) initial versions of their products to reverse engineers, in the HOPES that a security flaw or bug will be uncovered. They can reduce their PR problems by fixing the major (and, hopefully, minor) bugs and security holes in their products BEFORE THEY BECOME A MAJOR ISSUE. This benefits companies in another way, as well: a decrease in their quality assurance budgets. By turning over their products to a few people to play with, they don't have to spend hundreds (or, in some cases, dozens) of man-hours testing a product for bugs. You can be sure that reverse engineers will either be pushing the product to the limit, or going over every square inch of it to try to figure out how it works. This brings me to a third point. Companies can use reverse engineers as a test market for new tech toys. Wouldn't it have been nice if Digital Convergence had decided to let people use their devices for USEFUL purposes? They could have found out any number of applications for them by simply giving them out to people who would have some idea of the implications of such devices.

  • Schools teach reverse engineering (Score:4)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:18PM (#715994) Homepage
    We had to disect flatworms and frogs to see how they worked.

    In programming classes, we are given parts of programs to understand what they are doing. When we get an exam in these classes, we have to reverse engineer the program in the question to know what it does. Remember, having to take apart a car engine and put it back together in autoshop?

  • IBM could have "encrypted" their BIOS (double ROT13 anyone :-) and we'd all be using either $3000 486s, Macs, or some random brand of computer, each one of which would be massively expensive and require its own OS and software...

    You could only watch television on an "approved" set, simply receiving a signal would be considered dangerous "piracy" and against the law. Oh, wait, it already is that way with satellite transmissions...

    Taking apart your digital clock to scavenge the LCD for another proejct would be illegal as the circuit paths to activate the crystals are a content protection device.

    Prescriptions drugs would be insanely expensive, as it would be illegal to reverse engineer a competitior's formula after the patent runs out (okay, so it's not digital, but if we're talking about reverse engineering in general).

    Nobody would have ever heard of a little company called Microsoft. If not for the popularity of of clone PCs Windows probably would have never caught on.

    The Internet? Forget it.
  • I know I am preaching to the choir here, but its not reverse engineers that create problems. Most software vendors, when confronted with a very big problem in software, will deny it completely -- even to the point of leaving their customers vulnerable.

    I like how Weld put it:
    "The only way the public finds out about most privacy or security problems is from the free public disclosures of individuals and organizations. "

    The release of vulnerabilities will not cause more computer crime, but rather, it would prompt the software designers to fix and make the software MORE secure. That, and it may alert customers to software designers who might be thinking with profit in mind (in contrast to their customers security)

    If anyone wants to read more about Weld Pond check out http://www.l0pht.com/~weld/index.html.

  • I've posted it before, I'll post it again. (Score:5)

    by AFCArchvile ( 221494 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:22PM (#715997)
    "Joe Sixpack and Vinny Bagadonuts [don't] care about [the] DMCA, freedom or anything like that. As long as the football game will be broadcast on time they're happy."

    Well, it's time to MAKE them care, by making them aware of the impact that the DMCA will have on their lives. It might turn out that Joe Sixpack downloads his favorite Elvis Costello tunes from Napster because his LP's are scratched beyond recognition. And what if he wanted to get DVD soon, but didn't want to worry about the MPAA charging him a flat rate to play the movie? Then he should start caring about how the DMCA will affect his life.

    One of the major reasons why I hate the DMCA is because of how it became law: a joint venture between the MPAA, RIAA, and the government. In no way was this act approved by the US citizens. The very fact that the DMCA will become law soon flies in the face of this passage of the Declaration of Independence:

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

    From the consent of governed. Now, did we give any consent to have the DMCA passed into law? NO. Were any referendums held to study public opinion on this issue? NO.

    The DMCA IS destructive of the ends established in the Declaration, and it is our right to abolish the DMCA. It is not only our right, but now it is our responsibility to eliminate the DMCA. The DMCA will affect our happiness in the future; we will become drones, being forced by the MPAA to shell out X amount of dollars to watch a pre-recorded movie for Y amount of time. Even worse, the RIAA might soon mandate that we pay for FM radio by the minute. I fear that this idea (or a similar incarnation) isn't far off.

    Do I sound a little like Henry David Thoreau? Good! It's nice to know that I'm one of the only remaining Transcendentalists in the US.

  • Shrink wrapped car (Score:4)

    by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxrubyNO@SPAMcomcast.net> on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:22PM (#715998)
    I'm waiting for the day that cars are delivered shrink-wrapped. After all, a car has a computer, chips and software. Why not wrap the whole thing up, and make the user agree to whatever draconian terms you like?

    Think about, they could rapid oil change places, repair shops, chiltons, haynes, and body shops all out of business within a few years. The real fun would begin when people would realize that they no longer have the right of first sale. That's right, that brand new car you just bought can't be given away, but your allowed to trade it in for a $1,500 discount. Ala AT&T, gas stations would have to pay money to auto manufactures for a /right/ to sell gas for their cars. And the thing that they would love the most, popping the hood of your car could void your warranty. After-all, no one other than the dealer needs to look inside there, right?

  • No kidding. The main reason that Doom was so popular is because of all the additional levels and add-ons. id was actually considering protecting their file format better, but decided to leave it easily hackable. Turns out it was a pretty good decision...
  • I bet ZDNet wouldn't have ran it if they had been giving out CueCats.

    It's still nice to see a mainstream computer site getting the issues around reverse engineering right. Most of the time they seem to accuse hackers of breaking protections, and reverse engineering for piracy. Here they were highlighting the good points. Privacy, security and interoprability are all good reasons that reverse engineering should be important to us all.

    If I buy something I want to own it not lisence it. If I take it apart to see how it works that is my right.
  • Is it just me, or are all those italicized, bolded words in the the posting, blurry to anyone else?

    Or are my retinas starting to detach?

  • The article makes good mention of the link between security and openness. I have to say, I haven't always been a big fan of announcing security holes in software. I was a student at CMU at the time SATAN was released several years back. At the time, I and several others wondered what the heck the folks at CERT (some of whom I knew) were doing. In retrospect, of course, it was one of the most constructive tools ever created for increasing system security. So when CERT announced they were no longer going to arbitrarily delay their announcements of new security holes, I cheered.

    Which is all to say that the more tools there are for opening up software and exposing those security holes, the better it will be for everyone. Goodness knows that full discovery and disclosure can make software vendors jump higher and faster than they ever would normally. Remember the big read-anyone's-Hotmail fiasco last year? Man that made the rounds fast - and so did the fix, within a day. How many Microsoft problems can you say that about?

    So here's to reverse engineering - DMCA be damned. Keep on peeking and poking.

  • If I understand correctly, with the exception of texture maps, sounds, and other formats that just can't be helped, id Software is changing the formats of its next Doom game to straight ASCII text-based formats, which is a Good Thing for guys who like to tinker with their games.
  • I wonder when the following will come to pass? Someone chemically analizes a food product (say a Post Cereal), and starts to report his findings in public.

