Through our conferences, publications, and research, the ACM works to promote the development of excellent software products and computer services. Perhaps this is appropriate for some defects, but not for the ones the publisher knew about when it sold the product. The only limits on these bans require litigation of each and every use that a computer researcher might reasonably pursue to improve a product or correct a flaw in a program.
Software developers can freely reverse engineer mass-market products under current law.
Reverse engineering is a widespread, standard, critically important activity in the software engineering and research communities. Many of the Y2K bug fixes have required reverse engineering. It is hard enough to solve the technical problems without the creation of additional legal hurdles. It will impede computer research and potentially threaten public safety as the problems with Y2K, computer viruses, and software bugs become more widespread. The term does not include computer instructions that control the interaction of a computer program with other computer programs or with a machine or device.