[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I don't acknowledge that reverse engineering violates any right to privacy.
Send someone a plaintext message in a postcard. If I read it, I can
claim that I could not help but read it when I saw it -- so, I had
no intent to break your privacy and you cannot prove otherwise.
However, if the message is encoded or encrypted and I manage to read the
plaintext then I can no longer claim I had no choice and no intent. Actually,
I must have spent time and work in order to break your privacy -- so, I must
have done it with intent.
"Reverse engineering" is done with the intent to break the protection built
into the product, between the user and the technology behind the software.
If this is done for your own private purposes and you tell no one, there is
not even a way for the producer to reach you. However, if you are
Microsoft and you reverse engineer code of a competitor (as MS did, with
Stac -- 1994) and stealthly use it in your own Microsoft product (as MS
did, in its DoubleSpace product) ... then, is that OK? Should that breach of
privacy be allowed?
Cheers,
Ed Gerck
