cultural/political studies on Reverse Engineering ?
Dear IRs, First of all, I'm following this mailing-list with great attention since more than a year, and it's the first time i'm posting something, so : thanks for existing ! :) I'm doing some research on cultural aspects and political implications of Reverse Engineering, understood as a specific way to interact with devices and to learn. I've started some field studies and already get some good bibliographical references about reversing of Skype, DRM, or general considerations on regulation and law issues attached to that topic. But, until now I didn't find something that do a zoom-out on cultural and political contexts of this practice. Maybe one of you have heard on something ? Or could suggest a trail to follow ? Thank you, All best, Antoine Mazières
Hi Antoine, You'd probably be interested in Fravia <http://www.searchlores.org>. He started out as a reverse engineer, then moved to hacking search engines (in the sense of working out how to use them *really* effectively), then focused on cutting through the bullshit which he saw as plaguing our times. He saw all of these as different aspects of reversing; as vital for personal and collective political and cultural wellbeing. He wrote extensively on his website as to why he saw this as so important. Also if you haven't yet I'd look at some of the free software folks reverse engineering drivers. I get the impression that for a lot of them it's something they wish they didn't have to do (as the manufacturers ought to write drivers and explain how their devices work), but it's something that "needs to be done." Good luck with your work. Nick White
You could look into the conflicting cultural-legal expectations over the reverse-engineering of IP controls (ala DMCA in the USA) regarding movies and music (ie, Felten, Lessig, et. al). Think about folks who reverse-engineer an MP3 DRM scheme to "jailbreak" the song so it can be played anywhere, anytime -- without the original owner's approval. Reverse-engineering also plays a big role in the investigation of cybersecurity risk and vulnerabilities ... ie, folks looking to see what a vendor patch "patched" and/or exploring ways to break into systems just to find vulnerabilities either for malicious intentions or out of a desire to improve Internet security. Going back to what I said above, for 10 years, the DMCA -- a law in the US designed to protect an owner's rights to their intellectual property -- was used as a cudgel to keep security researchers from reverse engineering software products and publicising their results. Thankfully, the Library of Congress just carved out an exemption to allow such reverse-engineering activities, which many in the cybersecurity world have wanted for years. Reverse-engineering is one of those areas that blurs the lines between commercial law, property ownership, cybersecurity, and the evolving social/consumer expectations of information ownership and use. Should be a fun topic for you to explore! -rick On Sep 27, 2010, at 05:22 , Antoine Mazieres wrote:
Dear IRs,
First of all, I'm following this mailing-list with great attention since more than a year, and it's the first time i'm posting something, so : thanks for existing ! :)
I'm doing some research on cultural aspects and political implications of Reverse Engineering, understood as a specific way to interact with devices and to learn.
I've started some field studies and already get some good bibliographical references about reversing of Skype, DRM, or general considerations on regulation and law issues attached to that topic. But, until now I didn't find something that do a zoom-out on cultural and political contexts of this practice.
Maybe one of you have heard on something ? Or could suggest a trail to follow ?
Thank you,
All best,
Antoine Mazières
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participants (3)
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Antoine Mazieres -
Nick -
Richard Forno