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It used to be that these kinds of protocols would be reversed and reimplemented pretty quickly. See Pidgin (GAIM) and countless other instant messengers. I wond

It used to be that these kinds of protocols would be reversed and reimplemented pretty quickly. See Pidgin (GAIM) and countless other instant messengers. I wonder what's happened - I see a lot less reverse engineering going on these days.

btrask 9y ago
Having done a fair share of reverse engineering in my time, I think the reason is that it's boring. Sure, at first it's fun: it's all about constantly solving new puzzles. But eventually you realize you're in a maze of twisty passages, all different. The challenges are artificial and meaningless and will continue forever as long as pointless incompatibility is incentivized. On the one hand, the people who can reverse engineer stuff got too good: either they got tired of it, or they're getting paid big bucks to do it professionally. On the other, (perhaps this is jaded) new programmers are just learning scripting/web technologies and never peel back the covers of how the system actually works. Perhaps reverse engineering proprietary products should be a mandatory tour of duty for young programmers, like military service in some countries. :)
throwaway2048 9y ago
https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/ Google play store APIs and protocols ARE being reverse engineered and re implemented. I run microG with store apps with no issues with everything I have tried.
- voltagex_ 9y ago
  I meant more broadly: no one's reimplemented AirDrop, and MicroG won't have this new one for quite a while.
  - true_religion 9y ago
    Did people used to widely reverse engineer protocols that weren't related to communications and chat? Doing it to a chat-app has an obvious benefit: you can use your own application with your custom UX, and connect it with multiple networks at once, or multiple accounts at the same time on the same network. Doing it with something like Airdrop is kind of a nebulous proposal. If you want to share files with someone next to you, and for some reason you hate Airdrop, then there's lots of other alternatives. Reverse engineering Airdrop gets you nothing special.
deleted 9y ago
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btrask 9y ago

Having done a fair share of reverse engineering in my time, I think the reason is that it's boring. Sure, at first it's fun: it's all about constantly solving new puzzles. But eventually you realize you're in a maze of twisty passages, all different. The challenges are artificial and meaningless and will continue forever as long as pointless incompatibility is incentivized. On the one hand, the people who can reverse engineer stuff got too good: either they got tired of it, or they're getting paid big bucks to do it professionally. On the other, (perhaps this is jaded) new programmers are just learning scripting/web technologies and never peel back the covers of how the system actually works. Perhaps reverse engineering proprietary products should be a mandatory tour of duty for young programmers, like military service in some countries. :)

throwaway2048 9y ago

https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/ Google play store APIs and protocols ARE being reverse engineered and re implemented. I run microG with store apps with no issues with everything I have tried.

voltagex_ 9y ago
I meant more broadly: no one's reimplemented AirDrop, and MicroG won't have this new one for quite a while.
- true_religion 9y ago
  Did people used to widely reverse engineer protocols that weren't related to communications and chat? Doing it to a chat-app has an obvious benefit: you can use your own application with your custom UX, and connect it with multiple networks at once, or multiple accounts at the same time on the same network. Doing it with something like Airdrop is kind of a nebulous proposal. If you want to share files with someone next to you, and for some reason you hate Airdrop, then there's lots of other alternatives. Reverse engineering Airdrop gets you nothing special.

deleted 9y ago

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