    Among the findings, are results that opoint to the fact that Post lied on the RDA label, and in fact if you dig depper are including small amounts of addictive chemicals designed to make you crave more of their foods.

    enter the DMCA, before this information could be readily studied, Post Cereal Inc. issued a cease and desist letter based on the fact that this information is protected by a weak cryptography (the glue holding the box shut).

    See how insane this is? This is what corporations want, a way into your lives to monitor and control what you do, see, buy, think, and say. Unfortunately things like the DMCA make it even easier.

  • Say, invalidation of the underlying IP and reimbursement of the wronged party's legal costs, lost time, etc. Tarring and feathering might be a bit much. Make it optional, with a special jury determination on the question.
  • That doesn't make sense from any perspective that I can think of.
    People can play on their own servers (which they like). It becomes an added feature to the game. More features == better game == more money for blizzard. Since someone else is running the server, Blizzard doesn't have to expend it's own resources (and anyone who bought any blizzard game right after release knows about this).
    You have to give them a little credit though. Diablo must have created a deep seated fear of reverse engineering, because of all the cheating. It seems to me that, except for your story, Blizzard has only really been against reverse engineering for the sake of cheating.
  • Dont the current reverse engineering laws allow you to reverse engineer a product so that you can make/write one that is compatable? (I am probably Waaaaaay off here)

    I do not approve of a world where a company has the ability to dictate what it is that you can and can not do with a product. By this I especially refer to the MPAA vs DeCSS saga. I worry most about corporations being able to have such a strangle hold on things that if you live in the wrong market demographic no device/film/content/xyz for you.

    This is why i like OSS so much, there is no reason why another program can not read/edit another programs File Format (both OSS). There is the security aspect with OSS, in that regardless of what happens in the future there is (or will probably) be some means of seeing the actual source and fixing the problem.

    The "Movieland" chain of video stores in Adelaide, Australia - where i live now also have a clause in there agreement when you get a card to use them, that says that they have the right to sell your information -to anyone. Is it just me or do most of these knee-jerk recation laws benefit anyone bar Corporations? What rights does a consumer have? How can we get these? Is there any thing we can do?

    Also i ask as a question which is more illegal: If a company A, releases a device D (like the CueCat), and A says that they are not collecting information, that the device D has no way of identifying someone &tc, if a person P, reverse engineers D, does only P get into trouble, is there no accountablility for A, which lied to the public?


    How every version of MICROS~1 Windows(TM) comes to exist.

  • Altair / IBM PC / Mac (Score:3)

    by Overnight Delivery ( 239468 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:35PM (#716008)
    It's interesting to look at how reverse engineering affected these products.

    When the Altair originally succeeded companies such as Proc Tech reverse engineered the bus and made add on boards. MITS called these companies "parasites" but ther were actually adding value to the product and helped it succeed.

    When the IBM PC came out it was pretty much open apart from the BIOS. Even before Compaq reversed engineered it there were heaps of 3rd party add-ons that make the product more attractive to buyers.

    Contrast that to the Mac which was closed in every regard, you had virtually one source for add-on's, Apple. The Mac was at a severe disadvantage even before the PC Clone market go going because there were so many people creating extra value for PC's.

    Companies hate reverse engineering because they have delusiuons of grandure. They believe that they will be able to predict every possible use for their product AND be able to supply the demand for those products.

    The long term fortunes of businesses that take the "reverse-engineering-bad" mentality follows a pretty similar path.

  • Thoreau? From Weld Pond to Walden Pond... heh. :)
  • It was nice to see this article. At least it's trying to get the word out instead of just preaching to the choir.

    There are number of people who just do not understand everything that we do. These common folk would just say that what we're doing is piracy and stealing.

    The easiest way to explain the situation to them is to have them imagine that the hood of their car was welded shut and the bottom was completely covered. Would they be pirates for trying to change their oil? Or see what was causing the blue smoke? No! And people would never allow this to happen.

    This is why they need to be told. We can bitch amongst ourselves all we want, but if the people who don't program don't understand the problem then it will never be solved. Legislation isn't moved by experts. It's moved by a lot of the little guys getting indignant.

    So... Anyone up up for another viral hoax like the "pay per email thing"???

  • Yes, it is necessary for reverese engineering so our society can move forward, but I doubt this is our true motive. Most people today are ignorant and don't care where the world is going to end up in the future. If progressing was the true motive we wouldn't see things like the infamous copyright and patent systems that plague us today. Most people would rather better their own lives than generally make the world a better place. To these people I initiate the traditional 1 finger salute. Here's to you!

  • The Learning Patern of being a child. (Score:3)

    by gavinhall ( 33 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @05:40PM (#716012)
    Posted by DRAGONWEEZEL@HOTMAIL:

    Reverse engineering is instinct in most children. Remember when you were two and all you ever did was ask WHY? Once you knew what why meant, You asked it till you were blue in the face. REMEMBER?? I KNOW YOU DO!! I personally remember reverse engineering some kewl toys I had. I.E. remote/radio controled vehicles, my bicycle, fire, the toilet, and a feeble atempt to recreate the cooking of popcorn (when I was three). my point here is not only is reverse engineering something that may help our society, it is instinctive to human nature to do so. dw Fire is red,violets are blue I am a schitzophranic, so am I.
  • Suppose all reverse engineering were outlawed.

    This means that unless an individual already works for a company, the only things he can learn about are the things that have been voluntarily released to the public. Companies rarely, if ever, release detailed information about their technologies, even if those technologies are obsolete, because new spins on those old techniques may give the company a competitive edge.

    So where does this leave the individual? The only thing left for him to learn is old and outdated. And over time, the material available for him to learn will get older and older.

    Which can only mean that the pace of innovation will slow to a crawl, because most innovation stands on top of prior innovation.

    This may be the strongest overall argument in favor of reverse engineering and public disclosure of the results.


    --
  • this was not flame. it is true. Reverse engineering is a fact of life. There is no way to get around it. Most programs for Linux are created from reverse engineering, almost all IBM compatibles were reverse engineered...

    - Bill
  • When Big Companies do it it is easier for them to get away with it. Why they have lawyers and a staff to back them up.
    When individuals they get sued and have very few choices of action to take. The irony of it all.
  • If Compaq hadn't reverse engineered the PC, we'd all still be using $4000 IBMs, which might not be faster than a 386. The ability and right to reverse engineer is absolutely necessary. Without it, the economy would *really* be dominated by stone-age monopolies, and there would be no innovation. Proprietary locks are nothing but economic logjams. They prevent people with even better ideas from taking things to the next level, and continuing to create and add value.
  • Also i ask as a question which is more illegal: If a company A, releases a device D (like the CueCat), and A says that they are not collecting information, that the device D has no way of identifying someone &tc, if a person P, reverse engineers D, does only P get into trouble, is there no accountablility for A, which lied to the public?

    This has been an issue for a long time in the United States. The laws basically say that if something is investigated illegally, it can't be used in court and therefore in your semi-hypothetical situation the company does not get in trouble. This is actually intended to protect the citizens from the government, but in this situation you no longer have the citizens being protected. Obviously, something needs to be reevaluated.

