Intel Mac OS X Catches Up With Older Brother

RetrogradeMotion writes "Apple is now one step closer to the Intel transition. According to the OSx86 Project, a recently leaked installation DVD of Mac OS X 10.4.3 reveals that the Intel version is in sync with the PowerPC version - the two are now identical. Initially, "OSx86" was substantially behind its PPC counterpart, but the recent update makes it ready for the public. The article also notes that Apple has continued to learn from hackers' efforts to crack the operating system and has greatly strengthened the TPM protections."

A Hopeless Battle

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

The article also notes that Apple has continued to learn from hackers' efforts to crack the operating system and has greatly strengthened the TPM protections.

Time for the next hack to come along.

Until every byte of code verifies for itself that it is running on genuine Apple hardware before it will execute, I'm not sure if Apple can ever close this door.

Maybe this experiment will eventually prove that TPM itself is impossible to achieve when more people are working to break your system than are employeed by Apple to defend it.

Hey, Steve, want to reconsider that move to Intel now?

not possible

[austad (22163)]

I don't think it will be possible to stop people from getting it running on non-apple hardware. It's just going to be a constant battle. There are too many people working on breaking it. Look at the Xbox, with its whole encryption/authentication scheme. That was broken after a few months.

Most of the people installing it on non-apple hardware probably wouldn't purchase apple hardware anyway. It's a good, non-official way, for apple to gain marketshare. The highschool/college kids of today are the decision makers of tomorrow. Get them hooked on OSX now (even if it's an illegal copy) means that they will likely influence their friends/family and employer to go with it.

Maybe apple should stop spending money on the resources to add copy protection and just let it go. If someone comes up with a good solution in the future, they can just roll it out in an update. In the meantime, let people get hooked.

Did you get the memo

[Bodhammer (559311)]

on using the cover sheets on the TPM report?

AppleCore

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Leaked install DVD? HAH! That's for scriptkiddies. Where's the leaked kernel source code?

leaked?

[jgionet (828557)]

it's amazing how stuff always manages to get "leaked". It's too bad some extra money didn't get "leaked" in to my bank account. I suppose it's a good way to get stuff tested without being responsible for it's results.

Simply running OS X does not a useable system make

[twbecker (315312)]

Everyone wants a way to make it run on generic Intel hardware. The thing is, even if you could do that, OS X drivers are not going to be available for 95% of your periphrials. What good is running the OS with no network, sound, or perhaps even video?

Finding the right balance for HW security

[amichalo (132545)]

So Apple is dedicating enough resources to make it difficult to run OS X on a non-Apple box, but isn't wasting it's time and money trying to totally secure it.

Brilliant

The people hacking OS x86 for non-Apple hardware aren't going to buy Macs anyway, they are in it for some other technical purpose.

The people who want OS X for business will go legit - too much risk for a company to steal like that.

The people who want OS X for a home aren't going to either know how to or want to take the time to fuss with some illicit download of the OS that won't be supported.

So the extreme hackers get OS X without buying an Apple box and maybe they even develop some cool apps with their pirated copy of Xcode too.

The big winner is still Apple (and OS X users).

Read the Fine Summary

[dduardo (592868)]

"The article also notes that Apple has continued to learn from hackers' efforts to crack the operating system and has greatly strengthened the TPM protections."

TPM protections = OSX locked to Apple hardware

Re:Read the Fine Summary

[vought (160908)]

TPM protections = OSX locked to Apple hardware

Anyone who has any allusions about cracking this scheme might be in for a surprise. After thoroughly reading the TPM spec [trustedcom...ggroup.org], I think that if the OS is looking for TPM_Owner = Apple's Value and doesn't find it, it ain't gonna run.

Changing TPM_Owner isn't exactly trivial, as you have to set the value during manufacturing.

Re:Read the Fine Summary

[Lorphos (194963)]

So why can't this check for TPM_Owner be removed?

Re:Read the Fine Summary

[Orion Blastar (457579)]

Why even go that far?

Chances are the TPM check will be part of the Install program and not the OSx86 itself. If true, someone can Ghost an Apple Mactel image and then use the Ghost to install on a Non-Apple PC.

Why not just modify the ISO copy of OSx86 to change an assembly language instruction from JE to JNE or vice-versa, and then burn the new ISO and distribute that?

