Apple's growing concerns about Piracy
Our favorite site Spymac has the scoop.
<a href="http://www.spymac.com/comments.php?id=112_0_1_0_C"; target="_blank">Stop pirating OS X!!!</a>
<a href="http://www.spymac.com/comments.php?id=112_0_1_0_C"; target="_blank">Stop pirating OS X!!!</a>
Comments
"A programmer said this:"
That is fake, i do not believe it for a second
Does Apple really care *that* much about people swiping developer builds and buggy software?
Personally I don't blame them although I am not ecstatic about it, it is understandable. Here is one place that Microsoft innovated something before Apple...
<strong>Spymac sucks.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You put it in such a beautiful way.... Simple, yet true...oh yeah... SpyMac DOES suck <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
<strong>I don't know how much worth you put in this but I heard something similar that Apple is thinking about serializing future OS's but probably not Jaguar.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I hope they don't do this. Any scheme they implement will be very quickly circumvented and the circumvention will be distributed in the same channels one finds bootleg X builds. It will just add a layer of hassle and frustration to the user experiance of those installing legit copies.
<strong>
I hope they don't do this. Any scheme they implement will be very quickly circumvented and the circumvention will be distributed in the same channels one finds bootleg X builds. It will just add a layer of hassle and frustration to the user experiance of those installing legit copies.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed. Anyone who can get their hands on a pirated copy of the software can certainly get a serial # to go with it. I don't imagine that would help very much.
<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
edit: wrong url
[ 07-27-2002: Message edited by: CubeDude ]</p>
From a marketing standpoint apple's switchers campaign is geared towards pc users who, I am sure, include a great many "tired of MS squeezing every cent it can" pc users. I think Apple recognized this attitude and is using it as leverage. To adopt a MS approach to business without an MS market share is completely stupid. And that's putting it lightly...
<strong>I don't know how much worth you put in this but I heard something similar that Apple is thinking about serializing future OS's but probably not Jaguar. This is from an Apple vendor champ and corroborated by a representative. I take it at face value: that it is something Apple is seriously looking into. </strong><hr></blockquote>
was a distinction made between <1> s/w serializing (registration number entry from sticker) and <2> the s/w unlock for specific chip-id (cpu specific licence - provide id, code generated)
in the first instance:
(microsoft uses this method, among others)
algorithmic hackers will seek to crack the keygen or shoulder surf some stickers and eventually mass distribute bootleg s/n's the way surferserials does... and isn't this what they'd want to stop?
some may remember that win95-era microsoft products of many flavours (OS, Apps, Games) all required a license code...
conveniently or for other *ahem* reasons, word quickly circulated that a developer back door was ?left? open and the generic 1111-111-11111-11 would work on some boxes
neither scenario breeds piracy-proof systems
now in the second instance
(SGI licenses for SoftImage 3D came like this)
unpack the new iron and in the Irix terminal window type "-hinv" for a hardware inventory... at the bottom of the list is a long hexadecimal sequence that represents the CPU ID... every one unique... now copy+paste this into an email to SoftImage and they generate a key for me to paste back into the installer. hacked serial#'s won't help because they don't match my chip id.
the EEEVIL part about this was that CPU id means if you upgrade your processor, you need to relicense and perhaps reinstall all your software. we moved from an Indigo R3000 to an R4000 and -then- had to drop another grand for licen$e fee... on software that we already bought, but it only runs on that cpu we pulled out... grrr... drop in a dual processor? better make two licences, because you might not know which cpu gets those tasks... secure, but really annoying.
while the apple system profiler does generate a little hex info about rom and a few other chips, and conflicts between this info and the hardware test cd from other mac models does imply that hardware piracy checking is possible already, it's no where near the address length of the SGI cpu id, and i don't know if moto embeds the same per die or what...
[quote]
<strong>
All new Adobe software has some anti-piracy features that will not allow you to install the same serial number on 2 different machines on the network.
Personally I don't blame them although I am not ecstatic about it, it is understandable. Here is one place that Microsoft innovated something before Apple...</strong><hr></blockquote>
aside from dongles, (which both platforms tried with predictable complaints), the network license detection of quark and other apps has been crippling labs for years... the workaround <which i'm neither condoning, nor counselling> is as easy now as it ever was... unplug from the network while your 'extra' copy runs. jack back in to transfer your finished files (as pdf or eps if req'd for print)
now if Xserve starts doing appserving more like the (NC) network computer concept it might solve licence issues in many such environments, but only if you're configured as a dumb terminal for Xserve apps
network tracking (IP, chip id, whatever) of downloaded software might be easier to manage, except that not everybody's got a fixed IP or dsl and i'd hate be the bugger to get jaguar over 56k... and microsoft hasn't made any friends surreptitiously embedding MRU tracks on other installed apps and sneaking registry info into your supposedly private exchanges with them... leaky -compulsory- passports aren't helping
not to say that piracy isn't a cause worth devoting some thought and resources to... hell, i've seen bootlegs of my own intellectual property staring up at me from the shop shelf, so as a creator who's been pirated, i'm onside there... but i'm also an educator appreciative of the proverbial test drive before i buy, particularly if we're talking about monopolistic price gouging
imho, the "solution" isn't new "crack proof" technology (ringing the pavlovian bell for an entire hacker subculture feeding frenzy), but rather a new ethics bred for a more open source world that's realistic about the difference between theft and discovery.
not to go too far off topic but the poster boy of the chicken little piracy crowd must be Jack Valenti of the MPAA. Mr Agitated once went on record claiming the VCR would wipe out movie theatres. Of late, he's testified to congress about the "impending doom of mp3/napster" despite the fact that in the years since mp3 became common, CD music sales have increased more than 20%"
they say paranoia is just reality at higher resolution
I would however place some credence in the fact that Steve Jobs has flat out said that copy protection doesn't work. He's pointed out rather convincingly that copy protection schemes will *always* be broken anyway. For that reason, I doubt Apple would waste time and resources on such a scheme. I just wish I could fin that recent interview where he said this.
Barto
<strong>If Apple really cared about piracy, they Steve and Phil wouldn't have wirelessly file-shared using iTunes, Rendevous and Airport at MWNY.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ba-da-bing!
The music file was shared, and the file was "read" over a network, which still is "piracy" unless the owner of the original song pays a fee of 50c per stream*
Barto**
*Not the correct price
**Screw Corperate America