> MNAO analyzed some of the code and determined that the code provides functionality same as what is currently in Apple App Store and Google Play App Store.
Is this really legal? Because in my mind, providing the same functionality does not violate copyright, since the actual intellectual material is new. And I don't think Mazda has a patent on the ability to control your vehicle over an API.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/15/missouri_html_hacking...
Never know when they decide otherwise. "Hacking/cyber crime" is very wide and open term.
And how relatively easy lawfare can be brought against someone, especially if the person bringing it has infinite money and/or nothing to lose.
Do they? When it comes to reverse-engineering mobile app APIs, the usual strategy is to observe the network because it's so much easier than making sense of the disassembled binary.
Even if you can decompile, you'd generally use it as an aid to understand the network captures rather than using it as your primary source.
Additionally, MITM and trying things out on a toaster are one thing, doing the same on a 40k$ machine that can potentially make it impossible to do your commute is another.
This is IMO a prime example where the double team rev eng is key to success: one documents the API, the other uses it without having access to code (whiteroom)
> (A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201
As I understand it, car manufacturers prevent independent repair shops from lawfully obtaining some of the diagnostics information in the onboard computer by encrypting it with a key that sits on the very same drive. Said encryption is the "technological measure that effectively controls access" and using the key to decrypt it is "circumvention" -- naturally, of the "effective" access control.
(https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?def_id=17... to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner)
Mazda might be interpreting the SSL certificate as a similar measure and therefore use of the certificate to decrypt traffic as a similar violation.
[1] https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2023/10/2023-10-1...
There's merits to this claim if you're indeed implementing some advanced, niche algorithm but it definitely wouldn't apply here as all he's doing is calling HTTP APIs, a very generic and common thing to do.
One person views the "contaminated" decompiled code and writes a specification. A separate person writes the code based solely on the specification. This is an accepted method of demonstrating that there is no infringement.