Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing a product or system to understand its design, architecture, and functionality. This can involve deconstructing a physical object or a software application to discover how it works, often with the aim of reproducing or improving upon it. In software, reverse engineering can include inspecting code, data structures, and algorithms to gain insights into how a program operates, while in hardware, it might involve disassembling components to examine their physical properties and interconnections.
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This is what society gets for not using open knowledge: some of its best minds will be bound to waste endless hours reversing some useless technology.
With that said, even when you do have the source code, reading run logs and using debuggers are a sort of reverse engineering at heart.
One of the most jaw dropping reverse engineering projects Ciro has ever seen is the Super Mario 64 reverse engineering project.