Re: Application Security...
Re: Application Security...
- Subject: Re: Application Security...
- From: Dietrich Epp <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 18:54:18 -0800
On Thursday, Feb 20, 2003, at 18:11 US/Pacific, Shawn Erickson wrote:
On Thursday, February 20, 2003, at 03:33 PM, Dietrich Epp wrote:
On Thursday, Feb 20, 2003, at 09:17 US/Pacific, Shawn Erickson wrote:
On Thursday, February 20, 2003, at 02:59 AM, David Remahl wrote:
Most companies protect their intellectual property (however
ethically objectionable) by license agreements where the user
agrees not to reverse engineer the product. Others protect it by
patenting (also ethically objectionable).
Not to start a thread or anything...
I made something with my time and effort and if I want to control
who can rip it off how is that "ethically" objectionable? The system
can be abused but their is nothing inherently unethical about it
just the folks that abuse it.
The "ethically objectionable" bit is that many people (myself
included) see reverse engineering as fair use, the better I can
understand how a product works the better I will be able to use it.
For example, let's say I reverse engineered the iTunes library format
(which has been done), and use it to access my library from other
computers in the house. All my playlists in iTunes now show up in
XMMS, lets say. Or given another real-world scenario - some people
wanted to play battle.net games without battle.net itself, perhaps
because it would be faster (for users on a large network with a slow
connection to the internet, such as at some colleges), or because
they wanted to form a smaller community than the battle.net
community, or perhaps they were behind a firewall. The battle.net
protocol was reverse-engineered, and bnetd was born. Of course,
blizzard tries to squish bnetd... but that's another story.
Do you see fair use as being able to copy text out of someone else
book and then publish it as your own, espically if they have not
granted you a right to do so? What about doing a lithograph of
someone's art and selling it as your own?
The media that carries the data does not change the fact that the
originator of the work has a right to control it (if they so want).
Nothing is unethical about wanting to control what you create.
There are limits to that control. For example, you can't publish a
book with the condition that whoever buys the book isn't allowed to
quote it. It's called Fair Use, and it's in copyright law. And I
don't see how what you describe has anything to do with fair use, look
the term up if you don't understand it.
I'm not talking about copying something and publishing it as your own,
I'm talking about reverse-engineering.
I do believe in fair use to backup data or repackaging things for your
own personal usage if you have been given the right to use it in its
original form (bought it, etc.).
I have no problem with reverse engineering something but attempting to
repackage or capitalize on what you have gain from someone elses work
is wrong if they haven't granted you permission to do so or haven't
relinquished claims on it.
So... let's say I write a program which filters net traffic to share a
connection, and most of the code is based on reverse-engineering
private protocols like Quake 3, Diablo, Kazaa, etc. Basically, all the
code does is use your knowledge based on reverse-engineering to give a
higher priority to protocols such as HTTP or FTP. I don't see anything
wrong with that.
FYI - the intent of patents is to allow folks to see how something
works and then think up a better way to do while the originator of the
patent can still claim rights to the fruits of their work for a
limited amount of time.
But when you patent software, sometimes your patent is a load of crap
even though the patent office will enforce it. Arithmetic encoding is
covered by HOW many patents? What about 'one-click' patent courtesy of
Amazon? Most computer programs should not be covered by patents.
Reverse-engineering is not piracy, it is fair use. Without
reverse-engineering you would not be able to watch a DVD on Linux, or
use an iPod with Linux, or play battle.net games behind a firewall.
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