Reverse Engineering

all the electronics I put together get mounted in briefcases

BOMB!

Oops..... Ah.... My mistake..... That's my watch.

Carry on.

That's only if you think that every battery or alarm clock looks like a bomb.

Well for a lot of us who have been around a long time, I am sure that you can recall that just about every bomb that was shown on TV or at the movie, had some kind of timing device/clock prominently displayed.

I suppose so, but it looks more like a bomb than a finger looks like a gun.

Yes, but if the finger isn't painted with international orange paint, how is one to know for sure?

Hey, its not only that,..... Do you where that finger has been?

I tried to get a comment from him but since he was in Florida so I couldn't, he was 20 feet under water

Was that?:-

algorithm

a set of ​mathematical ​instructions that must be ​followed in a ​fixed ​order, and that, ​especially if given to a ​computer, will ​help to ​calculate an ​answer to a ​mathematical ​problem

This is NOT reverse engineering.

It is simply repackaging existing electronics into a different container.

The kid's science teacher warned him not to take it into any classes, but he did anyway.

I feel that the staff grossly overreacted and the kid should have listened to the science teacher and avoided this whole fiasco.

perhaps you did NOT read and comprehend the thread prior to commenting. No one suggested this kid reversed anything. the author of the article was the one reversing.

I read the article, and comprehended it on the date that I read it, sometime in mid Sept.

Your question, "did he really design the circuits and assemble it" is what I was referring to.

Both your references are the same. Did you have a different website in mind for the second reference?

Cripes if that amount of harassment is worth 15 million someone owes me close to a half a billion for the idiotic nonsense I had to put up with in school.

But being the nice forgiving guy I am I will happily settle for $5 million in cash.

In your case the idiotic nonsense was probably self-inflicted.

Maybe you could parlay that into a visit with BarackO.

$15 million to finance a budding clock maker for brief case b--bs. Father I understand is also a political activist. I smell a setup.

They'd put me in jail for life these days for the shit I did when I was his age and a little older, not sent me up to visit the pres. This whole discussion is about the bed-wetting freakouts and the media attention that it brought. When I was his age, a cherry-bomb in a toilet would get you a suspention from school. Today a friggin CLOCK gets you expelled and sent to the whitehouse! What has the world come to?

Cherry bomb in the toilet? You must've gone to my high school!

I remember freshman year, I was sitting in English Class and I heard a loud boom. After class water was all over the hall floor.

I don't think they ever caught the kids who did it.

Back then, we thought it was pretty cool. Now I see them as troublemakers who are raising my taxes! It's all in the perspective!

"You kids GET OFF MY LAWN'

'Dam roller skaters...."

I think we should still jail your butt

GA! My sentiments exactly! An action initiated by someone that clearly understands our current liberal thought process designed to provoke a predetermined reaction for the sole purpose of suing a government organization.

I do have to wonder though how it is possible that degreed professional educators including the science teacher mentioned and trained law enforcement personnel could not discern the difference between a bomb and a simple electronic clock.

Bombs do have to contain an explosive or other harmful chemical which should have been easy to identify if present.

Interesting also that the family returned to the same area they supposedly escaped from don't you think?

In a previous post, I mentioned a kindergartener had plastic army soldiers attached to his baseball cap. The teacher notified the principal, and had the kindergartner expelled from school. A no gun policy was the reason!!!????

This is a true story. I couldn't make this stuff up.

In school? How about on this site?

If we were able to sue for each and every "Stupid Question" (and if the OP is Anon#1, dollars to donuts that that's one of the stupid questions), we'd all be able to retire, AND two or three of us could get together and buy the Koch brothers. (Why try to buy the government when you've got the money to own the guys already trying to buy the government? There's such delicious irony in turning the puppetmasters into puppets themselves.)

GA and I'm not even American

I've always understood reverse engineering to be a technique to dismantle/unravel a finished 'working' device to find out what it was made of and how it was made. Then to pinch bits (parts/ideas) to make your own similar device - perhaps better and cheaper commercially - maybe secretly for ulterior reasons.

In the case of the clock/bomb here, assuming reverse engineering was used, the kid must have had the original clock(s)/bomb(s)(drawings/circuits) to dismantle to found out what made them tick/bang.

