Cory Doctorow: Legalising Reverse Engineering Could End 'Enshittification' (theguardian.com) 90
Scifi author/tech activist Cory Doctorow has decried the "enshittification" of our technologies to extract more profit. But Saturday he also described what could be "the beginning of the end for enshittification" in a new article for the Guardian — "our chance to make tech good again".
There is only one reason the world isn't bursting with wildly profitable products and projects that disenshittify the US's defective products: its (former) trading partners were bullied into passing an "anti-circumvention" law that bans the kind of reverse-engineering that is the necessary prelude to modifying an existing product to make it work better for its users (at the expense of its manufacturer)...
Post-Brexit, the UK is uniquely able to seize this moment. Unlike our European cousins, we needn't wait for the copyright directive to be repealed before we can strike article 6 off our own law books and thereby salvage something good out of Brexit... Until we repeal the anti-circumvention law, we can't reverse-engineer the US's cloud software, whether it's a database, a word processor or a tractor, in order to swap out proprietary, American code for robust, open, auditable alternatives that will safeguard our digital sovereignty. The same goes for any technology tethered to servers operated by any government that might have interests adverse to ours — say, the solar inverters and batteries we buy from China.
This is the state of play at the dawn of 2026. The digital rights movement has two powerful potential coalition partners in the fight to reclaim the right of people to change how their devices work, to claw back privacy and a fair deal from tech: investors and national security hawks. Admittedly, the door is only open a crack, but it's been locked tight since the turn of the century. When it comes to a better technology future, "open a crack" is the most exciting proposition I've heard in decades.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.
Post-Brexit, the UK is uniquely able to seize this moment. Unlike our European cousins, we needn't wait for the copyright directive to be repealed before we can strike article 6 off our own law books and thereby salvage something good out of Brexit... Until we repeal the anti-circumvention law, we can't reverse-engineer the US's cloud software, whether it's a database, a word processor or a tractor, in order to swap out proprietary, American code for robust, open, auditable alternatives that will safeguard our digital sovereignty. The same goes for any technology tethered to servers operated by any government that might have interests adverse to ours — say, the solar inverters and batteries we buy from China.
This is the state of play at the dawn of 2026. The digital rights movement has two powerful potential coalition partners in the fight to reclaim the right of people to change how their devices work, to claw back privacy and a fair deal from tech: investors and national security hawks. Admittedly, the door is only open a crack, but it's been locked tight since the turn of the century. When it comes to a better technology future, "open a crack" is the most exciting proposition I've heard in decades.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.
Bahah (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Bahah (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFA:
inevitably – the US trade rep had beaten me to every one of those countries and made it eye-wateringly clear that if they regulated tech in a way that favoured their own people, industries and national interests, the US would bury them in tariffs.
But deterrents are a funny thing. If someone demands that you follow their orders or they’ll burn your house down, so you do, and they burn your house down anyway well, you’re a bit of a fool if you keep on doing what they tell you, aren’t you?
If you threaten someone into submission, why would they listen to you if you hurt them anyway?
Re: (Score:2)
FTFA:
inevitably – the US trade rep had beaten me to every one of those countries and made it eye-wateringly clear that if they regulated tech in a way that favoured their own people, industries and national interests, the US would bury them in tariffs.
But deterrents are a funny thing. If someone demands that you follow their orders or they’ll burn your house down, so you do, and they burn your house down anyway well, you’re a bit of a fool if you keep on doing what they tell you, aren’t you?
If you threaten someone into submission, why would they listen to you if you hurt them anyway?
I guess they're hoping for battered wife syndrome... "he hits me because he loves me"...
The US is in for a shock when they figure out that people will stand up to bullies and it's nowhere near as strong as it thinks it is on it's own (like most bullies, if they're not flanked by flunkies and outnumbering 3 to 1, they're absolute cowards).
Re: (Score:2)
Aaaaahahhahahahaahahahahahhhahahahaah!!!!!!!!!! As if that will ever happen!!!! That will never happen. You will enjoy your malware infested Android tubs of shit, or we will put you on a list for hating nominal surveillance!!
Laugh now. You know I'm right.
<sarc> At least we can still read such posts without repercussions, in some countries even reading this might soon be an offense.
