How difficult is it to reverse engineer technology?

[DarthTom]

After watching some Star Trek episodes in the various different series and [yes I admit it] watching Ancient Aliens as well as the multiple different conspiracy theories related to alien technologies, I was wondering if anyone with a background or understanding of engineering could explain how problematic the concept of 'reverse engineering,' anything is or not; technology that may be decades or even centuries ahead of its time?

I was thinking about this from our point of view. Lets say we time traveled to the 1st century around Jesus time and all we could take with us is something as simple as a cigarette lighter.

To a 1st century chemist/engineer I'd imagine that even a simple device like a cigarette lighter would be an impressive piece of technology - instant fire.

But, for our ancient ancestors to even consider re-engineering a simple device like a lighter they'd lack the components to begin with to reproduce the device.

They'd lack the butane to refill the lighter, the process to refine the gas to produce it. They'd lack a storage container to fill it. They'd lack a flint to ignite it. They lack the technology to make the plastic that it's held in. Etc. etc.

So, while reverse engineering is a great plot device for science fiction it would seem to me in reality not something that is practical if we possessed for example technology from the distant future.

Am I missing something?

 

[Icemizer]

Once you understand the basic concept of how it works replicating it with your current technology is only a matter of time. Take a small earthware container with soaked wick running down into oil topped by a flint and pyrite striker to ignite it and you have your lighter. Reverse engineering is not replication but recreating something with your current level of technology.

 

[RobertVA]

Many things require more elaborate support structure (materials, machinery chemicals etc)than a lighter.

A lighter isn't dependent on the plastic fuel tank or butane. Millions were manufactured with a nearly rectangular metal case and used a fuel that wasn't dependent on a pressure vessel to remain liquid. The fuel came in a mostly metal can which could be used to squirt the fuel onto an absorbent material in the partialy disassembled lighter. A wick drew the liquid up to the top of the lighter where a rotating wheel and wick assembly similar to those used in modern butane lighters ignited the vapors. A hinged cover over the flint, wheel and top of the wick retarded the evaporation of the fuel when the lighter wasn't in use.

Flint was being used long before the first century. Steel was already being used for weapons and other implements and much of a lighter's other structures could be made from brass, copper or bronze (or a fancy precious metal outer case). The fuel reasivor could even been made of ceramic or glass (maybe not a good idea for portable use). Since mass production techniques weren't being used by then interchangeable parts like replacement flints might have been a problem.

 

[DarthTom]

Many things require more elaborate support structure (materials, machinery chemicals etc)than a lighter.

I was just using that as one of possibly many examples.

Here's another one instead. If you handed an IPad 2 to the person who developed the original IBM computer would it even be comprehensible to the original developers?

Flint was being used long before the first century. Steel was already being used for weapons and other implements and much of a lighter's other structures could be made from brass, copper or bronze (or a fancy precious metal outer case). The fuel reasivor could even been made of ceramic or glass (maybe not a good idea for portable use). Since mass production techniques weren't being used by then interchangeable parts like replacement flints might have been a problem.

So you're saying that a first century Roman engineer could re-engineer a modern lighter with no problem?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Many things require more elaborate support structure (materials, machinery chemicals etc)than a lighter.

I was just using that as one of possibly many examples.

Here's another one instead. If you handed an IPad 2 to the person who developed the original IBM computer would it even be comprehensible to the original developers?

Flint was being used long before the first century. Steel was already being used for weapons and other implements and much of a lighter's other structures could be made from brass, copper or bronze (or a fancy precious metal outer case). The fuel reasivor could even been made of ceramic or glass (maybe not a good idea for portable use). Since mass production techniques weren't being used by then interchangeable parts like replacement flints might have been a problem.

So you're saying that a first century Roman engineer could re-engineer a modern lighter with no problem?

Reverse-engineering something like a modern computer is a non-starter because the critical components are microscopic and require electricity. Without the tools to properly analyze or even use the equipment you have no hope of reverse-engineering it.

