Re: Reverse-Engineering Bytecode: A Possible Commercial Objection To O'Caml

From: Vitaly Lugovsky (vsl@ontil.ihep.su)
Date: Sat Jun 10 2000 - 00:06:39 MET DST

  • Next message: Markus Mottl: "Re: polymorphic variants"

    On 8 Jun 2000, Daniel Ortmann wrote:

    > > 1) Reverse engineering is legal in many european countries.
    >
    > I did not know that.

     But, sure, it is completely legal, for example, in Russia. And license
    conditions which prohibits reverse engeneering, like M$ license, is illegal ;)

    > Is "making it hard to reverse engineer" illegal? :-)

     No. But I can't see a way to make it hard.

    > ... But the answer would be: Don't distribute the actual encryptiong directly
    > with O'Caml, just the hooks.

     Yeah, like it was in Linux kernel: kernel from US, and concrete cryptographic
    functions from Europe.

    > a) I am NOT saying "Everything should be encrypted". Absolutely not. I am
    > saying "Consider what might need to be done technically to make such a
    > thing possible."

     It is possible, but it is completely uneffectife.

    > I just "reverse engineered" emacs byte code by doing
    > <control> x <control> r ~/.emacs.elc ... and easily viewed actual lisp code.
    >
    > That's how easy it was. That's the kind of thing I was thinking about
    > avoiding.

     Java reverse engeneering is not much harder than Elisp ;)
    So, it'll be the same for OCaml.

    P.S. [offtopic] Fundamental science is just a reverse engeneering and violation
    of God's intellectual property. ;)

    --
    

    V.S.Lugovsky aka Mauhuur (http://ontil.ihep.su/~vsl) (UIN=45482254)



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