[plug] Reverse Engineering

[Earnshaw, Mike]

Pluggers,

Not sure if this falls into the OT bucket ... apologies if it does.

I have a need to be able to reverse engineer an application to verify
information and progress reports given by the third party. It is all
cloak and dagger stuff and I appreciate there would be legal
implications here. My quick question would be: "How hard is it to
reverse engineer an application?" I don't know at this stage what it is
compiled in [I am sure I can find that information]. A second question,
"How messy or what problems would be encountered" [I appreciate this is
a ball of string as I don't have more details than this at this stage].

Any comments would be appreciated. I am not a programmer by any means,
unless you count the "Hello World" style program as some monumental
achievement!. I have a basic understanding for programming principles
[gained in m$, ada, pascal] which may not be suitable here. No exposure
to C/C++.

Many thanks in advance,

Mike