Why does every commentary on this case bring up jailbreaking? The two issues are only related in that they both involve iOS. May as well talk about this case's impact on the App Store.
From what I've been able to find, this is more like a hackintosh. It's running a real copy of iOS in a VM and providing access to that VM.
This is my understanding at the moment and frankly it would stink ifApple wins this case. It would put any virtualization offering at risk! Frankly any multi platform developer would end up at risk and even the use of VM’s on production hardware would be at risk. This is probably the biggest dick move by Apple in a decade or more. I’m really sadden you’re the definition reaction the company is going.
I hope not because that would lead to attacks on all virtualization solutions. At least the way I read this , that is all the company is offering. Frankly things like this is why I’m less inclined by the day to support Apple. There are very legitimate reasons to run operating systems in virtualized environments and if Apple can’t handle that then screw them.
Frankly this only becomes more important with the latest generation of hardware that can virtualize multiple systems on the desktop with no performance impact. Apple is way behind the technology curve here with respect to both MacOS and iOS.
That's how I read it, too, except I think the rub is that they are seemingly, albeit from very little information, producing/publishing the virtualization and the OS together, whereas Parallels, VMWare, etc. provide an empty machine for the user to load the software onto.
I suspect Apple may also have some thoughts on Hackintoshes in the near future.
There probably is a long game here. I can’t see anything that this company is doing that is illegal if they own a copy of iOS. I suspect that Apple wants to go after people running MacOS in VM’s but want to build up the legal ground work.
Frankly modern hardware and virtual machines are technologies made in heaven for a developer and even advanced users. We are at the tipping point where it is almost foolish not to have this capability especially when 24 thread hardware, 16+GB of RAM and other advancements mean there is few negatives to consider. That is this year; by 2021 the average desktop could easily support 32 to 64 threads and 512 GB of RAM. At that point a developer could run VM’s for Android, MacOS, Linux, Windows, BSD and more all at once.
AMD expects to debut its AM5 socket this year which I would expect would offer the step increase in performance to deliver such hardware to the desktop at reasonable prices. All they need is a successful transition to 5nm to offer cost effective machines like this on the desktop. The thread ripper series is just a way to see the future of desktop machines.
So yeah I suspect that Apple is being truly dark and evil here. They appear to want to stifle (some might say control) the evolution of computing technology. The rather pathetic Mac Pro is something that they will try to protect when competing tech can offer twice the performance at 1/4 the price.
I suspect Apple may also have some thoughts on Hackintoshes in the near future.
I don't think so. Hackintoshes are made by individuals for their own private use. The moment they attempt to make a business out of it - think Psystar - Apple will get involved.
I suspect Apple may also have some thoughts on Hackintoshes in the near future.
There probably is a long game here. I can’t see anything that this company is doing that is illegal if they own a copy of iOS. I suspect that Apple wants to go after people running MacOS in VM’s but want to build up the legal ground work.
Frankly modern hardware and virtual machines are technologies made in heaven for a developer and even advanced users. We are at the tipping point where it is almost foolish not to have this capability especially when 24 thread hardware, 16+GB of RAM and other advancements mean there is few negatives to consider. That is this year; by 2021 the average desktop could easily support 32 to 64 threads and 512 GB of RAM. At that point a developer could run VM’s for Android, MacOS, Linux, Windows, BSD and more all at once.
AMD expects to debut its AM5 socket this year which I would expect would offer the step increase in performance to deliver such hardware to the desktop at reasonable prices. All they need is a successful transition to 5nm to offer cost effective machines like this on the desktop. The thread ripper series is just a way to see the future of desktop machines.
So yeah I suspect that Apple is being truly dark and evil here. They appear to want to stifle (some might say control) the evolution of computing technology. The rather pathetic Mac Pro is something that they will try to protect when competing tech can offer twice the performance at 1/4 the price.
The only company that legally owns a copy of iOS is Apple. The rest of us using it are licensees under Apple's terms and conditions. You can run a limited VM of iOS on any Mac using Xcode, using the built-in simulator. They could care less about Hackintoshes. The issue here is a company selling access to iOS for the purpose of discovering security vulnerabilities that they do not want to report back to Apple.
I have no idea where AMD thread rippers have anything to with Apple taking down a copyright and trademark infringer. I read the post at least a dozen times, and it still doesn't make sense. Apple has a great working relationship with AMD, and Apple is not trying to compete with them.
