Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing a subject system to create representations of the system at a higher level of abstraction.

Reverse engineering has its origins in the analysis of hardware for commercial or military advantage.[2]:13 However, the reverse engineering process in itself is not concerned with creating a copy or changing the artifact in some way; it is only an analysis in order to deduce design features from products with little or no additional knowledge about the procedures involved in their original production.

(the above was reverse engineered from the following source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering)