how do you “reverse engineer” something?
In: 64
In normal engineering you go: Function -> Requirements -> Methdos -> Product. Reverse engineering is quite literally the same process but in reverse. You take a product (Object, program, building… whatever it doesn’t matter), then you look at it to figure out the methods used to make it, then you consider the requirements that it had to meet, then lastly the function.
Since you can achieve one result via many means, reverse engineering is that you try to figure out what means were used to achieve that result. Example if you want to reverse engineer a pie, it isn’t enough that you know the ingredients, they are listed at the back of the box. You need to carefully consider how the ingredients were mixed, used, in what order; how was the dough made, how the pie was put together and what order, how and how long it was baked for.
Lot of it is trial and error, but there are people specialised in this. Not for corporate espionage purposes or to copy products; but because there are many things in our modern world people don’t know how they exactly work or how they were made. You’d be surprised how many critical systems like banking and infrastructure run on systems that have hardware and software so old, that the people who know how it works and how it was made have simply died of old age. Reverse engineering is needed to figure out why and how, so they can be fixed or new one be made. Because if a system is otherwise functional, you don’t want to remake it all because one component failed and couldn’t be replaced. So you reverse engineer that component to fix the system. Then you are left with a patchwork mess of a system where only failing parts get attention and you run to shit like Y2k even when we first knew about it in 1958 and still shat our pants in late 90’s fixing it. Or where you have critical infrastructure systems like water or power that have untold critical failure points because they are 50-100 years old and left ignored because “*They still work and pre-emptive maintenance is expensive and brings no quartely benefit”*.
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