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> to actually playing with competitors software after buying a license via a shell or a partner (very common practice done by startups) It can go further than
by fullspectrumdev 2y ago
> to actually playing with competitors software after buying a license via a shell or a partner (very common practice done by startups)
It can go further than that, it’s not exactly unheard of for companies to actively reverse engineer competitors software to try figure out its secret sauce.
Examples I’m aware of specifically being looked at as “competitive intel” in the industry I work in are stuff like antivirus or IDS signatures, WAF rules, and vulnerability check rules/scripts for scanning tools.
It’s not a bad thing either - I’ve had to reverse engineer checks/rules used by commercial vulnerability scanners to figure out why certain scanning tools kept having false positives.
- ygjb 2y agoIt goes further than "not unheard of". Clean room design (one team reverse engineers a product, then writes product specifications, then a new team implements a compatible product) is an established business practice to replicate a product while avoiding liability for copyright infringement.
- 082349872349872 2y ago> actively reverse engineer competitors software Automotive engineers used to rent competitor's vehicles, tear them down, rebuild, and hope the rental company didn't notice (or at least that their low level grunts appreciated whatever maintenance the engineers' low level grunts performed while putting everything back together, and kept their mouths shut)