FOSS Hacker's Reverse-Engineering Has Skype Seething

I hate to say it,... Heck, no I don't hate to say it, kinda relish it, actually,.... but,... "I told you so!!!" I just wonder if they'll go all "Sony America" on him?!?!

The article quotes Rob Enderle. That's enough for me.

Quoting Rob Enderle? Only if you made me..lol.

I'm not certain any of the "intellectual property" law concepts this article tosses around are at all correct. Given that the reverse engineering took place in a republic of Russia, no USA "IP" legalities may apply. It seems that all the "IP" blustering in the article is mainly for sowing FUD about the code.

The patent blustering seems particularly illogical. Something covered by patent theoretically is "disclosed": enough information is given in a patent application to re-create that covered thing. If SKype needed reverse-engineering, and it's patented, then reverse engineering shouldn't be necessary. That, of course, is logic, and thus may not be consistent with patent law, so your mileage may vary. Do not taunt happy fun patent.

Beyond all that, I believe, although I can't dredge up the references, that you're allowed to reverse engineer stuff in the US, for the purposes of improving the item in question. Lately, the DMCA has blurred this, but I don't think you can unquestionably deny anyone in the USA the ability to reverse engineer, You're certainly allowed to patent small improvements on patentable things.

So, my conclusion: Reality 1, Enderle, 0.

Enderle compares reverse-engineering to violating Rowling's copyrights on Harry Potter.

And the author of the piece still gets paid.

Life in Bizarro World.

With patent violations, or copyright violations for that matter, you can get an injunction against importers... So while some places in the world may be immune, the USA can still seize imported devices utilising it, and under the new bill floating around, block the URLs (& maybe IPs) at the ISP level to software downloads... So while Enderle is generally an idiot/shill, his overly general statements aren't off the beam.

Not even going to read the article since it references renta-troll, but how the h#ll do you reverse engineer a book, read it backwards?

That's right Koriel, and as a bonus, just like when you play rock music backwards, you find Satanic messages!

Quoting:I believe, although I can't dredge up the references, that you're allowed to reverse engineer stuff in the US

Nope, almost certainly not. I was told so by Rob Savoye at FOSDEM / Brussels. He told he thinks he has a problem if he ever tries to reverse engineer the DRM'ed part of RTSP (or was it RTMP; heck, I don't know the pesky now by Adobe-owned names); he told us in such case it might become impossible for him to enter Colorado again.

For example, look over here: http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.gnash.devel2/5580

Also, I have my doubts if reverse engineering and patents are mutually exclusive - though I understand the reasoning. Let's say an algorithm is patented by Skype, implemented in their software binary blobs and those blobs are reverse engineered: I believe in such a case the resulting code of the reverse-engineering may be patented. Of course, one might think Russia could care less, but given BSA has a strong grip on Russia (remember the Russian teacher who was put in jail as a result of laws lobbied for by BSA - and then Bill Gates asked if he could be released from prison!) I seriously doubt if one can get away with this.

So yes, I think Enderle for once makes sense; after all he only mentions copyright and not patents.

Reverse engineering works against copyright, provided that it's clean room. It is no help against a patent.

@hkwint,

May be a search on the Internet might shed some light on the legality of Reverse Engineering in US. Here are a few.

one

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/regulation/2004/03/01/us-court-r...

Another as https

Quoting: but how the h#ll do you reverse engineer a book

Well, first you get root through one of the numerous plot holes...