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“Stop reverse engineering our code”

blogs.oracle.com

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Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#51

Post by davidgerard »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #23

So, I disagree with the poster on a bunch of things here (no surprise, really). But: this is authentic. This is what we (i.e. hackers) are always claiming we want. Someone speaking her mind, shooting from the hip, etc. Not an anodyne blob of corporate-speak: this is an opinion, stated pretty clearly, and backed up with fighting words. You'd expect: "Our legal team has advised us to remind consultants that they are bo…

Ten out of ten for authenticity, minus several million for authentically saying something that's a good idea.

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#52

Post by davidgerard »

dagw wrote: post #48
reacweb wrote: post #33

Reverse engineering is legal in France for research and computer security ( http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTE... ).

Sure, but this is a contract matter between two private entities. Oracle can still revoke your license for doing it.

Are you sure that's an accurate statement about how it actually works in practice? Given you're answering a comment citing the precise law written to affect such private contracts when enacted in France.

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#53

Post by juliangregorian »

denwer wrote: post #4

Is that post for real? https://twitter.com/dinodaizovi/status/630972473945817088

Wow, she's the Chief Security Officer. I got the impression she was just a hired writer (she prefers writing murder mysteries?). This is looking really bad now, for Oracle's head of security to feel this way.

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#54

Post by agounaris »

I don't understand why everybody is mad about this post, oracle has proprietary software that is bound with a license.

In that sense I don't see why people do not moan about having to pay a rent because your tenancy contract that you signed says so...

Long story short, its a right of a SOFTWARE mostly company to protect its software, open source is not always the solution and reverse engineering something, consumes way more energy for the problems it actually solves.

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#55

Post by agounaris »

I don't understand why everybody is mad about this post, oracle has proprietary software that is bound with a license.

In that sense I don't see why people do not moan about having to pay a rent because your tenancy contract that you signed says so...

Long story short, its a right of a SOFTWARE mostly company to protect its software, open source is not always the solution and reverse engineering something consumed way more energy for the problems it actually solves.

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#56

Post by EdwardDiego »

> Generally, our code is shipped in compiled (executable) form (yes, I know that some code is interpreted). Customers get code that runs, not the code “as written.” That is for multiple reasons such as users generally only need to run code, not understand how it all gets put together, and the fact that our source code is highly valuable intellectual property (which is why we have a lot of restrictions on who accesses it and protections around it).

Your JDBC driver IP isn't that valuable, just give me the damned source code so I can figure out why my Postgres copy out stream is blocking when I insert it into your copy in stream.

/rant

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#57

Post by wolfgke »

juliangregorian wrote: post #42
Stratoscope wrote: post #37

> Q. If you don’t let customers reverse engineer code, they won’t buy anything else from you. > A. I actually heard this from a customer. It was ironic because in order for them to buy more products from us (or use a cloud service offering), they’d have to sign – a license agreement! With the same terms that the customer had already admitted violating. “Honey, if you won’t let me cheat on you again, our marriage is t…

The scorn for customers in general is palpable. Why is Oracle even allowing this person to be a voice for their brand?

> Why is Oracle even allowing this person to be a voice for their brand?

Because her text will probably only infuriate people that will arguably never be Oracle customers?

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#58

Post by dolfje »

Apart from the legal stuff and a lot off egocentric 'we can do it better', she has one point. There are many companies giving a lot of money for security, manually scrubbing all exploits that come out, create their own patches. While some lack the basic security guidelines. I think this money can be better spend upstream, to create tools so they can test patches for exploits better and create a faster security update release pipeline, so that all downstream and customers can rely on the security releases and that it can be released quicker to everyone. (Controversial: Maybe even adding automatic security updates to the package itself, like wordpress did, so that customer cannot be on a release with exploits)

Though saying to your client that they cannot reverse engineer to look for security problems, is totally not done! What is next? "Exploits will not be fixed, because the users has signed an agreement that they will not hack?"

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#59

Post by josch »

dolfje wrote: post #58

Apart from the legal stuff and a lot off egocentric 'we can do it better', she has one point. There are many companies giving a lot of money for security, manually scrubbing all exploits that come out, create their own patches. While some lack the basic security guidelines. I think this money can be better spend upstream, to create tools so they can test patches for exploits better and create a faster security update…

_She_ has that point (Mary Ann).
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