@TheEmu

@elfine - no it is not called data mining. Data mining is a different activity altogether and is applied to the process of getting nuggets of information from huge data repositories.

This is true by definition and in an industrial environement. What exactly people call data mining most a the case is the fact to get informations on some sort of data file and it's maintly used for games to make wiki and other 3rd party programs for those games. Sometimes games's compagnies give some little info sometimes they don't at all. So like I said it's tolerated. Decompiling or reverse enginering apply only to executable code. There is NO NEED to decompile a file based of text or pure binary data.

You can take the definition of data mining exactly in the same way to you use the word Haker, people commonly use that word to design a personne who generally do something illegal, it is to totally false. The real definition of the term Haker is someone who is a true expert in his domain, this can be informatic or anything else. The firsts personne called Haker was a MIT studient.

I could go further since you are talking about Microsoft, historically Windows was a bad copy from the Apple Os and Atari Gemdos (but Atari had the rights from Apple to make their own Os similar for the Atari ST). The first DOS version from Microsoft made with IBM was litterally copied from the Amiga DOS. Do you think they didn't used any decompiling method ? In same way Microsoft and many others used free opensource code to make their own formats, this could be considered as a *****.

The only fact is I can't manage my collection without using my own program because of a lack of function in the iStripper app, to do so I need to use some of the iStripper files and to know how to deal with them.
I'm not sharing or selling anything.
I do not blame Totem either because their application can not meet my expectations, but if I can help them improve it, I'll do it.

Sorry, it's a bit of a subject, but I wanted to explain it with these comparisons. Anyway I'm going to stop to argue on it... it's sterile, we'll never see things the same way.

@elfine - we only disagree on the meaning of particular words and phrases. However the term "reverse engineering" does not only apply to executables it applies equally to any file. I have spent most of my working life (something like 45 years) on projects that required at least some, often a great deal, of effort spent in reverse engineering executable software images, data file formats and message formats.

@elfine

The fact you are looking into a file to search some information or just to know to what this correspond is usually called Data mining,

Data mining may include reverse engineering the format of a data file, but reverse engineering is a distinct activity that may be performed for other purposes as well.

@Wyldanimal

I agree with you, but arguing by analogy doesn't always work.

Can you open and Read a BOOK?
is that reverse engineering or hacking the Book?

If you analyze an author's style for the purpose of writing a new story featuring characters created by that author, that is probably the equivalent to hacking and may be a ***** of copyright law.

@TheEmu

Data mining is a different activity altogether and is applied to the process of getting nuggets of information from huge data repositories.

Well, to quibble if you are data mining a collection of HTML files you probably need to do some reverse engineering of the format before you actually dig for data.

I'm not a lawyer and I'm well aware that lawyer write things to protect their clients interests as broadly as possible. In the License Totem says "the Software or the Product". Both terms are more than a little ambiguous and the use of both implies that they are not the same. Perhaps "the Product" includes all the data files. Perhaps not. In the US reverse engineering a file format seems to be an acceptable practice. Certainly may large companies do it publicly all the time. I agree that working out file formats is a form of reverse engineering, but this may not be something that could be enforced in the US under the terms of the License agreement.

A fine line would be, if you Decompiled the Executable Binary file to determine how the data was read from the Models.lst file.

I agree and I don't know on which side of that line a judge would rule.

if I remember correctly companies like Microsoft and Oracle have argued very strongly that the internal formats of various files and message protocols used by their products are covered by the prohibitions on reverse engineering. When they have lost such arguments it was because of a special provison in the law that allows, in some circumstances, reverse engineering for the purposes of interfacing with other products.

Since there is very little law on the subject explicitly, a lot of the rulings have to do with industry expectations and whether a license has overreaching terms.

I have some friends who have acted as expert witnesses is reverse engineering cases. These were all about reverse engineering of source code. The winning argument often included either the presence of dead code in the defendant's product or a sub-optimal or erroneous sequence of commands

Well, to quibble if you are data mining a collection of HTML files you probably need to do some reverse engineering of the format before you actually dig for data.

No quibble at all - you may need to do some reverse engineering before you do the data mining, but they are two distinct operations, The first is directed to undestanding the file format, the second is directed to extracting data from the collection of files (e.g. by looking for clusters of data or correllations between features) rather than just interpreting a single file.

In the case of iStripper reverse enginerring the animation files by using a hex editor and looking for patterns in the data would not be acceptable (though it would be very hard to do). This is in principle no different to using a hex editor to look at a an understand a simpler file. There is of course a big difference in practice but the rules are written to cover the general case and in practice that reverse engineering simple file is usually tolerated even though it may ***** a strict interpretation of the licence (partly because it is simply not worth persuing any such *****)

Terminology in computing

Unfortunately many of our terms continue to evolve often driven by misunderstandings made by people who don't work in the field.

Data Scientist seems to mean "a magician who can make money out of data on one understands."

Reverse Engineering used to mean creating a design document that can be used to manufacture an existing product. Now it has a broader definition and I'm not sure what the limits are.

When I first heard the term hacker it meant a craftsman who used crude tools to create fine products. e.g. a cabinet maker who used an axe. (One of my uncles was a cabinet maker and he was familiar with this meaning.) Later the term meant a skilled programmer who created highly efficient code no one else could understand. A great hack was some code one one thought could be written in the available space. I seem to recall that some parts of the first Mac OS were described that way.

Since this thread has mentioned the Terms and Conditions and what is explicitly or understandably allowed, could someone please point out in those written term of the EULA where I have given the software, and therefore Totem Entertainment the right to cause my computer to access the internet through any available network connection when I start the program while off-line.

@Chicsans

please ask this in a different thread.
thank you...

@Chicsans - the nearest I can find is

Each time you launch the Software to play the Product, you hereby give your consent to Totem Entertainment to remotely install any Updates to the Software that resides on your computer, with or without additional notification to you.

which doesn't cover all cases but does imply that they can do it in order to determine if the particular case of remotely installing updates needs to be invoked.

@TheEmu

No, it doesn't cover all cases. To me that implies that IF my computer is connected to the internet, then that connection can be used as stated.
If I am not connected to the internet, having an application ***** a network connection is a breach of my privacy.
I find that when starting any other program on my computer while it is off-line a notice that I am not connected will appear. Heck, even Windows has the decency to wait until I connect before trying to do an update. Web browsers don't ***** a connection, nor does my anti-virus.

@chicsans - if I am not connected to the internet then iStripper does not ***** a connection. It will use a connection if one is available but it will not establish one where none already exists. Does yours behave differently?