>>>>It is certainly not illegal software. No more so than a car can be used as a deadly weapon.
>>>
>>>This metaphore is simply wrong. It suggests that ALL decompiler/crack software is legal. Is that really your point of view? I can't imagine...
>>
>>Try to read a bit deeper Peter. Cracking software is not, or should not, be imo by and in of itself illegal. Many hacking/cracking tools can be dual purpose depending on the person who uses it. Must we outlaw all tools that can be used for malicious purposes? Must we outlaw password crackers, network sniffers, decompilers, keyboard loggers, etc, because they can be used against us? If so then we should outlaw VFP itself because it can be used to develop applications with malicious purposes.
>
>Okay, now it is clear where your opinion essentially is based upon. You regard ALL tools that can also be used for the good, as okay, allowed and legal. And there is always at least one good use, of course: someone might loose the source code and now can use this cracker tool to reverse engineer things. "Great little tool, thanx man."

You are trying to solve the wrong problem. There is no point in making illegal a specific tool which can be easily replaced with another tool. Plus, Refox in particular seems to have saved many people in this forum as the requests for recovering lost source code seems to be a regular one. Hence, it is a proven useful tool.

The decision as to whether any specific tool should be outlawed or not should be based on the benefits of the tool to society vs. the costs of the tool to society.


>Do you realize the ultimate consequences of this pov? If you were the worldwide operating judge, everybody, every company, small or big, can legally develop any type of cracker tool and everybody who tries to protect its source code, is doomed to fail and has no legal argument to use in court when trying to prevent the distribution of such tools. It would mark the end of this IT area.

Yes, its good to stay grounded in our debate. There are tools and there are tools. The tools we are discussing have absolutely legitimate uses. What you are mixing up is the tools vs. the usages to which a tool is applied by a person. You want to outlaw Refox. This is such a narrow attack that it is (a) pointless and (b) without merit as it has proven beneficial uses. You should rather focus your attention on the usage of a tool rather than the tool itself.