Is reverse engineering ethical?

[Kaura]

I do not know
Is there some sort of equation or boolean function for ethics?

 

[phyzguy]

They used to teach us that if you weren't sure if something was ethical, imagine reading about it in the newspaper. If that thought doesn't bother you, then it's probably OK. If the thought of reading about it in the newspaper makes you cringe, it's probably not something you should do.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

They used to teach us that if you weren't sure if something was ethical, imagine reading about it in the newspaper. If that thought doesn't bother you, then it's probably OK. If the thought of reading about it in the newspaper makes you cringe, it's probably not something you should do.

These days one needs to consider whether you expect to read a straight, unbiased factual version in the newspaper, or a spin doctored skewed, version where a third party is guessing at your motives and assuming a nefarious intent and and only giving an exaggerated interpretation of little know federal regulations as context.

I only think of something as unethical if one cringes at the thought of a straight, unbiased factual version in the newspaper.

Who would bother to get out of bed, much less do anything useful if they lived in fear of the spin doctored, skewed version where the only context is a little known federal regulation also twisted all out of proportion to make it look like something illegal was done.

 

[jim hardy]

Reverse Engineering seems to me a tool that like any other can be put to ethical or unethical ends.

Using it to steal knowledge without working for it is like copying somebody else's homework,

using it to keep some old machine running that would otherwise go to the landfill is laudable IMHO.

In the nuclear power industry there exist several small outfits making reverse engineered replacements for obsolete instruments .

Big outfits like GE and Westinghouse simply can ill afford to continue making gizmos designed fifty years ago for which even the components are no longer made. They offer wholesale replacements at the system level, multi-million dollar undertakings that require retraining whole maintenance departments.

Allowing the maintenance guys to keep their old stuff in good repair until such time as the organization becomes ready to undertake drastic system level change is in my opinion the ethical and safe thing to do, and in the general public's best interest.

To quote Huckleberry Finn: "I've been there..."Right now I'm struggling to figure out how to replace the obsolete power transformer on a friend's microwave oven controller board. It's a built-in and needs to match the rest of her kitchen.
Not to mention the magnetrons in those things contain a small amount of thoriated tungsten that doesn't need to be migrating into new steel through metal recycle yards. My junk man says a half dozen microwave ovens will cause a truckload of scrap to be rejected - too radioactive.

The transformer has three windings and I'm trying to figure out what is their voltage.
If anybody here is a gray-haired Maytag engineer with access to archives-
transformer is marked 6170w1g022a
board is marked 6870w1a393a
both seem to be obsolete part numbers

old jim

 

[newjerseyrunner]

I reverse engineer things all the time, maybe not fully but sometimes it's not hard.

I was on the phone with a developer from a company that we contract work out to. I was asking about why the couldn't add a feature. They told me that I wouldn't understand how the software worked. I said something like "you have a 1.5GB data file that's replaceable, it's clearly a neural network."

I got about ten seconds of silence followed by "did you work here?"

 

[Work Hard Play Hard]

Reverse Engineering seems to me a tool that like any other can be put to ethical or unethical ends.

Using it to steal knowledge without working for it is like copying somebody else's homework,

using it to keep some old machine running that would otherwise go to the landfill is laudable IMHO.

In the nuclear power industry there exist several small outfits making reverse engineered replacements for obsolete instruments .

Big outfits like GE and Westinghouse simply can ill afford to continue making gizmos designed fifty years ago for which even the components are no longer made. They offer wholesale replacements at the system level, multi-million dollar undertakings that require retraining whole maintenance departments.

Allowing the maintenance guys to keep their old stuff in good repair until such time as the organization becomes ready to undertake drastic system level change is in my opinion the ethical and safe thing to do, and in the general public's best interest.
View attachment 114181
To quote Huckleberry Finn: "I've been there..."

Old jim

Great input. Have you ever run into old prints that are spec'd with "As Needed?"

 

[jim hardy]

Have you ever run into old prints that are spec'd with "As Needed?"

indeed, and "By Field" .Thanks for the feedback !