That might have unintended consequences (Score:4, Interesting)
I can imagine companies no longer writing software because their work could then be given away for free, or either heavily encrypting it, or becoming a hardware (with or without binary blob) product.
A compromise could be to legalise reverse-engineering after a period of one to five years, but that would also need protection from a change of that period as it happened with the absurd length of copyright.
Re:That might have unintended consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
. To quote BSD Fortunes: "An honest politican is one that when you buy him, he styays bought!"
Re: (Score:2)
Stop Dreaming! Big busines owns the governments these days. Nothing like that will happen.
Which is largely unfortunate.It would be really good if software was mostly developed in the open and without software companies driving the process in future. We should remember that almost none of the products that we get from the big software houses are the original ones in which the invention and new ideas were done. The "East Coast Enterprise Linux Vendor", as Rocky Linux's predecessor called them, used to do a good job of this before they were bought by the company HAL was almost named after. Importan
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
business_kid misattributed
To quote BSD Fortunes: "An honest politican is one that when you buy him, he styays bought!"
That quote is from the notoriosly-corrupt 18th-century American politician Simon Cameron. And you misspelled the word "politician," btw ...
Re: (Score:2)
The EU seems to be capable of regulating companies in the interests of citizens.
Re:That might have unintended consequences (Score:5, Informative)
Software is already pirated. Since decades. Allowing reverse engineering wouldn't change that.
Software is also already reverse engineered, but only in legal gray areas (like for interoperability and accessibility).
Re: (Score:3)
GeminiGPTOpus, this file is a base64 encoded binary of a program compiled for the ARM v9 instruction set, please decompile it into C source code with comments. The binary program is an example of a computer-aided design application with a graphical user interface.
And for decades, now that the genie is out of the bottle.
Re: (Score:3)
It will blow your mind when you find out that the DMCA explicitly permits reverse engineering in some situations, for example for the purpose of interoperability. But that only applies in the US.
Re: (Score:3)
Really? So, farmers in the US can have third-party mechanics fix, or they can fix their own John Deere (tm) tractors, and *not* need a JD-approved tech come out to type in the Magical Code that lets the tractor use the new part?
So far as I know, NOPE.
Re:That might have unintended consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
I can imagine companies no longer writing software because their work could then be given away for free
There are plenty of companies that don't enshittify, have relatively open products, even open source products and are doing just fine. If it means not getting yet another product from Google or Amazon then so be it. The world will continue.
Re: (Score:2)
I can imagine companies no longer writing software because their work could then be given away for free
Why do you think everything is now "in the cloud" instead of being desktop computer software? Desktop computer software is already dead to businesses.
Re: (Score:3)
>> Desktop computer software is already dead to businesses.
that's absolutely not true.
Plenty of SW that runs locally.
Plenty of companies, administrations that don't accept cloud solutions because of the data implications.
Re: (Score:2)
that's absolutely not true.
Plenty of SW that runs locally.
Only when it must. Given the option between local and remote, companies choose to use remote/hybrid execution for software. In addition to keeping secrets on the server, they can deploy/update their WASM based applications via website seamlessly. This has the additional advantage of easily enabling the gathering of telemetry data as well as other data harvesting options ("web workers") which are unrelated to using the application without ever being labeled as spyware or malware by antivirus.
So when I say it
Re:That might have unintended consequences (Score:5, Informative)
It's like that old xkcd comic about the nerd super excited about how the government can't break his encryption when in the next panel there are thugs planning on using the $5 wrench to beat it out of him.
Re: (Score:2)
What's proposed here won't solve t
Read my comment again (Score:3)
Do you think that if blocking reverse engineering was useful for large companies that they wouldn't have just lobbied for and gotten a law banning it?
The reason why we don't have a law overriding all that legal precedence is because there isn't any need for it because antitrust law violations and monopolies are much more effective at preventing competition then a law banning reverse engineering.
Enshutification isn't a proble
Re: (Score:2)
Enshutification isn't a problem with consumers.
Of course it is.
For whom else than the user of the software would that be a problem?
Jesus Christ do I need to get the puppets out? (Score:2)
The world is not just a series of individual actions by individuals. Systems control and define the available actions and available thoughts people are allowed to and capable of having.
For god sakes read up on the history of whatever country you live in and the political systems and why they were created. Pick up a 200 level textbook not a high school level one...