    It is clear that half the regulation either hasn't caught up with the digital age and the other half has been subverted by the companies taking advantage of us. Does anyone know of plans to challenge the DMCA in court? I know a number of organizations that are probably doing this but haven't seen an organized effort (mostly due to my own ignorance).
  • We need reverse engineering because...it's the only thing that keeps us in control of our environments.

    The world needs dynamite too; but that doesn't mean it ought to be available to just anyone on a whim as some so-called "right".

    Any activity, no matter how useful, must be tightly controlled if it has the potential to cause great harm to others. Thousands of employees paychecks and hundreds of thousands of shareholders may well depend on some trade secret or copyrighted function. I'm sorry, but you have no "right" to steal that from them in the name of OSS or whatever golden idol you worship.

    Like other engineering disciplinies, reverse engineering (and also programmers developping for life critical components) needs to be licensed by a regulatory body after the applicant applies for and passes a rigorous test. Once he passes he is granted the privelege of practicing reverse engineering under a code of ethics that among other things requires him not to disclose proprietary or trade secrets that may result in harm to others. Violators will have their licenses revoked with stiff fines for illegal practice. In secirity testing, vulnerabilities need to be address and corrected before being revealed to the general public. Issues of interoperability are issues for the people trying to make their components work with one another's and is no one elses business.

    Reverse engineering should not be not a right, but a privelege instead.

  • It's about the only thing that keeps us in control of our environments. If everything is black-boxed, we're at the mercy of faceless corporations and their faceless products.

    Don't forget the faceless criminals that could use this technology against us by finding some simple exploits, they decide to steal our credit card numbers from an e-commerce site...

    If it wasn't for people that spread this information through things like bugtraq, we'd be fucked. We have to keep the companies that make products in check. You don't go out and buy a car and aren't allowed to look under the hood or fix your own car.

    Unfortunately, laws like the DMCA were made without looking at similar situations in the regular world. There are a few things unique to the internet that can't be explained, but reverse engineering is not one of them. It will be the downfall of our economy that these companies are relying on legal means to ensure they make money, rather than actually making a decent product.

    Another point, is that in the world of computers, accessories (left vague intentionally) is a big market as well. Those iOpeners are a great example. Some people did minor modifications, which would be considered reverse engineering by legal means I believe. This cheap little device's sales went up tremendously due to this little hack. Unfortunately for the company, they had a stupid way of trying to sell them and didn't make any money off of them. However, if they were to sell these things and offer an additional kit that contains the hard drive and is supported and such, they would have made a fortune probably. It's restrictions that make a lack of selection for consumers, and all the regulations against the consumers will only serve to the marketplace.

    OFF TOPIC PART: I was just recently a moderator, and I was hoping there would be another H1-B type article like I love to argue with the Xenophobes about. Unfortunately one hasn't come out yet, and I didn't get to use any of my 5 points to further my personal goals and I moderated fairly. Where is the fun is that?

  • World? (Score:1)

    by nutty ( 70104 )

    "Why the World Needs Reverse-Engineering"

    The World has Reverse Engineering, you seem to have confused "USA", the wonderful birthplace of such great things as the DMCA, with the term "WORLD", refering to the rest of the world, where we can do such things as use the international encryption libraries for Canadian OpenBSD project.

    *snicker* *snicker* *hmpf*
    /nutt

  • Re:Reverse- Engineering. (Score:3)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @06:02PM (#716021) Journal
    Clearly. It's the "proprietary at all costs" vendors who don't see this, because their VCs believe that controlling some proprietary standard will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. The actual experience of real users doesn't reflect this (after all, even Micros~1 wouldn't exist without its developers) but somehow the PHBs and PHLs (pointy headed lawyers) fail to understand it.

    But in the interest of consumer protection, and in the absence of rational corporate behavior, we really do need a Reverse Engineering Protection Act. Bad engineering and the like cause much more harm (privacy loss, for one thing) than reverse engineering ever has. Who'll support this??

  • I will probably get flamed for saying this, but I fail to see how reverse engineering a company's product will "increasing the capital value of the product"
    Digital Convergance gives away their hardware on the premise that the user will use the product in the manner it was intended. Their only profit comes from selling targeted ad data.
    By reverse engineering the :CueCat you are effectively robbing DC of their only source of revenue. How does this help the company?
  • Click here [bnetd.org] for the details. Was it this?

  • While Blizzard may have backed down on this confrontation for the sake of fan relations, it's just as likely their lawyers backed down because of the general unenforceability of shrink-wrap licenses in the consumer retail context. (I don't know, as I don't know about the controversy other than what you've written.) Under Article 2 of the UCC as enacted in most American jurisdictions, shrink-wrap licenses are simply not sufficient to change the terms of a transaction already performed at the cash register in the store.

    If someone reverse engineered the battle.net protocol simply from what's on the retail copy of Starcraft, then Blizzard didn't have anything except the expense of lawyering on their side of the legal argument. They didn't have law on their side.

    All this would have been different now, in the year 2000, with the DMCA in effect, of course. And it will be different in UCITA jurisdictions, removing the law of sales obstacle to "license" enforcement against retail consumers of software. The UCITA just went into effect October First in Maryland, the first state, so look for interesting developments.

    Note, though, that the enforceability of downloaded software licenses is a different matter, becuase there the downloader typically has to click through a license agreement, getting full prior notice, before the transaction is completed. Or if there is no sales transaction, but it's instead "just" a patch to the battle.net protocol which is being reverse engineered, then the issue of enforceability would also probably be very different too, not just because of the click-through license, but becuase there would then be no annoying contract formation analysis under the law of sales to prevent enforcement.

    Again, though, results would be different under either the DMCA or UCITA.

    Ed

  • Now, everyone is able to see exactly how it works! All of your hard work, and it is suddenly ripped away from you as clones pop up everywhere!

    The original intent of patent law was to promote innovation by rewarding innovators. As with many other things however, it is now taken advantage of by non-innovating profit seekers.

    I completely agree with the idea that something I create should be protected if I want it to be. I worked hard at it and deserve a reward. I don't think though, that it should be completely closed. Anyone who wants to should be able to look around and see what I did and how I did it. As long as the law says that they can't sell a clone of it. I don't really mind if they get inspiration for their own innovation though. We all stand on the shoulders of giants (paraphrase of Newton). This is the way progress works. The time limit on a patent is a very good idea. I'm not sure exactly how long it is though. Should be shorter probably, now that everything moves so quickly on the internet.
  • After all, anything you do on the engine, might result in harm to the environment, so only "authorized personnel" should be able to work on your engine, with an additional requirement of scheduled periodic maintenance at a state approved facility as a condition of maintainig your license plate.

    Don't laugh. It is already forbidden for CA residents to tinker with their newer lawn mower engines. Access is protected by a seal that is illegal for all but authorized service personnel to remove! Don't think CA legislators aren't already at looking to do the same with cars down the line!

  • Very true! If Compaq wasn't able to reverse engineer the IBM BIOS we would all be screwed as far as PC's go. But on the bright side there would be no Micro$oft;-)

  • Are you think as I stoned I am?

  • Patent law does exactly what 'b0rxus' does-- when you file a patent, you release all of the details of your system to the public, and your plans become a publicly available government document, accessible by anyone.

