Xref: utzoo misc.legal:16891 comp.software-eng:3349 comp.sys.mac.programmer:13850 rec.games.programmer:1751
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!dahlia!mjhsieh
From: mjhsieh@dahlia.waterloo.edu
Newsgroups: misc.legal,comp.software-eng,comp.sys.mac.programmer,rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Software Copyright Law
Keywords: European Community, copyright, reverse engineering
Message-ID: <22992@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 7 Apr 90 23:20:23 GMT
References: <1093@goofy.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Followup-To: phsieh@watshine.waterloo.edu
Organization: University of Waterloo
Lines: 25


    About how easy it is to disassemble a program. It's not as hard to do as
some people make it out to be. I know in the case of MSDOS, *.COM files are
a cinch and at least modifing *.EXE files is not too difficult. I speak from
personal experience. Furthermore I use a program which does a lot of the
conversion to assembly language automatically and totally correctly (for 
*.COMs). Self modifying code is the only thing that has eluded me so far but
that is because I've rarely come across it (actually come to think of it one
of the earlier versions of Microsoft's GRAPHICS.COM was self-modifying and
as I recall not too difficult to pry apart ... ).

    Hence I believe the argument that programs are too difficult to disassemble
is unfounded. Don't get me wrong though. I don't support that ridiculous
copyright proposal. I would also like to point out that after a person has
disassembled and sufficiently modified some code it is quite impossible to
prove that the source was not original by looking at the modified version.
Furthermore I would never support anything that IBM was so fully committed to
:).

    Just thought I'd add my 2 cents worth.


Paul Hsieh

The opinions above belong to those who believe them.