A light is extremely simple and anyone with a little competence could take one apart and figure out how it works. Computers, not so much. Maybe the large computers from decades ago, where all components were larger and simpler, but not the computers of today.

 

[DarthTom]

Reverse-engineering something like a modern computer is a non-starter because the critical components are microscopic and require electricity. Without the tools to properly analyze or even use the equipment you have no hope of reverse-engineering it.

Could Eckert and / or Mauchly re-engineer an IPad as the inventors of the Univac? Or would the technology be beyond their comprehension?

I guess what I'm asking is at what point does re-engineering become an impossible task for people looking at unfamiliar technology?

In Star Trek for example many times the Enterprise crew easily were able to decipher and/or re-engineer alien technology. This seems improbable to me.

The UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I) was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Reverse-engineering something like a modern computer is a non-starter because the critical components are microscopic and require electricity. Without the tools to properly analyze or even use the equipment you have no hope of reverse-engineering it.

Could Eckert and / or Mauchly re-engineer an IPad as the inventors of the Univac? Or would the technology be beyond their comprehension?

I guess what I'm asking is at what point does re-engineering become an impossible task for people looking at unfamiliar technology?

In Star Trek for example many times the Enterprise crew easily were able to decipher and/or re-engineer alien technology. This seems improbable to me.

The UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I) was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC

Given the complexity of the hardware and the software, without sophisticated analysis equipment I maintain it would be impossible to reverse-engineer something like an iPad. Hell, even an iPod would be a big problem.

Obstacles:

* You can't analyze what you can't see. Modern microprocessors cannot be viewed at full detail except with electron microscopes.
* Specific electrical requirements. Screw up the power input to the device and you just blew it out, so good luck ever getting it to work in order to figure it out.
* Engineering knowledge. We're talking about materials, fabrication processes, and engineering concepts that wouldn't have existed. While you might be able to determine what it's made, without modern fabrication knowledge you'd have no idea how to mimic it. So much of the behavior of modern technology is governed by using specific materials in specific amounts in specific arrangements to carry specific electrical charges. Mess up even one bit of that and you have something that doesn't work at all.

While it might be possible to build something with the computational capabilities of an iPad with early-20th-century technology, it would require a huge amount of space and still be contingent on you understanding how it works in the first place, which I think would be insurmountable without a lot of additional knowledge and equipment that wouldn't exist.

 

[DarthTom]

Given the complexity of the hardware and the software, without sophisticated analysis equipment I maintain it would be impossible to reverse-engineer something like an iPad. Hell, even an iPod would be a big problem.

Obstacles:

* You can't analyze what you can't see. Modern microprocessors cannot be viewed at full detail except with electron microscopes.
* Specific electrical requirements. Screw up the power input to the device and you just blew it out, so good luck ever getting it to work in order to figure it out.
* Engineering knowledge. We're talking about materials, fabrication processes, and engineering concepts that wouldn't have existed. While you might be able to determine what it's made, without modern fabrication knowledge you'd have no idea how to mimic it. So much of the behavior of modern technology is governed by using specific materials in specific amounts in specific arrangements to carry specific electrical charges. Mess up even one bit of that and you have something that doesn't work at all.

While it might be possible to build something with the computational capabilities of an iPad with early-20th-century technology, it would require a huge amount of space and still be contingent on you understanding how it works in the first place, which I think would be insurmountable without a lot of additional knowledge and equipment that wouldn't exist.

Thanks Robert Maxwell, that's what I thought. So the notion that say the Nazi's [even if you accept as true that they captured alien technology] some how reverse engineered an alein craft is equally as proerpoetous as Starling [as in the Voyager time travel episode] where he is able to reverse engineer 29th century technology.

The problem as I understand it is that the engineers looking at future or alien technology would lack a common frame of reference?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It's a bootstrapping problem.

In order to reverse-engineer something, you must be able to study how it works.

If you cannot effectively study how it works, you're hosed.