    The trade-off is that the government gives you a 17-year monopoly on the use of this patent, enforceable by law.

    On the other hand, if your system is an unpatented trade secret, then reverse engineering is free game-- if you didn't protect your "trade secret" well enough, then you deserve to lose it.

    -Dean
  • Hey, I'm a good bit older than 2, and my favorite question is still "Why?"
  • Beta tetsters do this for many products already, we just don't hear as much about it. (Think NDA, et. al.)

  • I don't like the somewhat random usage of the bold tag in this article

  • I'm a Reverse Engineer (Score:5)

    by goingware ( 85213 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @06:23PM (#716034) Homepage
    I also posted this in the discussion at ZDNet, although it hasn't been posted by the moderators yet as I write this.

    I'm a reverse engineer. The very first contract job I did when I started my new consulting business [goingware.com] was to reverse engineer the file format for a project management database used by the motion picture industry.

    My client, Graphical Planet, wanted to make a product that would interoperate with Movie Magic Scheduling [moviemagicproducer.com]. Only the Movie Magic publishers wouldn't tell them how, and in fact were quite unfriendly towards them.

    We initially agreed that I would complete the reverse engineering in a week and be paid $1500.

    It actually took me three weeks, and was some of the most difficult work I have done as a programmer - while it was interesting, it was mentally painful, like cracking an enemy code. Perhaps what made it worse was that I desperately needed the money and only would get paid if I succeeded.

    In the end I was able to write up a detailed file format specification document, and I also wrote a C program that would dump the contents of a MM project file into a human-readable text file. I successfully tested it by dumping out the full project file from an actual full-length motion picture.

    How did I do it? I created lots of little sample files, for example, my first document I added only the letter "A" in one field, then made a second, where I changed that to the letter "B". I made hex dumps of the files and then compared the hex dumps. A lot of the work went into trying to find the best kind of files to make for my testing.

    I want to point out that, until the DMCA reverse engineering was always perfectly legal in the US, and in fact state trade secret protection laws specifically grant reverse engineering an exemption from trade secret protections.

    Even now, most things are still legal to reverse engineer, and I think it is likely that the DMCA will be found unconstitutional - or some applications of it will be, for example the Content Scrambling System is clearly a violation of well-established antitrust laws.

    One of the reasons that reverse engineering is legally protected, I understand, is that it is not the public's objective that novel inventions be kept secret.

    What the government would prefer a company do if it wants to have a monopoly over an invention is to apply for a patent, because part of the patent application is a full disclosure of the invention (sufficiently detailed that some one expert in the art could reproduce it), and then the monopoly is granted for a limited time.

    Twenty years may seem like forever in high-tech, but keep in mind that the monopoly does eventually come to an end. This is why we have generic drugs, for example, and also not that the patent on RSA public key cryptography, the basis of PGP encryption and the SSL or secure socket layer, used for https secure web pages, expired in September of this year.

  • I hate to play the devil's advocate, but can't anybody out there see why these companies don't want their products reverse engineered? In the grand scheme of things, it's only ever about money. If someone else knows how their product works, and compete with them (or deny them revenue streams as in the case of CueCat), these companies lose money. I agree, however, that reverse engineering is important and is in the end benefical to the consumer. But that does not mean that we have to attack companies that are trying to defend their business interests. Remember, the bottom line here is that all companies are in the business of making money, not in providing perfect service to consumers, as much as we want them to. Anyways, I just thought I'd present my point of view, and will probably be labled flamebait.. oh well, doesn't life just suck.
  • Think about that. There are now black boxes, whether in hardware or software, that are illegal to peek inside. You can pay for it and use it, but you are not allowed to open up the hood. You cannot look to see if the box violates your privacy or has a security vulnerability that puts you at risk.

    This sums up the article. Fsck the MPAA. Fsck DC, and while I'm at it, fsck anyone who dares to take away our rights to reverse engineering.

  • Now IANAL, but I suspect that *ue*at just didn't invoke the DMCA properly, or did so poorly:

    Sec 1201 (i) Protection of Personally Identifying Information. -

    (1) Circumvention permitted. - Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), it is not a violation of that subsection for a person to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title, if -

    (A) the technological measure, or the work it protects, contains the capability of collecting or disseminating personally identifying information reflecting the online activities of a natural person who seeks to gain access to the work protected;

    (B) in the normal course of its operation, the technological measure, or the work it protects, collects or disseminates personally identifying information about the person who seeks to gain access to the work protected, without providing conspicuous notice of such collection or dissemination to such person, and without providing such person with the capability to prevent or restrict such collection or issemination;

    (C) the act of circumvention has the sole effect of identifying and disabling the capability described in subparagraph (A), and has no other effect on the ability of any person to gain access to any work; and

    (D) the act of circumvention is carried out solely for the purpose of preventing the collection or dissemination of personally identifying information about a natural person who seeks to gain access to the work protected, and is not in violation of any other law.

    (i)(1)(B) Likely is a killer -- too many "ands" in there, and a EULA might be considered "conspicuous" even if no one reads it. But conspicuous sounds like a nice word that lawyers can around play with.

    Note that this *only* means that one *single* company just hasn't used the DMCA properly -- yet. One minor change to their software, and the lawsuit floodgates can open against their new(er) users. Don't expect anyone else to make this mistake.

    I just wish the DMCA let people other than just the Librarian of Congress decide what "classes of works" didn't fall under it. To me, DVDs from other regions fall under the area of items were are "severerly restricted" from using -- I prefer European and Asian content over most American works.

  • Yeah well ID also makes games that are easily expandable i dont think something like dissasembling microsoft word would help you to extend it to well.

  • Wow.. you learn a little something every day.

    I initially thought Cue Cat was some sort of fancy vibrator. Amazing the things you can learn reading /.

    I imagine it could still be hacked to scan for signs of cervical cancer and take you to the AMA website if any abnormalities popped up.
  • Well, technically you don't have to buy DVDs, watch TV, listen to the radio, etc. I don't own a TV and I can't say I miss it.

    The real question is..when do we decide that it's no longer possible to effect change in government from the inside? The very same Declaration of Independence tells us that we can take what firearms we still have and start ventilating jack booted thugs left and right if that's the case. Will it ever get that desperate, or can we still turn back?

    Me, I'm voting for Harry Browne. But I've also got a rifle and lots of hollow point ammo. Whatever. For now I'm just a pissed off engineering student.
  • This idea appealed greatly to me at first, but after some consideration, I conclude that it's not practical. How do you possibly enforce this regulation?

    Reverse engineering needs to not have a regulated body of people allowed to do it, but a set of regulations on how it can be used. Reverse engineering for the purpose of cloning or stealing somebody else's ideas to use them in your own product should obviously be illegal. People who work at software companies depend on sales. It's how they support themselves.

    I think that reverse engineering for the purpose of testing the security of a system you're planning on implementing in a situation where you need security is totally reasonable. If you need to make your own program work with another one, why not? You're not hurting anybody. If you are, you're moving away from trying to achieve interoperability and towards the zone of stealing ideas for your own product.