That way it only runs on Hardware that does not have a TPM of Apple? Like Dell, Gateway, Compaq/HP, etc.

Or better yet change the JE to JMP and JNE to NOP, that way it can run on all hardware.

Take it from me, I used to write assembly language back in the day, and had to get copy protected software running on network drives, and the stupid software tried to check for a damaged sector on the hard drive which the Netware INT 21H did not allow. Almost everything is written in C/C++ now, which gets compiled into assembly or ML, which can be easily tweaked like I said.

I give the hackers a week, if not more than a month, to find a way around it and release the unprotected ISO on the P2P networks.

Not that I advocate piracy or cracking or hacking, I just know how it can be done.

Re:Hardware

[popo (107611)]

Anyone want to place bets on how long it takes Lik Sang to sell mod chips
that allow PC's to run OSX?

I'm going to say within 12 months.

Re:Hardware

[happyemoticon (543015)]

One issue is the fact that they will probably use a different BIOS technology than standard IBM clones: Open Firmware or EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface). For compatibility's sake, your current PC uses more or less the same BIOS as the original PCs when it boots up, and uses tricks to access higher modes. That's one thing I've always loved about Macs - the booting. No matter how much they try to disguise it with logos, I still see it's booting to the same resolution as DOS.

Also, consider the fact that they might deliberately only include driver support for their stuff. Driver support in Darwin is already pretty limited, and they have no incentive to produce more drivers than they will use. That means more hacking.

Finally, I think one of the goals with the TPM is to make it so that you'd have to produce a unique hack for each case, rather than one generalized hack that can be mass-produced. Can't give you specifics, but at least they're moving away from "Let's make it impossible to crack!" which always fails, to "Let's make it so hard to crack that only a market-insignificant number of people will be able to crack it!"

Anyway, I'm sure it's possible and somebody will do it, but it might not be as simple as a little solder job. I don't have much first-hand knowledge of this kind of stuff, I just read a little here and there.

Re:Hardware

[by Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this should be a new Slashdot poll:

How long after Apple officially releases its x86 version of OSX will it be cracked to run on generic hardware?

1) 12 Months
2) 12 Hours
3) 12 Minutes
4) Cowboy Neal already has it running on his Dell.

Re:How does the protection work?

[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

in plain English

Well, there's this tiny little guy with a magnifying lens who will live in your computer case, and- nah, I'm just kiddin' :)

Re:How does the protection work?

[RUFFyamahaRYDER (887557)]

I think it stands for Trusted Platform Module [wikipedia.org]. Basically, the software does a check on the hardware to see if it's genuine or not.

Re:"article"????

[by Anonymous Coward]

Article: [answers.com]

nonfictional prose forming an independent part of a publication

Is it nonfictional? Check. Is it prose? Check. Is it an independent part of a publication? Check.

What, exactly, is your complaint? If it's that this is being treated seriously when it shouldn't, then say that instead of spouting nonsense about how this isn't an article, when it clearly is.

Re:"article"????

[rob_squared (821479)]

I think over the years it has been pointed out many times that its exactly that risk that can shut up the normal reporter, but not the blogger. The mistake here is thinking that one type of media must replace the other. But that's not true.

Letters exist even with email.
Radio exists with tv.
Journalism can exist with blogs.

Re:"article"????

[toph42 (160730)]

What? I was told that video killed the radio star!

Re:"article"????

[Anonymous Writer (746272)]

Nobody under 30 is going to get that one.

Re:Don't know, but

[Golias (176380)]

it really seems funny to me how all Intels bashers (aka. Mac fans) suddenly became Intel enthusiasts

There were Intel Bashers because Pentium technology (the P4 in particular) was pathetic compared to AMD and PPC offerings of the time.

Some of these people are becoming Intel cheerleaders because 1) Intel managed to surpass the performance of the G5, and has closed the gap a bit on AMD. 2) Early reports of the chips expected to come out of Intel around Q3 of next year are remarkable.

"Mac fans" are actually rather split on the subject. Those who acknowledged that PC's were generally faster machines most of the time for most tasks could not be happier with the Intel switch. Those who rambled endlessly about "the Megahertz myth" (even after x86 chips were clearly lapping the G5) are still sore about it, and hoping that Jobs will change his mind about dropping PPC sometime between now and 2007.

