That's funny. I guess they realised that trying to prevent that would both be ironic and not particularly enforceable.

(I remember that in the cracking scene, many years ago, it was considered a "rite of passage" to crack your own tools like SoftICE, IDA, etc.)

If that was possible Apple would just put a label on their iPhones and say that you are not allowed to know or even try to know how it works and that would be the end of all repairability.

The reverse engineering prohibitions became standard contract boilerplate because apparently in the USA corporations can require people to "voluntarily" relinquish their rights in order to do business with them. They require all customers to agree not to exercise any rights that could lead to economic disadvantage for them. In any sane country, I'd expect such conditions to be considered abusive by courts.

Good to know. I've been told otherwise... Wonder if this is documented somewhere.

> But there's no rule that says that boilerplate contracts can't contain intimidating-but-ineffectual language simply to discourage people.

Yeah, it sucks. Most customers aren't really familiar with law and yet they're forced to resolve these ambiguities. There's also the fact legal proceedings are extremely disruptive and costly for the average person but are routine for large companies. So even if they're unenforceable in court they can still force compliance by threatening to take people to court in the first place.

It's essentially bullying in my opinion.

Also not a lawyer, but DRM might also belong on this list (DMCA).