No user ‘owns’ an OS even though they pay a fee, they ‘license’ the OS with very specific terms, and these terms have been violated. I can’t imagine Apple not winning this case. The interesting thing here is that the infringing company is arguing that users are benefiting from the violation - bugs are being identified and fixed, new features are being developed (and allegedly adopted by Apple), and the OS is becoming more secure. We all want that (including Apple), but there are - or should be - legal ways to achieve these things with endorsement (and even compensation) from Apple. The reality is many companies (governments, bad actors) that use these virtual tools are not trying to help users, they are trying to either hurt them or profit off them by finding weakness in the OS to exploit the user’s data and/or illegally track them.
No user ‘owns’ an OS even though they pay a fee, they ‘license’ the OS with very specific terms, and these terms have been violated. I can’t imagine Apple not winning this case. The interesting thing here is that the infringing company is arguing that users are benefiting from the violation - bugs are being identified and fixed, new features are being developed (and allegedly adopted by Apple), and the OS is becoming more secure. We all want that (including Apple), but there are - or should be - legal ways to achieve these things with endorsement (and even compensation) from Apple. The reality is many companies (governments, bad actors) that use these virtual tools are not trying to help users, they are trying to either hurt them or profit off them by finding weakness in the OS to exploit the user’s data and/or illegally track them.
All good points. Unless I'm missing something here, it seems like this case could be resolved with a licensing agreement. As others have noted, machine virtualization is very common, e.g., VMWare, but the operating systems that run on the VMs must still adhere to the licensing requirements of the owner of the operating systems. Virtualization as a technology, at all container levels from machine level and operating system level on down, is extremely vital to the vast computing infrastructure that currently powers the web, cloud, and all manner of server-side and back-end systems. Unless you're relying solely on open source software someone must be paid for the use of the property that is used to build out this vast infrastructure. Stealing licensed, proprietary software or IP that is used as a structural component for your product is no different than stealing the truckloads of lumber needed to build your house. Theft is theft.
Why does every commentary on this case bring up jailbreaking? The two issues are only related in that they both involve iOS. May as well talk about this case's impact on the App Store.
From what I've been able to find, this is more like a hackintosh. It's running a real copy of iOS in a VM and providing access to that VM.
Jailbreaking is an issue in this case because Apple has accused Corellium of providing tools, designed to facilitate jailbreaking, in violation of 17 USC §1201(a)(2) and 17 USC §1201(b).
either you defend your IP, or you lose it. It has always been this way.
There is no such law.
Sort of. That's definitely how trademarks work in the US. If somebody else steps on your trademark and you don't act to defend it, you risk it being declared generic (see: Dumpster, Aspirin, Thermos, Zipper, Velcro, Frisbee, &c.).
Not how copyright works, though.
Yes, laches can't be used to block a copyright infringement claim. But it can, in the right circumstances, affect the relief that might fairly be ordered.
That said, estoppel can be used to block a copyright infringement claim. So if, for example, Apple represented to Corellium that Corellium had Apple's permission to do what it's accused of doing and that Apple wouldn't sue it for copyright infringement, then Corellium might be able to block the infringement claim.
A strict application of DMCA would have prevented cases like the DieselGate scandal to became public. Almost all of us are happy that somehow the DieselGate and also the ToTok cases have become known by the public. Maybe that's a case of higher public interest?
Correlium's attempt to characterize this as "jailbreaking" seems to be misdirection. If they were buying hardware, jailbreaking it, and then selling those jailbroken devices, they might have a case. Maybe. That's not what they're doing, though. They're replicating the phone, not taking an existing one and modifying it.
It's virtualization, providing a means to run iOS outside of the phone hardware. It's not useful for creating a new phone or really for using apps w/o one. It's used primarily by security researchers. Apple has acknowledged them before for providing security fixes.
So it is ok to pirate any OS as long as the company doesn't make any actual device?
Again, it's virtualization. It's not pirating when you run Windows in a virtual machine or when you run macOS in one. Assuming you have a license. Apple doesn't license iOS though. So what they're doing is providing the means for purchasers of the software to break their license agreements. Which is a different legal argument.
Why does every commentary on this case bring up jailbreaking? The two issues are only related in that they both involve iOS. May as well talk about this case's impact on the App Store.
From what I've been able to find, this is more like a hackintosh. It's running a real copy of iOS in a VM and providing access to that VM.
Well, I brought it up because Corellium did in their comments, quoted in the article.
And I agree with your earlier comment, they appear to be bringing up jailbreaking as misdirection.
I'm more talking about the articles written by journalists. Shouldn't they be pointing out the misdirection? I've seen several now which just uncritically repeat what Corellium said.
I thought that might be the case, which why I clarified my own usage, and nobody else's.
I tend to agree with you though. I can imagine it's possible that some of them simply don't want to be seen as supporting Apple against a "little guy", so they just parrot what each party says and call it "journalistically objective reporting."