    Like anything else, it is a right we deserve until it infringes upon other people's rights.
  • The DMCA IS destructive of the ends established in the Declaration, and it is our right to abolish the DMCA. It is not only our right, but now it is our responsibility to eliminate the DMCA. The DMCA will affect our happiness in the future; we will become drones, being forced by the MPAA to shell out X amount of dollars to watch a pre-recorded movie for Y amount of time. Even worse, the RIAA might soon mandate that we pay for FM radio by the minute. I fear that this idea (or a similar incarnation) isn't far off.

    What, are they going to put a fucking gun to your head? Pull your head out of your ass. If you don't want to "shell out X amount of dollars" to see a movie then for the love of god don't. Show those money-grubbing bastards by not giving them any of your money. If a movie is soo good you can't go without seeing it, then it's probably worth whatever X amount of dollars they're charging. If you don't want to pay X amount of dollars to see something then chances are it's not very good and you're not missing anything. I don't see why everyone is so damned upset about the DMCA -- if ya don't like it just don't buy anything sold by the RIAA, MPAA, or any other group. Watch indy films, find unsigned artist to listen to on mp3.com. If they start charging to listen to FM stations by the minute or whatever then don't listen to FM radio stations -- listen to cd's of artists you've found on mp3.com .. listen to internet radio stations.. whatever... ... whatever... get a live.. move on... the world isn't going to end.
  • Companies can give (or sell) initial versions of their products to reverse engineers, in the HOPES that a security flaw or bug will be uncovered.

    Your suggestion seems akin to the Hack SDMI challenge [hacksdmi.com] which was vehemontly opposed by the Slashdot community. Sell stuff to reverse enginners so they can hack it up? That's even worse than HackSDMI, at least they offered some money to the hackers, or whatever.
    I know that HackSDMI was hated more for what it represents: the music industry trying to control how we can listen to our music, but there was still the issue of abusing the hacker community.

    I strongly support reverse engineering, but it seems to me like you'd like to see reverse engineers exploited in the same way. Part of the concept of reverse enginnering is that those who do it work on their own for themselves, and if they feel like it, for the general good. A company could hire a bunch of resident reverse engineers and do whatever the hell they want inside the company, but once you try to exploit the community by trying to improve your product for free, then you've undermined the hacker mentality as well as the concept of open source, since your product is not open source.

    On a semi-related note, maybe the final solution to all this copyright nonsense and the continuing limitation of constitutional as well as reasonable rights is to just abandon copyright all together and we can all be communists. All knowledge belongs to everyone, the government can fund software development... =D I'm getting flamed for this one.... oh well
  • i think i asked why untill i was about 8 at which point i just began figuring it out on my own, works a lot better when your parents know absolutely nothing about anything.
  • Those companies/people who are seeking to ban reverse engineering are looking for self-destruction. If reverse engineering is banned, they can't reverse engineered their competitors products too. Are they too stupid to see that? Or are they having the illusion that their product will always stay the best and all the innovations are coming from them? Wouldn't new startups with innovative products benefit then? Or the large corporations are already lobbying for laws or coming up with means (think m$) that would squash small startups with innovative products into oblivion?
  • Emerson just talked about the transcendental philosophy. Thoreau actually acted upon those ideals.
  • I really liked the definition:
    ...it is about analysis: taking things apart, potentially breaking them, to find out how they work...

    It suddenly occurred to me that most of physics is based on reverse-engineering the universe. Everything from the experimental method to atom-smashers.

    Where would we be if the creator of that universe had issued a decree that dis-allowed reverse engineering?

  • I honestly can't remember. I think the site was called Starhack. You're asking me to remember a LONG way back:) He had the guts to stand up and they caved. The thing is, for every person that stands up and says "screw you" to the corporations, there's 5 who'll back down. This just goes back to my original post. A collective unit stands a better chance of winning a battle than single units. Whatever the hell the site was that had hassle from Blizzard, I remember being very impressed with the guy for standing up to them.

    ---

  • It's a shame that so much effort has to be wasted reverse engineering file formats. Sheesh. What kind of file format is so clever that it has to be kept secret?

    While thinking about this, it occured to me that these kind of problems would be reduced if everyone used Open Standards. Why waste all the effort? We already have Standards Bodies (ISO, ANSI, others?). Why not use them? IMHO, anything worth doing is worth thinking through and worth creating a standard for.

    In fact, this could be a good way to introduce the idea of Open Source Software. Suppose we convince people/companies to start using Open Standards for everything. Even if companies continue to write closed-source software to use these standards, eventually they will realize that they are all duplicating effort by doing so - and might move towards open source.

    I realize that companies tend to compete with one another, and that makes the preceding situation unrealistic. To them, it would be like helping competitors. But, so what? That's good. It would mean companies can't sit on their closed standards/closed software. They'd have to continually improve. As a consumer, I'd like to see that.

  • That kind of product will open an opportunity for a competitor whose products are not as well protected. It's the same as one of the arguments for open source software: it isn't practical for most users to reverse engineer closed-source software to fix bugs in it or otherwise understand its workings. Very few highly successful products can thrive without a third-party/aftermarket, and the ability to reverse engineer to various degrees is one of the things that allows a 3rd party market to function. Companies that try to close their products entirely may find their lunch being eaten by others who are less paranoid.
  • 1. I don't think that any scientific research exists, which does NOT represent some sort of reverse engineering. And since we are not in the dark ages, we can expect our governments and laws to protect us from "closed science", "alchemy", "voodoo"-medicine", "black boxes", "ufo-prophets" and some "digital hokuspokus" in form of "cute cats".

    2. Patents, as mentioned above, are supposed to protect an inventor's R&D investment and profits for a reasonable time AND make his invention PUBLIC, revealing to anyone WHAT he has found and HOW he solved a problem. The intention of this second part of the patent law was to increase the public's knowledlge for the good of society in a way that further research could build upon previous inventions.

    3. This second part of the patenting deal is the one which is screwed up completely, when dealing with patents of business methods of software programs. It doesn't work for software, because you don't REVEAL the EXACT CODE to the public, just the idea of what the program does, which is rarely a unique patentable idea in the first place.

    4. The only thing which would come close to revealing the "invention" to the public with regard to software, would be to open up the source code.

    5. Conclusion is that receiving a patent for a software program's business process protects the inventor's idea and profits ON THE COST of the public's interest and decreases further innovation for the society's good.

    So, it's a process gone mad, which actually is to the disadvantage of society and leads to the people's dependency of closed technological procedures in massive ways.

    I wonder why the software industry is allowed to enjoy these kind of priviledges other scientific disciplines would not even dare to dream of.

  • Additionally, asking why is the only way anyone really learns anything. Rote memorization of fact is not learning.

    The DMCA and education are at odds. The DMCA and schools are not at odds. Something wrong with this picture?

  • Sure it would. But first you'd have to clean up the bugs :-P Then you could build inport/export filters, or whatever else you like that MS hasn't already done. Or done well.

    It is really quite scary that ID creates a geometry engine as flexible and stable as Quake - while Microsoft ships a word processor that crashes whenever I try to use footnotes, and which isn't a lot more useable than the Quark Express I used back when the Mac was king of desktop publishing.