Starling had the benefit of a working timeship which probably contained a vast database on the ship's operations, and perhaps a more general Federation database from which he could glean all sorts of technical information. While it may not tell you exactly how to build a microprocessor, I'm sure it would have enough detail to give you all the technical knowledge needed to develop one. Once you know what a transistor is, how to build it (in principle), and what logic gates are, you've got the groundwork for a CPU. From there, it's really all about materials technology--how small can you make this stuff and what can you make it out of?

Taking a totally alien craft and reverse-engineering it is a much taller order since you wouldn't have any context.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Given the complexity of the hardware and the software, without sophisticated analysis equipment I maintain it would be impossible to reverse-engineer something like an iPad. Hell, even an iPod would be a big problem.

Obstacles:

* You can't analyze what you can't see. Modern microprocessors cannot be viewed at full detail except with electron microscopes.
* Specific electrical requirements. Screw up the power input to the device and you just blew it out, so good luck ever getting it to work in order to figure it out.
* Engineering knowledge. We're talking about materials, fabrication processes, and engineering concepts that wouldn't have existed. While you might be able to determine what it's made, without modern fabrication knowledge you'd have no idea how to mimic it. So much of the behavior of modern technology is governed by using specific materials in specific amounts in specific arrangements to carry specific electrical charges. Mess up even one bit of that and you have something that doesn't work at all.

While it might be possible to build something with the computational capabilities of an iPad with early-20th-century technology, it would require a huge amount of space and still be contingent on you understanding how it works in the first place, which I think would be insurmountable without a lot of additional knowledge and equipment that wouldn't exist.

Thanks Robert Maxwell, that's what I thought. So the notion that say the Nazi's [even if you accept as true that they captured alien technology] some how reverse engineered an alein craft is equally as proerpoetous as Starling [as in the Voyager time travel episode] where he is able to reverse engineer 29th century technology.

The problem as I understand it is that the engineers looking at future or alien technology would lack a common frame of reference?

Starling reverse engineering the tech bothered me for that reason. Same deal in Terminator 2 with Dyson and the processor. A lot of technology can't realistically be reverse engineered without irreversibly damaging the components, and the chances of getting anything useful from that is minimal. Think about how miniaturized components are today. Now imagine in the 29th Century. Not a chance someone from the 90s would understand a thing of that.
And then there's the software component, which you've have to successfully extract somehow first before pulling it apart.

Pretty much, unless you already know what you're dealing with, you don't even know how to reverse engineer it successfully. It's a destructive process to break it down to that level of understanding.

 

[farmkid]

It's a bootstrapping problem.

In order to reverse-engineer something, you must be able to study how it works.

If you cannot effectively study how it works, you're hosed.

Starling had the benefit of a working timeship which probably contained a vast database on the ship's operations, and perhaps a more general Federation database from which he could glean all sorts of technical information. While it may not tell you exactly how to build a microprocessor, I'm sure it would have enough detail to give you all the technical knowledge needed to develop one. Once you know what a transistor is, how to build it (in principle), and what logic gates are, you've got the groundwork for a CPU. From there, it's really all about materials technology--how small can you make this stuff and what can you make it out of?

Taking a totally alien craft and reverse-engineering it is a much taller order since you wouldn't have any context.

This is a good point. Starling didn't reverse engineer the whole ship. He learned something of the technology and used that knowledge to jump start the technology of his time. I don't think he understood everything about the ship, but he did learn enough to use some of the principles in the framework of contemporary technology.

 

[sojourner]

Yep, there is a difference between reverse engineering something and gaining incite from something. Just knowing a thing is possible is enough to accelerate development.

 

[Bill Morris]

My own reverse-engineering project is to make existing computers emulate the LCARS computers, working in a way similar to Windows (but without a mouse), such having a file manager and various programs and system functions, allowing a user to select a file and have the relevant program open to deal with that file in addition to allowing a user to select a program directly, which imitates Windows but is something we can assume LCARS computers do as well.

