First the Scary Stuff: What Kinds of Reverse Engineering Are Most Legally Risky?
By using the term “legally risky” here, we aren’t saying that the activity is certainly legal or illegal. We’re saying that these are areas where the law may apply so any researcher considering these steps should take the time to think it through and probably get some legal help. If your access to the code or computer system you are studying is conditioned upon agreeing to any contractual terms (e.g. End User License Agreements (EULA), terms of service notices (TOS), terms of use notices (TOU), a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), developers agreement or API agreement), you are at greater legal risk if your research activities do not comply with their stated terms and conditions. You should talk to a lawyer before agreeing to any terms and before studying any software distributed with such terms and conditions, even if you have come into possession of that code without agreeing to anything. It is extremely risky to disclose or use any information you obtained subject to an NDA or other ne