In which case he has not invented anything.

On the other hand, if he built his clock from first principle by sourcing available parts and assembling them in 'working' order, then to him, he has invented a clock.

In terms of patent law, he has been unlucky, because if reverse engineering of an existing working device can be proved, then someone else has got there first. If reverse engineering can't be proved, then he can claim an 'invention'.

Unfortunately he will have trouble getting a patent because of 'prior disclosure'.

But either way, whatever the outcome, he is a clever lad.

Ignorance rules! It seems that the terrorists have already won in that a lot of people are so scared that they panic like a bunch of sheep. (Not a biblical reference)

To paraphrase a famous quote: You can scare some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. But you can't scare all of the people all of the time.

I couldn't agree more but the public is so easily fooled it was a set-up all the way

A set-up?

By whom?

The father, to incite the school to make stupid choices?

The father, to incite the school to make stupid choices and the police department to overreact?

The father, to incite the school to make stupid choices and the police department to overreact and then have the school add injury to ignorance by kicking the kid out of school for doing nothing wrong?

The father, to incite the school to make stupid choices and the police department to overreact and then have the school add injury to ignorance by kicking the kid out of school for doing nothing wrong?

The father, to incite the school to make stupid choices and the police department to overreact and then have the school add injury to ignorance by kicking the kid out of school for doing nothing wrong and then have the idiot in the White House add fuel to the fire by inviting the kid to meet him? Never mind, the IITWH is still an idiot for his part in this.

Substitute mother, older sister, or even the kid for "father" in all the above statements and you still get numerous foolish acts by all involved.

When I was a kid we took our hunting rifles and shotguns to school and the teachers and students would all compare weapons in the parking lot.

My science teacher hunted quail on our farm regularly.

Our house had guns hanging on the wall, unlocked. the house was never locked either.

The times, they have changed.

The kid should have put his clock/bomb away when the only sane player in the entire story (his science teacher) told him to.

Yea, I agree. The Islamophobe-baiting kid should have just brought his alarm clock to school, without taking it apart.....as his science project. That way, he still wouldn't have to explain anything about how it works; people would know what it was, and he could even get it through security checks at any airport...if he chose to.

But.....he wouldn't be able to make national news, or go to the White House to meet his like-minded hero.....or sue for millions of taxpayer dollars.

I think there plenty of blame to be shared here, realizing these are different times, I recall back in the 60's bringing my first pocket knife to school (birthday present) to show to my friends, I kept it hidden from the teachers, because I knew it was wrong. Because one upper class men (6th grader) got expelled Whe they got caught from that. He was a known their with a rap sheet..

From my enthusiasm, Some of the my teacher notice I had a pocket knife. They did not do anything, only because with the exception of actually bring it to school to show my friends, they knew I was responsible with it.

"Are you STILL living in that America you grew up in....or just pretending to"

You missed my point entirely.

To answer your question, no and no.

"The kid should have put his clock/bomb away when the only sane player in the entire story (his science teacher) told him."

No. I got your point loud and clear. You are saying the school administrators and law enforcement went insane. And...that the kid and his family did nothing (major) wrong.

I couldn't disagree more. In our current threat environment, this time, the school and law enforcement acted appropriately toward a kid who brought a bomb look-alike to school!

Basically, between your words and your indictment of all the "insane" players in this scenario, you are saying it is ok for a Muslim kid to bring something to school solely for shock value.....but we should always hammer any other kid who tries the same thing! ....That Muslims in our country are so mistreated, so misrepresented, that they should always get a "pass" on any behavior that "looks" threatening.

THAT is EXACTLY the intent of the kid and his parents here! To bring a "wolf" to school, and when the school and police cry, "Wolf!", set them all up as Islamophobes....thereby ensuring special treatment and "hands off" policy toward all Muslims....lest anyone be brave enough in the future to call out a Muslim for treasonous acts against our country or against our Constitution (Judeo-Christian based as it is)!

Holy Judeo-Christian based Constitution! Batman.

I don't know where to start.

