is RCE legal?

[Dude VanWinkle <dudevanwinkle () gmail com>]

this qualifies for funsec due to the letter at the beginning from
Websense (Titled Websense Incenced :-) asking (not very nicely) for
the webmaster to stop posting their source code.

from http://www.chillingeffects.org/reverse/notice.cgi?NoticeID=2098#text_FAQID17147
--------------------------------------------
Question: Is reverse engineering legal?

Answer: Reverse engineering has long been held a legitimate form of
discovery in both legislation and court opinions. The Supreme Court
has confronted the issue of reverse engineering in mechanical
technologies several times, upholding it under the principles that it
is an important method of the dissemination of ideas and that it
encourages innovation in the marketplace. The Supreme Court addressed
the first principle in Kewanee Oil v. Bicron, a case involving trade
secret protection over synthetic crystals manufacturing by defining
reverse engineering as "a fair and honest means of starting with the
known product and working backwards to divine the process which aided
in its development or manufacture." [416 U.S. 470, 476 (1974)] The
principle that reverse engineering encourages innovation was
articulated in Bonito Boats. v. Thunder Craft, a case involving laws
forbidding the reverse engineering of the molding process of boat
hulls, when the Supreme Court said that "the competitive reality of
reverse engineering may act as a spur to the inventor, creating an
incentive to develop inventions that meet the rigorous requirements of
patentability." [489 U.S. 141 160 (1989)]

Congress has also passed legislation in a number of different
technological areas specifically permitting reverse engineering. The
Semiconductor Chip Protection Act (SCPA) explicitly includes a reverse
engineering privilege allowing semiconductor chip designers to study
the layout of circuits and incorporate that knowledge into the design
of new chips. The Competition of Contracting Act of 1984 allows the
defense industry to inspect and analyze the spare parts it purchases
in order to facilitate competition in government contracts.

The law regarding reverse engineering in the computer software and
hardware context is less clear, but has been described by many courts
as an important part of software development. The reverse engineering
of software faces considerable legal challenges due to the enforcement
of anti reverse engineering licensing provisions and the prohibition
on the circumvention of technologies embedded within protection
measures. By enforcing these legal mechanisms, courts are not required
to examine the reverse engineering restrictions under federal
intellectual property law. In circumstances involving anti reverse
engineering licensing provisions, courts must first determine whether
the enforcement of these provisions within contracts are preempted by
federal intellectual property law considerations. Under DMCA claims
involving the circumvention of technological protection systems,
courts analyze whether or not the reverse engineering in question
qualifies under any of the exemptions contained within the law.

-JP

_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.