In 1995, The Baltimore Sun reported that for decades NSA had rigged the encryption products of Crypto AG, a Swiss firm, so US eavesdroppers could easily break their codes. The six-part story, based on interviews with former employees and company documents, said Crypto AG sold its security products to some 120 countries, including prime US intelligence targets such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Yugoslavia. Crypto AG disputed the allegation. It's a popular practice. Probably not, said Gilmore, who during a previous job paid a programmer to spend months disassembling parts of Adobe's PostScript interpreter.
Reverse engineering is real work.
The average company would rather pay an engineer to build a product rather than tear apart a competitors'.