Reverse engineering (also known as reverse technology), is a product design technology reproduction process, that is, a target product reverse analysis and research to deduce and come to the product processing flow, organizational structure, functional characteristics and technical specifications Design elements to create products that are close in function, but not exactly the same. Reverse engineering stems from the hardware analysis in the commercial and military fields. Its main purpose is to derive the design principle of the product directly from the finished product analysis without easily obtaining the necessary production information.
Reverse engineering may be mistakenly identified as a serious infringement of intellectual property, but in practice it may instead protect the owner of the intellectual property. For example, in the field of integrated circuits, reverse engineering can be used to find evidence if it is suspected that a company infringes intellectual property rights.
Reasons to reverse engineering are as follows:
1.Interface design Due to interoperability, reverse engineering is used to find out the collaboration protocols between systems.
2. Military or trade secrets. Steal enemy or competitor's latest research or prototype product.
3.Improve the document. When the original document is inadequate, and when the system is updated without the original designer, reverse engineering is used to obtain the required data to supplement the explanation or to understand the state of the system.
4. Software upgrade or update. For functional, compliance, security and other needs changes, reverse engineering is used to understand existing or legacy software systems to evaluate the work required to update or migrate the system.
5. Make a copy that is not licensed / unauthorized.
6. Academic / learning purposes.
7. remove the copy protection and camouflage login permissions.
8. File Loss: The reverse engineering often happens when the file on a particular device is lost (or not at all) and at the same time can not find the person in charge of the project. A complete system often needs to be redesigned on an obsolete system, which means that the only way to integrate the original functionality into a project is to use a reverse engineering approach to analyze existing pieces for redesign.
9. Product Analysis: Used to investigate how a product operates, its components, its estimated budget, and its potential for infringement.