I hope not because that would lead to attacks on all virtualization solutions. At least the way I read this , that is all the company is offering. Frankly things like this is why I’m less inclined by the day to support Apple. There are very legitimate reasons to run operating systems in virtualized environments and if Apple can’t handle that then screw them.
Frankly this only becomes more important with the latest generation of hardware that can virtualize multiple systems on the desktop with no performance impact. Apple is way behind the technology curve here with respect to both MacOS and iOS.
It's one thing to run virtual environments for Windows, or Linux. I've done that with legally obtained copies of the OSs. The issue is that they are stealing and copying iOS for profit. That's where the violation comes in. This is not about virtualization per se any more than it is about jailbreaking. This is a clear case of theft.
Slapping these guys down will IN NO WAY impact running legal virtualized environments.
Why does every commentary on this case bring up jailbreaking? The two issues are only related in that they both involve iOS. May as well talk about this case's impact on the App Store.
From what I've been able to find, this is more like a hackintosh. It's running a real copy of iOS in a VM and providing access to that VM.
Jailbreaking is an issue in this case because Apple has accused Corellium of providing tools, designed to facilitate jailbreaking, in violation of 17 USC §1201(a)(2) and 17 USC §1201(b).
Which filing? I may have missed it.
Everything I have read in filings so far appears to accuse Corellium of providing tools designed to circumvent protection of iOS itself, under that same section. That is, Corellium provides tools which let you run iOS not on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, while Apple only licenses iOS to run on those Apple device families.
Why does every commentary on this case bring up jailbreaking? The two issues are only related in that they both involve iOS. May as well talk about this case's impact on the App Store.
From what I've been able to find, this is more like a hackintosh. It's running a real copy of iOS in a VM and providing access to that VM.
Jailbreaking is an issue in this case because Apple has accused Corellium of providing tools, designed to facilitate jailbreaking, in violation of 17 USC §1201(a)(2) and 17 USC §1201(b).
Which filing? I may have missed it.
Everything I have read in filings so far appears to accuse Corellium of providing tools designed to circumvent protection of iOS itself, under that same section. That is, Corellium provides tools which let you run iOS not on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, while Apple only licenses iOS to run on those Apple device families.
The Apple Corellium Product also provides users with the ability to “jailbreak” virtual iOS devices. Jailbreaking refers to the act of modifying iOS to circumvent the software restrictions that prevent unfettered access to the operating system. Corellium openly markets the ability of its technology to “jailbreak . . . any version” of iOS. Corellium provides its jailbreaking technology to all its customers, regardless of their purpose.
Corellium has, in fact, admitted that it has engaged in and is engaging in trafficking in violation of both section 1201(a)(2) and (b), by admitting the following facts:
1. The Corellium Apple Product makes modifications to iOS that allows it to be installed on, and run from, Corellium-developed or Corellium-operated hardware. Such modifications include disabling loadable firmware validation, disabling self-verification of the FIPS module, adding Corellium software to the “trust cache,” and instructing the restore tool not to contact Apple servers for kernel / device tree / firmware signing.
2. The Corellium Apple Product allows users to “jailbreak” or otherwise bypass one or more feature of iOS and iOS devices that are designed to prevent access to the software or other material that could be stored on the iOS device.
3. Corellium gave one or more Persons access to the Corellium Apple Product for the purpose of allowing such Person or Persons to develop software that can be used to “jailbreak” or otherwise bypass one or more feature of iOS and iOS devices that are designed to prevent access to the software or other material that could be stored on the iOS device.
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I have no idea where AMD thread rippers have anything to with Apple taking down a copyright and trademark infringer. I read the post at least a dozen times, and it still doesn't make sense. Apple has a great working relationship with AMD, and Apple is not trying to compete with them.
Yes, laches can't be used to block a copyright infringement claim. But it can, in the right circumstances, affect the relief that might fairly be ordered.
That said, estoppel can be used to block a copyright infringement claim. So if, for example, Apple represented to Corellium that Corellium had Apple's permission to do what it's accused of doing and that Apple wouldn't sue it for copyright infringement, then Corellium might be able to block the infringement claim.
See Petrella v MGM (2013).
This avenue of conversation has concluded.
I tend to agree with you though. I can imagine it's possible that some of them simply don't want to be seen as supporting Apple against a "little guy", so they just parrot what each party says and call it "journalistically objective reporting."
Slapping these guys down will IN NO WAY impact running legal virtualized environments.
Everything I have read in filings so far appears to accuse Corellium of providing tools designed to circumvent protection of iOS itself, under that same section. That is, Corellium provides tools which let you run iOS not on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, while Apple only licenses iOS to run on those Apple device families.