Talk:Reverse engineering

A external linking request.

As per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EL under: Links normally to be avoided

It states in section 3: "A website that you own or maintain, even if the guidelines above imply that it should be linked to. This is because of neutrality and point-of-view concerns; neutrality is an important objective at Wikipedia, and a difficult one. If it is relevant and informative, mention it on the talk page and let other — neutral — Wikipedia editors decide whether to add the link." . Well, I maintain the site, so:

In the interests of neutrality, I would like to have http://www.bomarc.org re-included in the external links. Or at least http://www.bomarc.org/contractre.php .

Why do I think this qualifies under the other auspices of said http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EL ?

Because:

1. They do reverse engineering of circuit boards, as far as we can tell unique amongst companies in the English speaking world. There are several other companies that will reverse engineer chips, and other single components, but as far as I can tell, none of them will draw out a circuit board, especially multi-layer.

2. They do offer a free Reverse Engineering service, if the device is theirs to keep. They will send a clear copy of the schematic in exchange. Thus this site does not exist soley to sell product.

3. They exist for the sake of patent research, and do not sell hacks or devices to do such. Thus they are legal under recent court rulings.

4. They describe some of the work they do on the site.

5. They have been in business for over 25 years, thus they have permanency.

6. Flash, and Javascript are NOT REQUIRED to view the site (although they do add flavor). All images are ALT texted to ensure compatibility for blind users.

If anyone disagrees, please tell me why below this section. Thank you.

Is WINE really rev.eng.?

Is WINE really _reverse_ engineering? There are public specs for the Win16/Win32 API, and WINE is just an implementation of them. So, you go from specs to product, therefore, it's just plain engineering, right? --Anonymous

I read that WINE is supposed to be bug-compatible to the extent that legitimate programs might rely on the bugs. --Anonymous

Plus, various Windows OSs have undocumented functions, and some documented ones may have undocumented behaviour and side effects. However, I believe that the fact that the APIs are supposed to be documented makes Wine a rather poor example. --Mike Van Emmerik 22:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Different kinds of rev.eng.

I would like to see a disambiguation of the kind reverse engineering discussed here (reverse engineering of someone else's work), and the kind of reverse engineering performed on one's own product. In particular, there is a branch of academic software engineering called "reverse engineering" that isn't described here.

From [CC90]: Reverse engineering is "the process of analyzing a subject system to create representations of the system at a higher level of abstraction". (E.J. Chikofsky and J.H. Cross II "Reverse Engineering and Design Recovery: A Taxonomy" in IEEE Software, pp 13-17, IEEE Computer Society, January 1990.)

It can also be seen as "going backwards through the development cycle" (R. Warden, "Re-engineering - a practical methodology with commercial applications". in Software Reuse amd Reverse Engineering in Practice", pp 283-305. Chapman & Hall, London, England, 1992.) In this model, the output of the implementation phase (in source code form) is reverse engineered back to the analysis phase, in an inversion of the traditional waterfall model.

This type of reverse engineering should be compared and contrasted with "systems analysis", and the relationship with re-engineering and forward engineering should be mentioned. There is also reverse engineering from binary (executable) formats (machine code, Java and .NET bytecodes, etc) back to source code (disassembly and decompilation); these are also forms of reverse engineering. --Mike Van Emmerik

Patents

I'm not a lawyer, but this phrase seems wrong to me....: "patents apply to the functionality, not a specific implementation of it."

I'm pretty sure that patents apply to a specific implementation, _not_ generalised functionality. I'm not going to change this, due to the fact that I'm not actually certain. The page on patents themselves doesn't give me any additional insight.

--Andrew Moran

The comment "patents apply to the functionality, not a specific implementation of it." is incorrect I think. Patents actually apply to the specific implementation of an idea. I can't patent a space ship, but I can patent a specific _working_ design for one.

While it is true that the USPTO is granting patents on many things which are not working implementations of a design, or indeed novel or unique that doesn't mean that they are granting valid patents.