Re:What I want from Apple

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

I want an OS that I can multi-boot MS-Windows and Linux on that runs on commodity hardware.

Apple has said they will not try to prevent other OS's from booting on intel boxes they sell. As for commodity hardware, well that will depend, I suspect Apple boxes will, as usual, implement lots of hardware that does not yet work in Windows. Apple will prevent OS X from running on hardware they don't sell, since the OS and all the other software they produce is a loss-leader to sell hardware and they would be losing money developing the OS and all the free applications and selling it at current market prices. Also it would put them in direct competition with MS, whose illegal contracts make business pretty much impossible. Four superior OS's (to Windows) have already died trying to sell into that market.

Otherwise, "Mac OSX on TPM'd Intel" is just another way of saying "Mac OSX on a proprieTary PlatforM." Not interested.

That will probably be your opinion of Apple boxes. They will run OSX , Linux, and the BSDs just fine, but Windows is anyone's guess. Windows will probably run fine in emulation ala VMWare and the like, and their will probably be some sort of WINE like way to run Windows programs, but I would not count on MS letting it boot out of the box. Of course Apple's PPC platform was technically even more open and runs Linux and the BSDs as well. It was even produced by multiple Vendors without reverse engineering (unlike x86). So when you say , "proprieTary PlatforM" I assume you really mean "platform that runs Windows."

Re:More Irony? Can we handle it?

[killtherat (177924)]

Apple is on the cutting edge of making sure their OS runs on the slowest CPUs possible. For a while that was PPC, back when Intel was kicking ass and taking names, and Motorola couldn't find their ass with both hands. But now that IBM is starting to pop out high speed multi-core PPC chips, it's time to find a new slow chip.

Face it, Apple is cursed, what ever chip they use is doomed to be second rate. If intel was smart, they would have kept their distance ;-)

Re:Moving from the PowerPC to Intel... Bad Move

[be-fan (61476)]

The G5, at least, isn't that efficient. I just bought a brand new PowerMac G5 (dual core 2.3GHz). It's certainly a fast machine, but for almost everything I do, its slower than the 2.2Ghz dual-core Athlon X2 that's sitting next to it. For compiling code, it's about 70% as fast as the X2 system. For SciMark, it ranges from 95% as fast (for the small in-cache dataset), to 80% as fast (for the large in-memory dataset). For nbench,if you leave out one really awful score that's probably the result of a bad compiler optimization, its about 80% as fast. These were all done with GCC 4.0, of course. The 970MP SPEC benchmarks suggest that if I used XLC (and EkoPath on the X2 to be fair), I could probably get it to be 90% as fast in integer as the X2 and 25% faster in floating-point, but considering those scores is entirely an act of intellectual mastrubation, since most stuff on OS X is compiled with GCC or CodeWarrior anyway.

Of course, I love the machine to death, because of OS X, but the way I see it, Apple is going to gain a good deal of performance by moving to x86.

Re:Final Cut?

[wootest (694923)]

If you do have work to get done in the seven months we have to wait and you could easily afford one, I say just get a G5. Your stipulated G5 wouldn't die the exact moment Steve presents the Intel Macs on stage - it won't be cutting edge anymore, but that'll be as true if you were to buy an Intel Mac seven months before its next generation as well.

If the encoding time is really cut down (which looks like a gimme), you'll make it up in no time. If it's really about productivity, you're comparing the last release of an architecture that's been out for several years now (even the G5 is around 30 months old now) to the first round of machines of a new architecture *ever* - there's no way they'll be as reliable as the G5. Major kinks are worked out (except for the 2xSATA drive limit) and apps have had time to be optimized for them.

Also consider this: We don't even know which Macs will be Intelized first! We do know that the Intel switch is all about speeding up the cramped PowerBook, so they will probably come first. There's a chance (although not big) they'll have you waiting until this time next year for an Intel PowerMac, and it's not even sure the performance will match!

I think this "let's hold our horses for a year or so" attitude is getting a bit out of hand. If you were to buy a PowerBook, then maybe I could understand you, but the G5-based Macs are definitely the highlights of today's lineup, and there's no way in hell that the first revision Intel PowerMacs will be a better buy than they are based on what little you've said.