Jesus Christ this is
Re: (Score:2)
Jesus Christ this is why I don't think the human race is going to survive the next 20 years.
But that was not the topic.
And enshitification has not really anything to do with text book history of political systems.
Re: (Score:2)
And enshitification has not really anything to do with text book history of political systems.
Economic systems are only one step removed from political systems and they support one another, so that's nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
Only in your american schoolbook "knowledge"
In fact you can mix any combination of those systems.
And point is: that was not the point. We talked about entshitification ... you got lost - or I got lost - somewhere in the middle part.
Re: (Score:2)
In fact you can mix any combination of those systems.
When humans are involved, things are more complicated than they are in a video game.
you got lost - or I got lost - somewhere in the middle part
I'm sure it was mutual. I love a good diversion.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure it was mutual. I love a good diversion.
Same :D
Did you actually read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ??
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, it was a great read. After Hardwired I read pretty much all the Walter Jon Williams I could find.
Re: (Score:2)
I was wondering about your domain name ...
You could host me an email address if you do not mind :D
Call it: mind@hyperlogos.org
Re: (Score:3)
Enshutification isn't a problem with consumers.
It is, in the same way SPAM is a problem with consumers: a lot of people like enshittified products and buy SPAM Viagra.
That's why education is important in democracy: otherwise our government gets enshittified.
Re: (Score:2)
It's like that old xkcd comic about the nerd super excited about how the government can't break his encryption when in the next panel there are thugs planning on using the $5 wrench to beat it out of him.
Yeah, that was a memorable one, and perfectly illustrates one of your points. It reminds me of this bit of history:
'Will you not give up,' he said, 'reading laws to us men girt with swords?' - Pompey
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about the United Kingdom but in America we wouldn't bother with all that. We would just use standard monopolistic tactics to prevent anyone that reverse engineered the product from getting a company off the ground.
It's like that old xkcd comic about the nerd super excited about how the government can't break his encryption when in the next panel there are thugs planning on using the $5 wrench to beat it out of him.
Sadly the UK government is well and truly in bed with the content industry in trying to artificially restrict art and culture for the profit of the few.
Same with France.
Re: (Score:2)
>> I can imagine companies no longer writing software because their work could then be given away for free
That's B.S.
Reverse engineering does not legalize copying.
Re: (Score:2)
A number of Chinese companies do well for themselves producing hardware and loading it with Free software, complete with leaving the USB serial port on so you can clone the public repo and modify or update it.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. For example I got a FlashForge 3d printer because it was well reviewed and discounted 50%. It runs Linux, Klipper, etc. Its management is cloud-based only out of the box, but there are mods for it which fix that, and they did absolutely nothing to prevent them.
Re: (Score:2)
I can imagine companies no longer writing software because their work could then be given away for free, or either heavily encrypting it, or becoming a hardware (with or without binary blob) product.
A compromise could be to legalise reverse-engineering after a period of one to five years, but that would also need protection from a change of that period as it happened with the absurd length of copyright.
That "no longer writing software" would leave markets wanting products, which in turn could lead to lean startups taking advantage of that opportunity.
If you amend your 'safe period' range to "two to five years", then there may be plenty of profit to be had in that time by lean and focused companies. Those companies could continue to provide paid support after the safe period expires, along with cloud services, integration help, etc. And during that time they could also be working on the Next Big Thing.
Anot
Re: (Score:2)
I would think a bigger unintended consequence might be favoring larger companies over smaller ones.
Because bigger companies have the resources to file patents, and even if you reverse engineer the software, it's still covered by patents.So there's far less danger to bigger companies if this happen.
Smaller companies, however, do not have as many resources and thus this discourages them from developing things because they can't protect it if everyone can just reverse engineer it and there's no protections.
Re: (Score:2)
"...also need protection from a change of that period..."
And not only change of period, but change, period. Such as the loophole that Pharma uses, changing some minor bit of chemistry in a drug to extend their patents.
Re: (Score:2)
Such as the loophole that Pharma uses, changing some minor bit of chemistry in a drug to extend their patents.
They also bought legislation which makes it much easier to bring a minorly changed drug to market in the US. They only have to "prove" that it doesn't kill statistically significantly more people than the prior version (Usually in a bullshit study with too few participants to be sure.)
