Reverse engineering

[Steve Gehlbach]

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).

But of course, IANAL.

-Steve