    Course, you'll note that Quark Express import filters are hard to find. Seems that anybody with access to the quark file format signs an agreement to not produce any filter to import the format to a different program. Heard that years ago, don't know if it is still true. Some things never change.

  • First of all, the Declaration of Independence has absolutely zero legal standing in this country. That was a CONSCIOUS DECISION by the Founding Fathers. It may make nice rhetoric but it really has very little bearing on the day to day in America.

    Now, did we give any consent to have the DMCA passed into law?

    You really just completely and utterly fail to understand how a republic works, don't you?
  • Reverse engineering is sometimes a necessity, not just for fun, or for any evil purpose.

    Freshly out of school, my first job as a programmer required me to reverse engineer a proprietory database, because the vendor went under. The company I was working for has thousands and thousands of customer info, contact info, and tons of othe stuff in that database.

    The trouble was that the db does not provide any API or tools whatsoever to retrieve the information, except browsing thru its own interface. It certainly was not very convenient to enter by hand all the entries to another db.

    As a test to see how well I could do my work while I was still in probation period, I was asked to figure out the file format of the database, and retrieve the whole contents and feed them into another database system.

    So, in this case, reverse engineering is a necessity. And I'm sure that some software vendors will go under too in the future. If that happens, what would you do, if the law says you can't reverse engineer?

  • As someone who would not normally consider installing a single use item to my computer, having it modified with a switch increases it's value. (the jumber in the mod, if switched, will change the mode without needing a reboot) Having a normal scanner that can be switched to get more details from the RS catalog increased it's chance of being installed in the first place. (Yes I know they are watching but at least I know) I know they need the propritory format so other manufactures do not hijack their investment in hardware.
  • And when they released the source code for DOOM itself, Online play of the game was immediately ruined by people who coded their own exploitive 'clients' to play the game with. It's well documented in discussions in the past right here on /.

    Next time use a better arguement.
  • The Cuecat doesn't have capital value to increase; DC's revenue model involved advertising and sneaky user profiling. Companies whose revenue model involves actually selling useful products are helped by having their product become the de facto standard that other companies want to imitate.
  • Hey, I'm a good bit older than 2, and my favorite question is still "Why?"

    Why do you think that is?

  • Bad Business Strategy (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It is a bad business strategy to give away a free product and then expect customers not to take full advantage of it. That's almost as bad as basing your whole business on the hope that Microsoft will license you their latest source code every single year for as long as you run your business. Isn't it funny how some so-called businessmen are so eager to sue people for defying their expectations, when the problem is with their own lack of foresight? If you expect somebody to do only certain things, you'd better get it in writing (i.e., by signing a contract with them where they agree to do only those certain things.) If you don't have a contract, you don't have a guarantee, and it's your job as a businessman to consider what other people and other companies are within their rights to do -- and you must plan accordingly.

    When businessmen and investors make bad decisions, they destroy wealth -- hopefully only their own. If the effect is localized that way, then the effect on the economy, though negative, is minimized. Hopefully people will learn to make better decisions. It's an expensive lesson, but it should be learned: If you give something away for free, people will take it.

    -- An Ayn-onymous Coward

  • Re:What we need is LICENSED reverse engineers. (Score:3)

    by civilizedINTENSITY ( 45686 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2000 @09:32PM (#716068)
    so-called "right".

    I propose that reverse engineering is always a right regardless of the economic consequences to the parties being reverse engineered. No one has the right to steal. Everyone has the right to reverse engineer.

    granted the privelege of practicing reverse engineering

    The act of understanding how something works that one has bought is not a priviledge. The only possible check on this action is stupidity. Those who are unable to analyze a system won't ever understand it. Those who can, should. If that understanding leads to better products we as a species benifit.

    To suggest that security vulnerabilities must be fixed before they are made public is to say they must never be made public. It is only public censure that insures the fixes.

    I apoligize to all if I am responding to a troll.
  • It appears that www.reverseengineering.com [reverseengineering.com] is taken - whois query [networksolutions.com] as is reverseengineering.net [networksolutions.com] and reverseengineering.org [networksolutions.com].

    I think it would be helpful to have a central website devoted to reverse engineering tools, as well as archives of legal documents, tracking reverse engineering news developments, discussion forums for trading tips and so on.

    Anyone want to set one up? I don't really have the time right now but I could contribute expertise and code.

    What would be a good domain name?

    Or are there any sites like this already? Certainly there must be sites that contain bits of what I propose - but what about a full-fledged reverse engineering archive and portal.

    Better not physically locate it in the US!

  • Hi

    OK, I know that software isn't like a car, but i find it disturbing that companies are trying to make it illegal to reverse-engineer their products, while the first thing competing companies in the car business do when for example Ford releases a new car, is buying like 12 cars of the new model, driving them around, and totally take them apart and re-assemble them again!

    Reverse-engineering is something that every company uses, hi-tech or not, so why would it be illegal in the software business?
  • Warning: This comment will feature anti Slashdot-mainstream opinions.

    The discussion about reverse engineering is directly linked to software patents. Either software patents will have to be allowed or reverse engineering will have to be prohibited in a country. RE without SP would be a bad move and SP without RE would be an equally bad move. The primary reason for disallowing reverse engineering is to keep competitors from using your research results for free and thus gaining an unfair advantage over you. This can be more elegantly achieved by software patents: Only truly new ideas will be protected (in theory) and they will be better protected. Disallowing RE in a situation like that would of course inhibit finding SP violations, so that wouldn't be wise.

    A way to stop spyware is to make it illegal and attach really prohibitive fines to each single incident. RE is not the only way to detect abuse of user data. You could create some sort of honey-pot and create false but identifiable user data. Then wait until it is used. Granted, this way is not nearly as easy or failsafe as RE, but it should work.

    The one big mistake of the open software community and think-alikes is the feeling that technology can replace law to a great extent. We are now in a situation where the do's and dont's are mostly dictated by technical rules because "real life" rules often don't apply without serious bending. Thus, for example, port scans are now legal. People claim they can be used for legitimate purposes, like polling systems for web server versions and making statistics of that information. How would you feel, if every 10 minutes somebody came to your front door and pushed the handle down to see if the door is open, for statistical purposes...?

    I do agree that reverse engineering should be allowed, but then there has to be some other way of protecting research results. Society is not advanced enough yet to honor research directly and unforced. And that other way will most likely be a law, not a technology.

  • DMCA Infringement Notification Requires Wet Sig. (Score:4)

    by goingware ( 85213 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @01:23AM (#716082) Homepage
    I found the following in the ZDNet discussion at:

    http://www.zd net .com/tlkbck/comment/22/0,7056,99112-589101,00.html [zdnet.com]

    Apparently the DMCA itself requires that notifications of violations of the DMCA must be made in writing with a "wet" signature, that is actually written by hand with ink. Email and fax is insufficient.

    The fellow suggests that you post the following on your site as a legal notice to those who may attempt to contact you about material on your site that they claim infringes their copyright:

    Procedure for Notifying Yourname.com of Copyright Infringement Claims

    In accordance with the DMCA, copyright owners, or persons authorized to act on behalf of owners who believe specific Shared Content may infringe any exclusive right(s) of the copyright owner should notify Yourname.com's designated agent in the following manner:

    Notices Must Be in Writing: Yourname.com must obtain all required information in writing in the form of a 'Notice of Copyright Infringement' ("Notice"). Telephonic, verbal or other non-written communications are insufficient under Yourname.com's policies and do not meet the requirements of the DMCA.

