Reverse engineering
Depending on the system under consideration and the technologies employed, the knowledge gained during reverse engineering can help with repurposing obsolete objects, doing security analysis, or learning how something works.
The process can also help to cut down the time required to understand the source code, thus reducing the overall cost of the software development.
[11]: 5 Reverse engineering is also being used in cryptanalysis to find vulnerabilities in substitution cipher, symmetric-key algorithm or public-key cryptography.
Reverse engineering aims to go beyond producing such a mesh and to recover the design intent in terms of simple analytical surfaces where appropriate (planes, cylinders, etc.)
A typical example of this would be the reverse engineering of a cylinder head, which includes freeform cast features, such as water jackets and high-tolerance machined areas.
Outdated PCBs are often subject to reverse engineering, especially when they perform highly critical functions such as powering machinery, or other electronic components.
Then, these images are ported to suitable reverse engineering software in order to create a rudimentary design for the new PCB.
Each layer of the PCB is carefully recreated in the software with the intent of producing a final design as close to the initial.
Reverse engineering is a process of examination only, and the software system under consideration is not modified, which would otherwise be re-engineering or restructuring.
Reverse engineering of software can make use of the clean room design technique to avoid copyright infringement.
[20] Other purposes of reverse engineering include security auditing, removal of copy protection ("cracking"), circumvention of access restrictions often present in consumer electronics, customization of embedded systems (such as engine management systems), in-house repairs or retrofits, enabling of additional features on low-cost "crippled" hardware (such as some graphics card chip-sets), or even mere satisfaction of curiosity.
The ReactOS project is even more ambitious in its goals by striving to provide binary (ABI and API) compatibility with the current Windows operating systems of the NT branch, which allows software and drivers written for Windows to run on a clean-room reverse-engineered free software (GPL) counterpart.
WindowsSCOPE allows for reverse-engineering the full contents of a Windows system's live memory including a binary-level, graphical reverse engineering of all running processes.
The task was traditionally done manually for several reasons (such as patch analysis for vulnerability detection and copyright infringement), but it can now be done somewhat automatically for large numbers of samples.
This method is being used mostly for long and thorough reverse engineering tasks (complete analysis of a complex algorithm or big piece of software).
Although UML is one approach in providing "reverse engineering" more recent advances in international standards activities have resulted in the development of the Knowledge Discovery Metamodel (KDM).
Typically, the automatic approaches trace the execution of protocol implementations and try to detect buffers in memory holding unencrypted packets.
A SEM needs to sweep across the area of the circuit and take several hundred images to cover the entire layer.
Next, the stitched layers need to be aligned because the sample, after etching, cannot be put into the exact same position relative to the SEM each time.
To extract the circuit structure, the aligned, stitched images need to be segmented, which highlights the important circuitry and separates it from the uninteresting background and insulating materials.
Reverse engineering is often used by people to copy other nations' technologies, devices, or information that have been obtained by regular troops in the fields or by intelligence operations.
Here are well-known examples from the Second World War and later: Reverse engineering concepts have been applied to biology as well, specifically to the task of understanding the structure and function of gene regulatory networks.
Understanding the structure and the dynamic behavior of gene networks is therefore one of the paramount challenges of systems biology, with immediate practical repercussions in several applications that are beyond basic research.
[44] Applications of the reverse engineering of gene networks range from understanding mechanisms of plant physiology[45] to the highlighting of new targets for anticancer therapy.
That is because most end-user license agreements specifically prohibit it, and US courts have ruled that if such terms are present, they override the copyright law that expressly permits it (see Bowers v. Baystate Technologies[48][49]).
[51][b] The unauthorised reproduction, translation, adaptation or transformation of the form of the code in which a copy of a computer program has been made available constitutes an infringement of the exclusive rights of the author.
It has therefore to be considered that, in these limited circumstances only, performance of the acts of reproduction and translation by or on behalf of a person having a right to use a copy of the program is legitimate and compatible with fair practice and must therefore be deemed not to require the authorisation of the rightholder.
An objective of this exception is to make it possible to connect all components of a computer system, including those of different manufacturers, so that they can work together.
Such an exception to the author's exclusive rights may not be used in a way which prejudices the legitimate interests of the rightholder or which conflicts with a normal exploitation of the program.