To make it faster and smoother than Windows, I broke some old programming rules that were based on limited memory and strorage space of the past, allowing my LCARS system to open a file or program in a fraction of a second, even on a computer with CPU of less than 200 MHz, or switch instantly between two (or a string of) programs. Another minor thing that's better is that if you copy a block of text to the clipboard and shut the computer off you can paste it into whatever file you like after turning the machine back on, since the LCARS system saves the clipboard.

Both Windows and my system can move a file instantly, because nothing is really moved; only its path name is changed. That's why Windows can do it so fast. But for copying a file to another folder, my LCARS system really is faster, because of some trickery on my part.

Of course, the file formats and keyboard functions are those in common use today, but the sounds are from Trek (voices and beeps) rather than from Windows.

The high screen resolution of LCARS computers on Trek is fake, done with backlit printouts, which have much higher resolution than today's screen displays. Both Windows and my LCARS system make up for that with antialiasing and come pretty close with hardware a few centuries behind. In the future, when screen resolution becomes as high as today's printouts, the software will be relieved of that burden.

On ENT, I think they used medical monitors, which have higher resolution than monitors for PCs.

 

[DarthTom]

My own reverse-engineering project is to make existing computers emulate the LCARS computers, working in a way similar to Windows (but without a mouse), such having a file manager and various programs and system functions, allowing a user to select a file and have the relevant program open to deal with that file in addition to allowing a user to select a program directly, which imitates Windows but is something we can assume LCARS computers do as well.

You're reverse engineering the faux computer interface as seen on Trek?


The dialog on the show seems to imply that Trek computers have the instantaneous ability to re-configure the screen display based on the users needs at that moment.

That's quite a task since sometimes the LCARS computer system seems to reconfigure its on screen interface through telekinesis with the user.

 

[Bill Morris]

My own reverse-engineering project is to make existing computers emulate the LCARS computers, working in a way similar to Windows (but without a mouse), such having a file manager and various programs and system functions, allowing a user to select a file and have the relevant program open to deal with that file in addition to allowing a user to select a program directly, which imitates Windows but is something we can assume LCARS computers do as well.

You're reverse engineering the faux computer interface as seen on Trek?


The dialog on the show seems to imply that Trek computers have the instantaneous ability to re-configure the screen display based on the users needs at that moment.

That's quite a task since sometimes the LCARS computer system seems to reconfigure its on screen interface through telekinesis with the user.

Yeah, but I don't have an advertising budget. Many TrekBBS members know about it, but it's not like it's advertised on TV or anything. It's designed to run on old computers that would otherwise be thrown away, not new ones, since virtually nobody is going to buy a new computer, strip off Windows, and install an LCARS system.

Most people who might want it don't have an old machine on which to intall it, but I have put up a gallery of screenshots so people can get some idea of what it's like:

http://lcars24.com/screenie.html

The standby screen is a working alarm clock (talking or musical) and calendar. So it'is useful even if one doesn't wish to use any of the various LCARS programs. And the color scheme of that clock screen (and the rest of the system) is selectable from among VOY, INS, and NEM, plus any of those in Endgame mode, for a total of six schemes. And the time display is selectable between civilian and military time.

About recofiguring the screen, on Trek that's for control programs to operate various functions of a ship, and maybe you want an array of buttons assigned to various functions. My LCARS system, of course, doesn't have software to control a starship, but just as Web pages can have their functions and layouts configured any way you like, LCARS 24 has something like Web pages, the layout and functions of which are specified in an LCARS-specific markup language called SFML that is similar to HTML but with LCARS screen objects and some functions HTML doesn't have, like rendering of MSD callouts.

One cool thing visually is that the system's bundled PowerPoint clone has an autorun option, so it can display the 90 or so included MSDs one at a time, switching every 30 seconds then starting over. But the screens for that can be anything you want, from your own jpeg photos to custom LCARS screens, charts, etc. rendered according to descriptions written in SFML. But there are also a couple of applets included that do 3-D animation.

