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LICENSE-APPENDIX.md

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📘 License Appendix – Educational Use and Liability Statement

Project: PE-Packer
Primary License: Apache-2.0
Effective Date: 2025-10-15

1. Purpose of This Appendix

This appendix supplements the main license file to clarify the intended scope and ethical limitations of the PE-Packer project.

The purpose of PE-Packer is educational and research-oriented learning about the Windows Portable Executable (PE) format, static analysis, and safe unpacking.
It is not designed or authorized for use in software concealment, obfuscation, or malware deployment of any kind.

This clarification does not alter the legal permissions of the MIT or Apache-2.0 license but provides additional binding terms of responsible use and liability disclaimers specific to this project.

2. Educational-Use Intent

By obtaining, using, or redistributing this software, you acknowledge that:

  • The software is provided solely for authorized research, teaching, academic, or defensive cybersecurity education.
  • It must not be used to disguise or distribute executables, payloads, or binaries outside a controlled educational or testing environment.
  • You assume full responsibility for ensuring compliance with your institution’s and jurisdiction’s cybersecurity laws and policies.

3. Safety Controls

PE-Packer enforces a safety gating system:

  1. Binary packing functionality is disabled by default.
  2. Activation requires both:
    • The environment variable PE_PACKER_ALLOW_PACKING=1, and
    • The command-line flag --force.

This gating mechanism exists to prevent accidental or unauthorized generation of packed executables.

4. No Warranty or Liability

Consistent with the MIT and Apache-2.0 licenses:

  • The software is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind, express or implied.
  • Under no circumstances shall the authors, contributors, or affiliated institutions be liable for any claim, damages, or other liability arising from misuse, modification, or redistribution of this software.
  • You are solely responsible for ensuring compliance with all applicable laws, export regulations, and institutional policies.

5. Academic Citation

If you use PE-Packer in an academic, instructional, or research context, please cite the repository as follows:

Tutu, A.M. (2025). PE-Packer: An Educational PE File Packing Laboratory.
Available at: https://github.com/codeamt/rust-python-pe-packer

6. Contact

Purpose Contact
General inquiries annmargaret.mailforce@gmail.com
Security disclosures annmargaret.mailforce@gmail.com
License & institutional use annmargaret.mailforce@gmail.com

This appendix is intended to reinforce ethical, transparent, and responsible software distribution practices in alignment with open-source security research standards.