Re:Doctorow says legalize theft (Score:4, Interesting)
"... an "anti-circumvention" law that bans the kind of reverse-engineering that is the necessary prelude to modifying an existing product to make it work better for its users (at the expense of its manufacturer)..."
Reverse-engineering is a technique for stealing intellectual property.
While it certainly can be, that is not the only use of it; you can document how it interacts with hardware and have a separate clean room to write code to accomplish the same thing. That avoids copyright infringement but allows you to still use the hardware. That's what enabled the PC revolution by Compaq introducing clones of the IBM PC.
It is NOT a "necessary prelude to modifying an existing product" unless that product is NOT yours.
That's a big part of the problem. Buying a product no longer means you 'own' it; due to licensing, security features and other restrictions on how you can use or resell an item you bought.
Re:Doctorow says legalize theft (Score:5, Informative)
reverse engineering is not a hurdle (let alone "the" hurdle) to have a proper it infrastructure and tools
It actually is in a lot of cases. It's pot luck if anything we buy will last long term, and companies see fit to dick us around as/when they feel like it. It's only because people are willing to violate the law that joe public is able to somewhat even the playing field. Even then, we've still created a society which produces rampant amounts of e-waste and abandons perfectly usable hardware because the barrier of entry is too high for anyone but rich billionaires to take over support or offer alternative ways to use said hardware.
People used to reverse engineer everything to make it more usable and it was considered normal to do so even as little as 25 years ago. For example, nobody in the know used the official, vanilla clients for AIM, MSN, ICQ. Instead, people would write programs to hook into them or replace them out with compatible clients entirely, and developers would even charge money for these things. These days, if you try to do that, you'll be sued or users will have accounts banned. People would modify routers, smartphones, televisions, DVD players and even games consoles (you think Action Replay was officially licenced?) irrespective of what the intellectual property owners wanted to give people better control over what they paid good money for. Nowadays, we're seeing products being artificially crippled post-purchase and the abuse of intellectual property legislation to prevent people from properly using what they paid for.
The truth is that we need both reverse engineering and free/open source software (with open hardware) to undo the damage.
Re: (Score:2)
The truth is that we need both reverse engineering and free/open source software (with open hardware) to undo the damage.
I doubt we'll see open source/open hardware in any significant way; there is simply too much money to be made with proprietary stuff. Even if we do, bad actors will still try to circumvent things like the open source licenses. IIRC, Tivo tried that with their devices using DRM to prevent running modified software and there was some router software that the developer claimed was still beta and so did not have to release the code, even though it was based on OSS code.
Even right to repair laws, which may prov
Re: (Score:2)
It actually is in a lot of cases.
true. not my brightest post for several other reasons anyway. i didn't rtfa and the abstract cites "we can't reverse-engineer the US's cloud software, whether it's a database, a word processor or a tractor". american cloud infrastructure is not the same as a tractor. there are indeed a lot of different devices that have artificial limitations for users to operate with. i didn't even think of that because those items simply don't exist for me. whatever i buy, be it for home, work or hobby, it will be the ver
Re: (Score:2)
While it certainly can be, that is not the only use of it
but even if it were an answer, who would do it? with what support? the same people who has not even tackled the far easier task in the first place? as if passing some uk legislation would magically conjure a sprawling ecosystem of developers and enable it to do all that.
I suspect it will remain primarily the province of hobbyists and niche markets; for example the car coding scene and performance chips. Although in the performance chip area some aftermarket companies no doubt get help from the manufacture, so it's not really reverse engineering.
Wider adoption I suspect would be limited by lack of a big enough market to be profitable and potential liability f something goes wrong. I doubt many companies with the ability to revers engineer many systems would not want to do
Re:Doctorow says legalize theft (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, reverse engineering is already legal. What's not legal is starting w/ the blueprints of what somebody already made, but figuring out how they did it is perfectly legit
That's how ReactOS could do its project - by making sure it didn't replicate Microsoft's code. Somebody who independently creates/improves on an invention is not stealing squat
Re:Doctorow says legalize theft (Score:5, Insightful)
Reverse-engineering is a technique for stealing intellectual property.
