Re: snake oil

Bruce Schneier (schneier@counterpane.com)
Tue, 23 Jun 1998 18:10:43 -0500

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At 01:20 PM 6/23/98 -0500, Andrew Loewenstern wrote:
>Mike Stay writes:
>> Oops! Crypto challenges are provided for under the bill.
>> But any third-party analysis of software without the vendor's
>> consent is illegal.
>
>Will this provision stand up in court? There are many court cases that
>support peoples right to reverse-engineer software: the Phoenix BIOS case, and
>cases where vendors reverse-engineered Microsoft's proprietary API.

Yes. But in those cases there was not an explicit law preventing it. There is
no constitutional issue here; the court's job will be to uphold the law.

Bruce
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