I think this phrase should be removed. --Anonymous

I have studied patents semi-professionally and my textbooks say that these days in the US you can patent a functionality and a specific means of achieving this functionality. You can always patent an improved mousetrap if it truly has novelty and inventive step. However, if no person in the world had created or used any mousetrap publicly you could patent the entire idea of catching mice with traps. You would have to demonstrate at least one way of implementing the idea of catching mice with traps or the application would fail -but your patent would not be limited to that implementation.

This extention of the scope of a patent is relatively new and certainly not globally accepted.

Sensemaker

I think you (and Andy above) are both wrong; you CAN patent a "frobnicating coffee cup" - whether the cup is made out of metal or porcelain is irrelevant - it's the very idea of a cup that frobnicates is covered. That's why patents are considired harmful by many. Copyright cover implementations, patents cover ideas. --Anonymous

"though patent owners often contest this and attempt to stifle any reverse engineering of their products for any reason." - what has patents got to do with it? i thought the patent system was invented so people WOULDN'T have to reverse-engineer. this sentence smells like crack. --Anonymous

Patents were founded so you could technologies you're not allowed to implement. They forgot to think wether or not it is usefull or interresting to study technologies that you're not allowed to use. --Easyas12c 21:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The current wording "reverse engineering a patented item can be infringement" seems incorrect to me. Patent law was specifically made so inventors would share their inventions and we wouldn't have to reverse-engineer them, therefore the information in a patent technically must be sufficient to recreate the device from scratch. You don't have to reverse engineer a patented device because the plans are publicly available as part of the patent. Re-creating the device without a license is infringement, whether you use the patent plan or reverse engineering. --158.130.13.4 20:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Rev.eng. Wikibook

I've started a book on software Reverse Engineering at Wikibooks. You can find it Here. So far interest among contributers has been low, and I am looking to get more contributers in on the project. People who know about reverse engineering of computer software should stob by and share your two cents. --Whiteknight

Reengineering

The reengineering that this page links to seems to be about management stuff rather than software reengineering. Perhaps a disambiguation page or a new section should be made? --Harrym 11:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'd never heard of "reengineering the organisation", so I did a google search for the keyword reengineering with either "software" or "organisation OR organisation". I was surprised to find that the latter was almost as popular as the former (2.6M pages vs 3.5M). Reengineering and business comes in at 5.2M. No doubt this is highly inaccurate, but it's quick. I guess we need a "reengineering (software)" title and a disambiguation page. --Mike Van Emmerik 22:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I've added Reengineering (software) and put a disambig link at the top of the current article. I've also updated the links here to point to the correct page. I figured a whole disambig page wasn't necessary just for two topics. Harrym 14:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Paycheck movie

They had reverse engineering in the movie Paycheck. --128.6.175.16 16:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Mozart

Shall we not mention one of the earliest acts of reverse-engineering, albeit not hi-tech, not even of a mechanical product? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart managed to reverse-engineer the whole score of the Papal Mass from hearing alone, although the score was at that time kept in the utmost of secrecy and guarded with the threat of excommunication. --Shlomi Tal ☜ 13:20, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

While a great story, it's debatable whether Mozart actually "reverse engineered" the mass. This relies on the question of how much correspondence there is between the score and the performance. It could be argued that Mozart simply "wrote down" what he heard, albeit in score form, which was just illicit reproduction rather than discovering the "technological principles" behind the mass. I wouldn't like to see the article bogged down by pedantic considerations like these, though. JRM · Talk 13:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Reversing/riddle game

http://3564020356.org/deserve.htm Loocifah 18:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

"mechanical" ?

The first sentence of the article states that

Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of discovering the technological principles of a mechanical application...

However, it seems that RE is certainly not limited to mechanical applications. The very fact that the next sentence uses electronics and software as examples of things that can be reverse engineered seems to show it is not just mechnical. Better terms may be (off the top of my head):

• engineering applications
• engineering systems
• technological applications
• technological systems
• systems

Thoughts? --&m@ 01:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

book

Good book about it. May be added to the article. --Yonkie 23:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

To save people following the link to find the book title, this is "Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering" by Eldad Eilam. This is a good book on software reverse engineering from binary programs (where source code not available), so it applies only to the sections "Binary Software" and "Binary Software Techniques". Perhaps more useful if we ever have a separate article on binary reverse engineering. --Mike Van Emmerik 22:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)