    Content of Notice: Notice to Yourname.com must include the following information:

    1. Identification of the copyrighted work that You claim has been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works are covered in the Notice, a representative list of the copyrighted works that You claim have been infringed using Yourname.com's services; 2. Identification of Shared Content, material or activity that You claim is infringing, that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled. Such identification must contain information sufficient to permit Yourname.com to locate that Shared Content; 3. Your street and mailing address, telephone number and, if available, Your electronic mail address; 4. A statement by You that You have a good faith belief that the disputed use of the copyrighted material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law (e.g., fair use); 5. A statement by You, made under penalty of perjury, that all the information in Your Notice is accurate and that You are the copyright owner, or authorized to act on behalf of an owner of any exclusive right that is allegedly infringed by the materials referenced in Your Notice.

    Notices Must be Signed: The written notice must be subscribed with the "wet signature" (no facsimiles, proxies or copies) of the copyright owner or of a person authorized to act on behalf of an owner of any exclusive right(s) that are allegedly infringed by the materials referenced in the Notice.

    Delivery to Designated Agent: The Notice must be addressed and delivered via U.S. Mail, Express Mail, or Courier to Yourname.com's Designated Copyright Agent, as follows:

    Copyright Agent

    Yourname.com

    Your Blvd

    Your Town, State Zip Code

    Your Phone Number

    If You suspect specific Shared Content may constitute copyright infringement, but are not the copyright owner or authorized to act on behalf of an owner of any exclusive right(s) that You believe may be infringed, please notify Yourname.com at legal@Yourname.com. If You are not the copyright owner or the owner's representative, Yourname.com may not be able to remove the Shared Content. Yourname.com will attempt to investigate each report and forward each notice to the appropriate copyright owner, if identified.

  • 'Consumers' can't fix their cars either, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to if they wanted. A good way to keep a company in check is to be able to see what they're doing, and this is accomplished through reverse engineering. Just because most people don't doesn't mean that everybody can't or shouldn't.

    --
  • AC wrote:
    The world needs dynamite too; but that doesn't mean it ought to be available to just anyone on a whim as some so-called "right".
    First, this whole message has got to be a troll.

    That said, the bigger question is, "where does it end?"

    If you regulate explosives, as your example, does that mean that you regulate the chemicals required the make an explosive, or just the explosive itself? Will farmers have to get a special permit to buy high nitrogen content fertilizer? What about the knowledge of chemisty required to make that explosive? Should books detailing the steps required to make explosives be banned or regulated as well?

    The answer to all these, of course, is, "No!"

    We live in a time where nobody is responsible for their actions. Just this month, a new law took effect here in Florida that requires home swimming pools to have a fence, alarm, or some other cost-adding feature to "protect the children." Kids are required to wear bicycle helmets or face ticketing by police. Presidential campaigns talk about shoring up failing dole programs with more and more taxes.

    These laws all say that we're too dumb as individuals to take care of ourselves, and momma Government must come in and take care of us.

    Living our lives is not a privelege. It's our right. Government's role should not, can not, be that of nanny.

    Jeff

    Jeff

  • Anyone interested in Economics will tell you that end-users screwing with products is bad. Now, as a n economist and a hacker my two paths diverge. I think that if a free piece of equipment is released to the public, it cannot be considered an economic scarcity, (laymen defined as "if something was free of charge, and there'd be none left after 5 minutes, it's an econmic scarcity");

    Anyways, So they release this product to the public, planning on increasing popularity and (factors of demand) of another product (Database registration). So basically if enough users get cuecats, then there's a huge market for cuecat licesences from other businesses. Now that DigitalConvergence has a potential strangle hold...

    Back to the hacking =)
    It is true that if a product is hacked then it thrives new tests which makes the product run better. However, if it is in the hands of the consumer (wether they are paying for it or not), this can turn ugly. Websites popup with FAQs on extracting features, etc.

    So lets bring these two sections together.
    So you (say you're DigitalConvergence) have an investment in a popularity inducing object (said Cuecat). A website all of a sudden pops up providing obsolescence and alternatives/substitutions to you're product. Now if this were another company DC would either buy them, or succum to the "competitve market"...

    But NO, It's a Flyingbuttmonkey [flyingbuttmonkeys.com] with a plan. This buttmonkey wants to exploit your product, making you lose millions.

    So look at it this way...


    1) A company can continue with a cheapo investment.
    2) The company must sucuum to people hacking their free of charge product.

    Economically speaking, the hacking is a market sucess, however a product failure... So the end-user lucks out, and the product fails.

    This would be good (non-economically) only if another alternative came about (not based on exploitation).



    Moderators: Look lightly upon my post and I shall reward you with an MD5 of PI.

  • By letting the greedy outlaw reverse engineering, is the US slitting its own throat?

    The laws if the United States stop at the border. ALL of the imported goods, by definition, come from outside of the border.

    The trend to employing manual labor "off shore" outside the borders, has been rampant for decades and industries are running out of things to shift offshore.

    The use of H1-B visa's is plundering the high-tech workers from the very shores that are being exploited for manual labor. Their use is accelerating rather than being balanced through any attempt at educating the US populace.

    But H1-B visa holders are treated like indentured slaves and sent packing at every corporate down-turn. They leave taking their knowledge extra territorially where the opportunities may be less but the stability is greater.

    The DMCA applies ONLY to within the borders of the United States. The H1-B "deportees" are intelligent enough to reverse engineer solutions without concerning themselves with the stupidity hatched by the RIAA and the MPAA and other organizations which, in effect, produce nothing but law suits.

    Is the United States going to end up on the short end of the stick for pursuing such short sighted policies?

    As an H1-B worker myself, I don't give a rat's ass about the internal politics of the Unites States. If they wish to reduce themselves to ignorant groveling in front of imported television sets watching imported quality programs like those produced by the BBC or cheap home-made porn, so be it.

    To paraphrase Newton (a Brit by the way:) "We see far because we stand on the shoulders of giants."

    The DMCA is a great way to take the head from those shoulders and insure the giant doesn't bother anyone anymore. Its only a question of time.

  • I'm responding with a loud maybe.

    To my eyes, both software patents and reverse engineering have their places and uses. The problem (as with most situations) is where either are used out of those cases.

    Let's imagine I've just written Quake 4, or whatever. It contains some fantastic new breakthrough in rendering technology that produces photorealistic images in real time on a P233. Yes, this is a deliberately daft example, before I get jumped on, just to illustrate how far ahead it would be.

    Now, this is a completely new technique which I've devised all by myself after years of painstaking research. It's not been done before, it's not a derivative of other work and it's not obvious. It would seem a good candidate for a patent, thus allowing me to exploit this technology and get a return on my research investment. Especially as, if reverse engineered - not exactly hard with computer software - I'd have a million rivals tomorrow, and little advantage over them.

