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title: AI Cloning Should Be Illegal! | daily.dev
description: A retired Microsoft engineer demonstrates using Ghidra to decompile the Windows calculator binary (calc.exe) into pseudocode, then prompts an AI to translate...
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# AI Cloning Should Be Illegal!

**[Dave's Garage](https://daily.dev/sources/davesgarage)** · 20 min read · 15 upvotes · 7 comments

## Summary

A retired Microsoft engineer demonstrates using Ghidra to decompile the Windows calculator binary (calc.exe) into pseudocode, then prompts an AI to translate that logic into a new Rust application, producing a working functional clone without any original source code. The experiment raises the question of whether such AI-assisted binary-to-binary translation constitutes legitimate reverse engineering or unauthorized derivative work. The author argues that while copyright law (Section 102) excludes ideas and functional methods from protection, and precedents like Sega v. Accolade and Sony v. Connectix allow some disassembly for compatibility, cloning a proprietary application's full implementation via AI-driven decompilation-to-rewrite should be considered unethical and potentially illegal, distinguishing it from clean-room engineering or spec-driven AI development used for his own Task Manager app.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC31K-CUC5Y>

## Questions this post answers

### Can an AI reconstruct a Windows application like calculator.exe in Rust using only the compiled binary, without source code?

Yes, a demonstrated workflow used Ghidra, the NSA's reverse engineering framework, to decompile Microsoft's calculator binary (calc.exe) into pseudocode, which an AI then translated into Rust and compiled into a new binary. The AI recovered over 10,000 functions from the calculation DLL and nearly 19,000 from the UI DLL, producing a working, pixel-approximate clone, though not verified as perfectly equivalent.

_Developers weighing AI-assisted reverse engineering against copyright risk can track these debates on daily.dev._

### Is it legal to use AI to decompile a proprietary application and rewrite it in a different programming language?

It is legally uncertain and ethically contested. US copyright law under Section 102 excludes ideas, processes, and functional methods from protection, so functionality alone can't be owned, but protectable expression surviving translation remains infringement; cases like Sega v. Accolade and Sony v. Connectix allowed limited disassembly for compatibility but did not grant blanket permission to clone finished commercial products.

_Anyone navigating AI tooling and IP risk in their own projects can follow this kind of analysis on daily.dev._

### What is clean room engineering and how does it differ from AI-based binary decompilation and translation?

Clean room engineering involves one engineer documenting an API's specification without viewing its implementation, then a separate team building to that spec, as Phoenix did to legally clone the IBM PC BIOS. This differs from feeding an existing binary into AI for decompilation and direct translation, since the latter derives the new implementation from the original code's analysis rather than an independently authored specification.

_Teams deciding how to approach legal reimplementation of existing software can research these distinctions via daily.dev._

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@henbomb** · 7 upvotes

> AI is gonna annihilate everyone bro just stop complaining and enjoy the time you have left.

**@dolphprefect** · 2 upvotes

> Making it illegal would not prevent it to be happening.

**@random\_user** · 2 upvotes

> all reverse engineering and decompilation is protected and legitimate.  cloning isn't necessarily reverse engineering, it can be clean room as well.
>
> just because the author doesn't like the implications of what new technology can accomplish doesn't make it unethical. the authors new task manager is AI coded, and AI is trained on real humans code, sure that isn't 1:1 but the ethics are the same.  doesn't matter how abstract the copying is and how many or few sources go into the new product.  is "stealing" from thousands to make something more or less ethical that from one?

**@harshitmanepally** · 2 upvotes

> I mean it will work out as a cool local project but we can't publish the same

**@svenmueller** · 0 upvotes

> MS decompiled the physical calculator in the first place 😅

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---

Tags: [#rust](https://daily.dev/tags/rust), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#reverse-engineering](https://daily.dev/tags/reverse-engineering)

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