Reverse engineering

Reverse engineering is the analysis of an existing system to infer its design, behavior, or implementation from available evidence, often without access to its original specifications or source.

Black-box testing: Testing software by supplying inputs and observing outputs without examining its internal code. It reveals a system’s behavior when its implementation is hidden.
Software interoperability: The ability of software systems to exchange information and use one another’s services. Reconstructing undocumented formats can let independent systems communicate.
Industrial espionage: The covert acquisition of commercial or technical information for competitive advantage. It can involve similar analysis, but relies on secrecy or improper acquisition.
Forward engineering: The process of designing and building a system from requirements or specifications. It proceeds from design toward implementation, opposite the inferential direction here.
Interoperability: The ability of different systems or organizations to work together by exchanging and using information. Reverse engineering can enable compatibility across otherwise closed technical ecosystems.
Static analysis: Analysis of software without executing it, often by examining source code or compiled artifacts. It extracts structural clues directly from files and code.
Malware analysis: The study of malicious software to understand its behavior, capabilities, and effects. Analysts reverse engineer malware to uncover hidden behavior and functionality.
Samuel Slater: An English-born American industrialist who brought textile-mill expertise to the United States in the late eighteenth century. His transfer of textile technology illustrates early industrial knowledge replication.
Software testing: The execution or inspection of software to assess whether it meets requirements and behaves as intended. Testing evaluates correctness; reverse engineering seeks to infer how a system is built.
Copyright law: The body of law governing rights in original expressive works, including software code. Legal rules shape which forms of copying or analysis are permitted.

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