So LCARS 24 has had only about 160,000 downloads, and Windows has hundreds of millions of users. By comparison my thing is unknown. But it's freeware and Microsoft has mass quantities of money to spend on advertising. Besides, Trekkies are a minority.

But the unique thing about it, to me at least, is how fast, smooth, and user-friendly it is. I get the feeling that other software makers don't care about that. It's like they assume users will have more respect for programs that waste their time. Many games have intentional delays, like between a mouse click and the resulting screen change.

 

[Christopher]

So, while reverse engineering is a great plot device for science fiction it would seem to me in reality not something that is practical if we possessed for example technology from the distant future.

This may be a side issue, but I think it bears pointing out that reverse engineering is not a science fictional concept. It's something that's done in the real world, the process of taking some device you've obtained, examining it, and figuring out how it works. It's used, for instance, in military intelligence or corporate espionage to analyze technology captured from the enemy or stolen from a rival company, so you can neutralize their edge or gain one of your own. For instance, in WWII, British intelligence reverse-engineered captured Enigma code machines in order to break German codes. It can also be used to figure out the workings of old devices whose origins have been lost, such as the Antikythera mechanism.

As far as a technological gap goes, I'm not sure an analogy with, say, ancient Romans is really a valid comparison for things like, say, Stargate Command being able to decipher and replicate Goa'uld or Ancient technology, or Voyager's EMH being able to reverse-engineer Borg nanoprobes. We have a lot of fundamental advantages our ancestors lacked. We have the scientific method. We have a basic understanding of the fundamental laws of physics. We have instruments that can study matter all the way down to the subatomic level. We tend to think that far-future technology will be incomprehensible, but no matter how advanced it gets, it will still be bound by the basic laws of the universe which we understand pretty well, will use the same fundamental forces we have codified, and will still be made of the same elements and subatomic particles that we already know about. (I get so sick of sci-fi shows talking about alien technology made of "elements unknown on Earth." Earth is made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe, and any elements we don't already have on the periodic table are going to be semistable at best and unlikely to last for more than moments.) So it's hard to believe that any future technology would leave us completely in the dark.

Look at how much our scientific understanding has let us advance our own technology in just 30 or 40 years. Plenty of us today use devices based on technologies that hadn't even been conceived when we were born, but it didn't take us very long to invent and exploit the advanced principles behind them. That shows the analytical power of our methods and the speed with which they can bring us understanding of something once incomprehensible. Actually having a futuristic device in hand to study directly, to see the principles in practice rather than having to imagine them ourselves and develop them through trial and error, would accelerate the process even more.

 

[sojourner]

^Yeah, if for example, aliens showed up tomorrow in an FTL ship but refused to give us the tech, the cat would already be out of the bag. Knowing it could be done would lead to massive research projects.

 

[MANT!]

One thing that was reverse engineered..

The B-29 Bomber was completely replicated as the Tu-4 Bull bomber..
there were significant differences, and some of the fire control radar systems on the B-29 were deemed too complex for exact duplication, but other systems were substituted that did much of the same things...
the Tu-16 and the Tu-95 are direct descendants..right down to the fire control systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4

http://www.rb-29.net/html/03RelatedStories/03.03shortstories/03.03.10contss.htm


Granted, the B-29 was simply 1 generation ahead of Russian airframe technology so the scientific concepts weren't too far ahead.. but even then there were severe problems...

 

[Saturn0660]

It also depends on your tech level... You might be able to come up with something close. Much as Goldbug talked about.
I'll point out the Tu-144. A copy of the Concord thought to have come from early stolen blueprints. Some have also thought that the Buran was mush the same way. Not so much "reversed", but copied/built at their tech level or their "improvements".

 

[Snaploud]

There also seems to be an assumption in the OP that future technologies will be very, very advanced from our perspective. Scientific advancement is not consistent across all fields, so a technology produced in the 29th century may be the result of many breakthroughs over the course of centuries or just one breakthrough after centuries of little discovery in a particular field.