Is that your opinion or is that the law? My understanding is the same as what someone else wrote earlier: You may "break" into someone's protected code in a device you own, you can study their code and how it works. As long as you don't copy their code but rather take what you learned and make new code yourself, my understanding is that you're within the law.

Actually, no. Not since the obscene DMCA was enacted. Ask Dmitry Sklyarov. OTOH, I still believe in the validity of fair use rights, even if the US government doesn't.