Intellectual property is correctly protected by patents and by trade secrets. Once you have put something out to consumers, anything they can learn by looking at it is not a trade secret-- the definition of a trade secret [mitchellwilliamslaw.com] is that if it is disclosed to the public, it is not secret.
A law against reverse engineering is essentially inventing a new kind of prohibition, saying you can't look at what's inside something you own and see how it works.
It is NOT a "necessary prelude to modifying an existing product" unless that product is NOT yours.
Well, of course. Why would you need to reverse engineer your own product? You are agreeing with Cory here, reverse engineering is a necessary prelude to modifying somebody else's product to make it work better.
Re: (Score:2)
This is who Cory Doctorow is. He's not profiting enough from selling his stupid word, so he's being paid to promote terrible, Republican policies designed to benefit billionaires.
Huh? Cory Doctorow is a socialist. He wants to eliminate billionaires and make everything free. When this happens, the selection on every store shelf will be the same as it was at GUM before the Soviet Union collapsed.
Re: (Score:2)
Reverse-engineering is ALSO a technique for PRESERVING software for long-dead platforms.
Reverse-engineering is ALSO a technique for interoperability.
It has many uses, both legal and illegal.
Re: (Score:2)
No. Software is ideas. You can copy ideas, but you cannot steal them.
Not going to happen (Score:3)
The UK is busy planning the Brexit 'Reset', which means following the EU rules, regulations and accepting the ECJ.
Re: Not going to happen (Score:3, Interesting)
No need to pretend: some English sparkling wines are now very good. I particularly like Nyetimber. South east England has the same chalky soils as the Champagne region of northern France and climate change has improved the growing conditions, along with growth in experienced wine makers.
Re: (Score:2)
According to EU copyright rules reverse engineering is legal. So adapting EU rules would achieve the goal.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We already accept the ECJ, because it is not part of the EU and we never left it.
Re: (Score:2)
The UK is busy planning the Brexit 'Reset', which means following the EU rules, regulations and accepting the ECJ.
And this is just the begining of what it needed to reverse the absolute disaster that is Brexit.
Also, we never left the ECJ, hence Farage and the usual suspects are still able to use it as an excuse to claim that the Brexit failure is not their fault. Also we've not really been able to escape EU regs because most of our exports go to the EU, hence we have to comply with them anyway (and a lot of them were UK regs before being EU regs)...
Let me guess, you're one of those people who believes the Daily H
Microsoft got their start (Score:5, Interesting)
Anti cheat (and other Palladium-derived ideas) is used as the ultimate excuse for proprietary software via security by obscurity, don't let "cheaters" take your freedom, because you're only cheating yourselves.
Re:Microsoft got their start (Score:5, Informative)
Apple paid Xerox.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
At the same time, everything that matters can be gotten in a FOSS version as well.
Simplified: (Score:5, Insightful)
He makes a good argument for the UK.
In the UK, reverse engineering is restricted under article 6 of the European software directive of 2001. US companies have capitalised on this fact – that British companies cannot modify their products – to spy on us and whack us with sky-high fees. Now, post-Brexit, the UK is uniquely able to seize this moment.
Thesis: The UK could make a lot of money by taking enshitified US tech producing versions people wanted. The law against reverse engineering is stopping UK companies from making a boatload of cash.
“OK,” they’d say, “you’ve definitely laid out the best way to regulate tech, but we can’t do it.”
Why not? Because – inevitably – the US trade rep had beaten me to every one of those countries and made it eye-wateringly clear that if they regulated tech in a way that favoured their own people, industries and national interests, the US would bury them in tariffs.
Rebuttal: Good idea but the US would punish the UK with tariffs.
[...] If someone demands that you follow their orders or they’ll burn your house down, so you do, and they burn your house down anyway well, you’re a bit of a fool if you keep on doing what they tell you, aren’t you?
Counterpoint: The US is punishing the UK with tariffs regardless.
Conclusion:
I think this is an excellent argument for the UK but I also know that things aren't that cut and dry. However, this is a fantastic business opportunity. I like Cory Doctorow because he's definitely all about software freedom. However, this would be an good opportunity to call upon some economists to get a few numbers on just how much money the UK could be making. Ideally he could appeal to decision makes not to get better software (because we know they don't give a damn) but this could be used to help the UK financially after it's taking a huge financial beating as a result of Brexit. It could also be used to stop the bleed of money to US tech companies because they are the dominant players. Still, it's a hard sell because you would silently be declaring war on foreign vendors. This is why it should be framed as being necessary as a result of flawed and broken products that companies have refused to fix, a matter of national security or framed as a measure of intellectual freedom. It's a good play but not without risk.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember, tariffs are paid by the importer....