    Now, let's imagine I've written Access 2002. It's got an interesting but not revolutionary file format, so it gets patented. With the side-effect that you couldn't release a legal compatible program and I can get perpetual upgrade fees from my clients as they have to keep up with this program because once their data's in it, nothing else can get at it. Without reverse engineering, which breaks the law...

    Across computing as a whole, both need to be permissible. Within individual subsections, you can't really have both. Working out where to draw the lines is a complex problem, but gives a far better solution than an absolute answer applying to everything, which would always cause problems _somewhere_.

  • Re:What we need is LICENSED reverse engineers. (Score:3)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @05:04AM (#716102)

    &gt The world needs dynamite too; but that doesn't mean it ought to be available to just anyone on a whim as some so-called "right."

    Remember "The Freedom to swing your first, ends at the tip of my nose." EVERYONE has the RIGHT to buy it, what do you think capitalism is founded upon (FREE market, meaning NO discrimination against any BUYER.)
    Ownership of so called "dangerous" items, is NOT the problem, its the MISUSE and blantant LACK of RESPECT for OTHER people's LIFE, and LIBERTY. Banning items doesn't solve anything.

    &gt I'm sorry, but you have no "right" to steal that from them in the name of OSS or whatever golden idol you worship.

    "Intellectual property rights" are neither "property" nor "rights."
    The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights [freenation.org]


    You can't STEAL ideas, you can only borrow them.

    The sooner the dumb world gets over the 2-year old mentality of "this information is exclusively mine", and starts exchanging ideas for the better of ALL humanity, the sooner we'll have a better world.

    So you think of a great new idea. Guess what, someone else will too. The very BASICS of science is founded upon BUILDING upon other's people's work. (The difference in this case is that scientists WANT to share their knowledge.)

    Let's say I reverse engineer the recipe for a popular soda. Does that mean I'm illegally using intellectual property?! How can it be, when I came to the SAME conclusion (formula) as someone else? Granted, that doesn't give me the "right" to go stealing another person's "Secret" formula, but if I _INDEPENDENTLY_ discover the same knowledge, that knowledge is NO longer PROPRIETARY.

    &gt> reverse engineering (and also programmers developping for life critical components) needs to be licensed by a regulatory body ...

    So now I need PERMISSION to THINK?! That's ludicrous.

    Cheers

    --
    "Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, 1759

  • Why should we care that it's natural for a company to do X or Y, because it's only out to make money? It may be a scorpion's nature to sting--but does knowing that mean that we ought to go ahead and pet it anyway?

    If corporations like DC can't help themselves when it comes to things like trying to bully reverse engineers (something I doubt, since there are other companies--also only interested in making money--who shrug off or even encourage reverse engineering), all the more reason that we should be wary of them and attempt to curb their abuses.

  • the site was originally starhack.ml.org. But like all good things on the net, 'life' intruded on the creator's part and he stopped being cool. bnetd was open source, but then someone came along and made it closed source, turned it into fsgs, and went above and beyond whatever bnetd did. fsgs.net, the only place to pick up a serious battle.net clone. bnetd just doesn't have it, never did, never will.

    which is kinda disturbing when you think about it ^^;;
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • Note: This is not as refined and lucid as it should be, but it may still have a point. Just don't hold your breath.

    Let me start off by saying to consider me any sort of enginneer would be laughable, so I may have this completely wrong.

    While I read the posts made by people in this discussion, I tried to relate the idea to other forms of media.

    Reverse engineering a program means pulling it apart to see how it works on the inside, but how would that translate with a movie, music, or book? To me it would seem that in these mediums reverse enginneering is quite common. You could deconstuct or analyze any of these and in the underlying basic "code" you would end up with a very general principal containing characters, plot, theme, etc.

    As a wanna-be writer, I try and deconstuct everything I take in, be it the movie I watched last night, the book I was reading this morning, or the song I listened to on the way to work. I try and get a feel for what the artist is saying through their work. And sometimes you need more information then is placed directly in front of you order to do that. In order to see the larger picture of what is going on you may have to read between the lines a little. . .

    Hell, one of the things that makes a piece of media meaningful to me is when I find it so profound and engaging that I start to wonder "how did they come to that conclusion?". I may even take it a step further and think: "what if this happened? What would the effect be then?"

    To me, that directly correlates with what I believe is the basic purpose and goal of reverse engineering. Screwing around with things leads to a better understanding and somtimes a greater appreiciation of how things work. It also allows for greater innovation and improvement. If nobody understood the underlying principle of the wheel, would we as a species ever have progressed to where we are now?

    The Entertainment industry does everything I do with movies, books, and music, only they even take it a step further. Heard any pop music that didn't sound like other pop music lately? Or watch a "blockbuster" summer disaster movie that was unlike any other? I swear, it seems like some of those flicks even use the same dog, which somehow always manages to make it to safety while other actual characters perish in patriotic, sacrificing, or possibly deserving ways.

    I may not like how much of the movies, music, and books all end up feeling the same tired, cliche idea borrowed from other movies, music, and books. That doesn't make me file a lawsuit against anybody in the entertainment industry though.

    If I remember correctly, the premise for "Survivor" was hardly original. Did the "oringal" creater of the idea recieve any royalty checks from the American Producers? Did he have his name in the end credits? Better yet: did they bother to even try sending a cease and decist letter upon hearing of the American "hack" of their idea?

    This entire post may just be a mindless leap to the wrong conclusion, but I do believe it also goes some way in explaining why the acronyms of the month (MPAA/RIAA/DMCA/whatever) say lines of computer code differ from lines of other media in the fact they are not speech.

    If they did treat it the same as other media, they would be far greater hypacrites then all of us that use the protocol of the month (Napster/Gnutella/HTTP) to fight the power in the name of the artist. Hell, they would be far greater pirates as well.

    -------

  • We had to disect flatworms and frogs to see how they worked.

    To a creationist, all investigation of the world (especially animal dissection) is a form of reverse-engineering.

    But to non-creationists, such investigation is merely called "science", because the objects studied were not engineered to begin with, so there's nothing to reverse.

    Therefore, I conclude from Sorehands dissection example, that he is from Kansas. ;-)


    ---
  • I saw Soylent Green for the first time the other night, and it strikes me that the movie was a story about reverse-engineering.

    If Thorne hadn't illegally entered the food-processing plant, and observed the manufacturing process (and killed two workers in the process), he would not have discovered that Soylent Green is people.

    I believe that is all that needs to be said on this subject.
  • If GM were reverse-engineering Ford cars, they wouldn't be producing the utter crap they are now.
  • First, we had licensed laywers, which gives us this litiginous rat's next of laws we have today.

    Now you want to license the reverse engineers too?
  • From the Law offices of Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe

    We represent God and it has been brought to our attention that you have been attempting to reverse engineer his work.

    You are hereby ordered to cease this immediately. If you continue with this action, we will bring legal action.

    Please note, our client has never lost a case. Furthermore, he is the final judge in all matters in this universe.

  • If you fight God in court, then he'll have to recuse himself on Judgement Day. The chances of Him being replaced by Mattel are vanishingly small.
    ---

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