| ??? 02/16/08 17:01 Read: times |
#150936 - Fair use, security, and all that Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Richard Erlacher said:
And then, what about Jeff Post's situation, where he simply wants to understand how my product works, with no intention of replicating the invention, or appropriating the IP contained in my product for any purpose other than his own enlightenment? That was just one example of fair use rights, Richard. Two more in which I've personally reverse engineered code: 1) Modification of operation of equipment which the manufacturer is unwilling or unable to do. 2) Manufacturer is no longer in business and hasn't been for decades, but thousands of users are still in need of support. (In this case I made commented source code publicly available after making extensive effort to contact the original developer only to discover that not only is his company no longer alive, but apparently neither is he.) With a little imagination I think you can discover dozens of other circumstances in which it would not be immoral, and should not be illegal, to reverse engineer code. The question this thread was addressing was not really whether it's illegal or immoral to "crack" a protected device, but, rather, whether methods of doing so should be discussed in this open forum.
I would vote NO! I vote YES! "Security through obscurity" doesn't work and actually makes security weaker. Those who rely on protection bits, thinking they provide strong protection when they don't, make their products more vulnerable. If they are aware of the issues, through forums such as this, it gives them an opportunity to improve their protection. "Security through obscurity" is one reason why open source tends to be much more secure from exploits than proprietary code. |
