I want to look at the code of a certain app, without modifying it. Is that fine accordingly to EU laws ? Btw, sorry if I posted this in the wrong place.
4
-
What does the App TOS or EULA say about reverse engineering?– BlueDogRanchCommented Jun 13, 2019 at 23:56
-
Do you need to break some encryption scheme to look at the code?– George WhiteCommented Jun 14, 2019 at 1:10
-
I do not need to break any encryption, just to decompile it.– TelnoCommented Jun 14, 2019 at 10:58
-
You say "I want to look". That may be legal. Do you want to do anything else that you forgot to mention? Do you want to use that information for any purposes? Things that are legal may become illegal if you do them to further some illegal goal.– gnasher729Commented Jun 15, 2019 at 7:39
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
Yes. Even if you needed to break an encryption scheme or blow-up a protective box, it's your right to take anything you own apart or reverse engineer software algorithms.
Be careful, however, about using anything you learn. For example, don't sell copies if there are patents, don't use knowledge of the innards or knowledge of software keys to circumvent security/safety. And, you might want to keep what you've learned secret to avoid enabling others to do anything similar. For example, don't publish (e.g., on Youtube) a nuclear bomb teardown, or a new analog descrambler teardown, or MP3 bits, or the source code for software. Even if software is free, many license agreements will prevent you from distributing it, just like a copyright.
