Well, don't really have much time to update this site right now.  Hence, the bland white background.  Maybe when I have more time, I will add stuff to this website of mine.

     -- Renfred Teo

Reverse Engineering C++ & Java: Practical vs. Legal

This was a paper I wrote many years ago, and looking back, it was really better at describing what happened historically and the use of reverse engineering back then.  In modern day society, at least in the United States, reverse engineering is relatively useless and impractical from the commercial standpoint, because modern day practices of placing patents on things like interfaces renders the use of reverse engineering relatively useless.  The exception is, of course, reverse engineering for the removal of malware (viruses, trojans, spyware, etc).  To date, I have not heard of anybody suing for copyright or patent violations for reverse engineering for the purpose of removing malware.  However, the gray area is that of what would be considered adware (software for displaying and collecting statistical data to create targeted advertisements) and potentially unwanted software.  Those types of software can be annoying, and may even slow down your system, which may thereby increase deterioration of your hardware and decrease the lifespan of your equipment.  However, those types of software can be considered "legitimate" software because those types of software can have legitimate uses and are usually created without malicious purposes in mind (at least, we hope so).  Creating software to remove parts of those types of software could be considered unauthorized alteration of the software, and be subject to fines and damages awarded to plaintiffs if the courts deem that there has been a violation of intellectual property rights.

         -- Renfred Teo

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Last Updated July 23, 2010