From: Jon M. Taylor <taylorj@ecs.csus.edu>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 13:40:06 -0800 (PST)

Re: STB and S3 tech specs

On Thu, 11 Feb 1999, Marcus Sundberg wrote:

> Jon M. Taylor wrote:
> >         Because releasing their specs would allow their competitors to
> > reverse-engineer their hardware.  If you know the register layout, you can
> > hook up a logic analyzer to the chip(s) and discover exactly what the
> > internals of the chip are.  EXACTLY, down to the individual logic gates!
> > And since that layout is a trade secret and not patented, if your
> > competitors figure it out they can clone it 100%, not pay you anything,
> > and get rich.  This _has_ happened, exactly as I described above, many
> > times in the past.
> 
> Hmm, I would have thought that disassembling and understanding a
> binary driver would not take any time worth mentioning compared to
> reverse-engineering a chip?

	Not if you obfuscate the binary.  Simply making extensive use of 
macros and inlined functions will render the binary a spaghetti-like mess 
which is a nightmare to trace through.  That is probably why Glide hasn't 
been reverse-engineered yet, in spite of all the smack people (myself 
included) have talked about it over the past two years or so....

Jon

---
'Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in 
becoming one with God.'
	- Scientist G. Richard Seed