Keep the products alive (Score:4, Insightful)
Apps and their underlying code should become public domain if the product is not being actively developed and supported by its owner.
Re: Keep the products alive (Score:3)
Not just apps, but device firmware, too
Re: (Score:2)
That only works if the entire product and all associated products with related IP go under. One of the big problems with many products is that IP actively lives on even as a product is discontinued, or that a product contains IP licensed from someone else and wouldn't function without.
Unfortunately we don't live in a bubble.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Same as with trademarks. If you do not have products out, the trademark expires.
I love it (Score:2, Offtopic)
Once the terrorists start killing the hostages, you no longer have any incentive to obey their demands.
While I'm still pretty pessimistic about getting 1201-like laws repealed everywhere, Trump's overall hostility and pro-war attitude should help.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump's overall hostility and pro-war attitude should help.
Yep. Nothing like an aggressive and openly criminal dumb teen-level person in command to drive people seeking alternatives. The US had it all. Now that is gone. Not the first empire or large enterprise to fail because it had too much power and forgot how to do things.
I mean invading a NATO ally? How deranged can you get? All that gets you is a NATO without you. And the US does not even have reasonable cold-weather capability, while Europe and Canada have that. If there really is an invasion, the reminder of
why need to reverse-engineer? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Until we repeal the anti-circumvention law, we can’t reverse-engineer the US’s cloud software, whether it’s a database, a word processor or a tractor, in order to swap out proprietary"
I like Cory and I've read a couple of his books, but there is plenty of open source software out there already for databases. word processing, and many other basic daily utilities. Nobody has to use "the US’s cloud software" either. Clearly there are viable alternatives to the Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Apple ecosystems, no hacking required.
I do agree that tractors and other 'right to repair' devices should be open game for reverse engineering.
I don't see how (Score:3)
I suspect any reverse engineering legalization would result in a DRM arms race, probably ultimately ending with the next generation video DRM being semi-hardware based (ie the H.266 decoder would have to do it, and would have to talk directly to the graphics card with no way to capture any images it decodes.)
And over time, yes, that'd be broken, but without a public software implementation, it'll be rough. So in practice the best we'll get is camming monitors, which is far from ideal for obvious reasons.
Enshittification will continue until we have a government that's willing to rein corporations in and not simply use "freedumb!" or "But unintended consequences!" as an excuse to sit on its hands about everything concerning consumer protection. Letting the market decide has turned out to be a failure because thanks to advertising "the market" is no longer based upon who gets the product.
We need radical change if we ever are able to get power again.
Re: (Score:2)
probably ultimately ending with the next generation video DRM being semi-hardware based
The current gen video DRM is semi-hardware based... (see HDCP) I'm not sure what you're talking about.
This is not a request for a new right (Score:4, Insightful)
We have had the right to understand and repair stuff for all of history
Preventing understanding and repair is a new idea, forced onto us by evil corporations
The right isn't enough. (Score:2)
I got hit by the fun side of this by a repair friendly company today. My wet/dry vac switch broke. The part which broke is part of the a circuit board with a BOM of maybe 15EUR. I have the ability to replace it so there's no labour cost involved. They want 95EUR for the replacement part + 20EUR shipping. The same model vacuum is 159EUR with free shipping and comes with new filters and 5 bags (along with new accessories, not that there was anything wrong with the old ones).
We don't just need a right to repai
What did I miss? (Score:2)
Since when is "reverse engineering" illegal?
And how do you prevent me from reverse engineering what evert I want?
Re: (Score:2)
It's almost like they wrote it right in the summary for you to read with a link that can answer your question with enough detail to point to the exact clause of the exact law being referred to.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, ... so no idea what the links point, too :-P
there is no such law
Good luck (Score:2)
Big techs lawyers will be all over this
I agree (Score:2)
Copying drives progress. That has always been the case. What you get as inventor is being ahead. If you stop being ahead, you have no business defining technology.