Let's see, how about here from #24. "Very obviously, this whole incident was nothing but "bait". And as intended, the school officials took the "bait". The incident was planned to force wide-spread reaction on an "innocent" kid, to be able to label folks as Islamophobes. (your first racist comment)

You follow this up with an example from "the spring of 1978"? And then you accuse me of living in the past??? Really?

Moving on, I'll leave the drivel you spout in #29 and #30 as just more untrue racist bile.

Now, in #34, you pissed me off. You just can't get over the race baiting, can you?

"Basically, between your words and your indictment of all the "insane" players in this scenario, you are saying it is ok for a Muslim kid to bring something to school solely for shock value".

The actions of the school and police are well documented, at least well reported.

I think they over-reacted, especially by expelling the kid for 3 days. The kid's never been charged with anything. (Other than being a Muslim).

You have absolutely NO IDEA WHAT WAS IN THE MINDS of the family of the clock kid.

Do You?.................................................................................Well, do you? No, you don't. Neither do any of us.

You surely must have graduated from the Donald Trump School of racism.

Let's just make them all go home back to their tents and camels and leave us alone.

Wow, Lyn that's the best post here. Why the hell did you post that early, you could have save all of us a lot of bs.

The way I see it, wolfie62 supplied "all of us a lot of bs".

Well this has been more fun than Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving !

Best be careful around here,.... Before one is served to appear in court for bullying.

Not to mention that planning such a conspiracy means that first you have to have the right conditions and a feasible plot. I'll agree that conditions for a paranoid over reaction are ripe. Being creative enough to realize, motivate, and act on possible reactions would be well beyond most people. I believe they just stumbled into this bit of nonsense. If they were really that smart, it would have contained explosives disguised as something else and actually blown up.

As for the $15 million lawsuit, there is absolutely no shortage of dirt bag lawyers willing to go after this. Even if they lose, the bottom feeding lawyers win. And somehow, this is called justice? I have another name for it but I'm too polite to share it.

"no shortage of dirt bag lawyers"

As exemplified O.J. Simpson's "dream team" of scumbags.

One of whom spawned his own line of scumbag daughters, who are infamous in their own right as "stars" of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Guys! Think about what you're writing!

We're science minded people here. We're suppose to be logical thinkers, yet we're ready to lock this family up and throw away the key. They may deserve it, or they may not, but who here can say that they really know? Think about it.

I have a story to tell, which I find myself referring back to over the years. Around 1990, I took a Business Law course, which was taught by a practicing attorney. At the time, the majority of the people in Southern California felt that the outcome of the McMartin preschool trial was wrong and that the McMartin's were guilty (they were found to be innocent by the jury). In our classroom, the professor asked us if we believed that they were guilty and all of us replied yes. He then asked us why. Most of us felt that it was obvious and the jury screwed up. We felt we were knowledgeable about the case, since we saw much of it on tv or read about it in the paper - you see, we made our decisions based on what the media was feeding us. He then told us that we weren't at the trial, so how could we know? Did we see all the evidence? Were we in the courtroom feeling the emotions and energy? The twelve jurors were there and they made their decision based on much more information that we had, right? Point well made, professor!

I really liked his class and he taught us a lot more than simply business law - though he did a great job teaching us that as well!

this is a forum not a courtroom. if you think a 14 year old silk screened and created a circuit board after designing the circuitry you might be interested in buying a bridge.

Yes but, there were never any charges against clock kid. No trial. No finding of fact to determine innocence or guilt.

I'll see your McMartins, and raise you an O.J. Simpson.

("If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit")

Its called society norms. as the norms change, so does the laws that were created prior seem wrong.

Or it was a poor law in the first place.

But yes, the media has a lot to do with that because it does have power, power to put the wrong people in political office that can create laws that are ridicules, fail or just plain bad for America no made how the media tells you, "That's not the politician we put in office pissing on you, that's rain."

Excellent point. We only get to see or hear what the media wants us to see. As science minded/logical people, we try to gather as much information as possible before deciding what to do. That should apply in all situations. All kinds of people run off at the mouth and yes, you can have your own opinion(s) but try to ensure they are well founded.

There are a few adages that apply:

1 - you will learn more by listening that by talking

2 - please engage brain before mouth goes into overdrive

it still looks like a bomb