On Wed, 2003-05-21 at 13:48, Steve Gehlbach wrote:
ollie lho wrote:
If you are tracing the code with some kind of debugger rather than disassembly the binary image, does it matter if the image is encrypted ?
I guess it depends on why it is encrypted, and why you are tracing it. Encryption for copy protection, and access protection (ie movies and e-books), is covered by the DMCA. The language of the law is "circumvention", which basically means getting around the protection mechanism, and I don't think it matters how you do that, tracing, decrypting, whatever. There is an exception for reverse engineering for the purpose of developing interoperable software. For the case of a BIOS, one is developing interoperable software so it seems to be an exception, if the BIOS is encrypted (as in the Xbox).
Then why a DVD player with DeCSS not a "interoperatable" software ?