Eric S. Raymond describes a practical milestone in automated reverse engineering: he used an AI “robot” to analyze an old DOS shareware binary, identify it as Borland Pascal from its data layout, regenerate readable Pascal source with sensible names, transpile that output to Rust, and ship the result in a games collection. What began as a stunt convinced him the technique can scale - others are reportedly decompiling entire AAA games - so even very large, complex binaries can be reconstructed into high-quality source code.
He argues this trend signals the end of software secrecy for any code distributed as an executable or firmware image, effectively undermining closed-source protection and favoring open-source-style transparency. The only reliable secrecy moat left is hosting the executable behind a networked service (SaaS). He frames the shift as having massive implications, forcing reconsideration of intellectual property, security models, DRM and competitive business strategies now that shipped binaries can be reverse-engineered into usable source.
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