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Mac OS X Intel Build Addresses Pirating
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Sep 13, 2005 04:06 PM
from the arrrr-keep-september-19th-in-mind dept.
from the arrrr-keep-september-19th-in-mind dept.
aardwolf64 writes "ThinkSecret has an article up detailing information about the newest Mac OS X 10.4.3 builds (which is currently said to fix almost 500 bugs with 10.4.2.) What is more interesting is the release of 10.4.2 (Intel) to developers. Universal binaries built with the new version (and apparently all subsequent versions) will not work on systems running the older version of the OS."
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omg (Score:5, Funny)
Re:omg (Score:4, Insightful)
I would presume that they are going to break binary compatibility with every release until they release the intel version of OS X to the public.
Apple only released OS X for intel in a bundle with a Mac OS X developer preview TPM equipped motherboard inside a G5 case. The computer doesn't even belong to the developers who have them, they have to hand them back to Apple when they're finished.
It's not unreasonable in these circumstances to expect the developers to keep the OS up to date, and breaking binary compatibility is just one way to encourage them.
Personally, I don't forsee it affecting anyone who has the OS legitimately, and to those who weren't using it legitimately... tough. Thems the breaks when you use a hacked, pirated version of pre-release software.
Parent
Patches... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how long before someone hacks into the OS/X code and does this...
Re:Patches... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Patches... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
New Mac probably not going to be PC compatible (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe never. The consumer hardware that ultimately ships may only partly resemble PC compatible hardware. Using Intel CPUs and PCI chipsets does not mean you have a PC compatible motherboard. The current hack only works because Apple is using an off-the-shelf Intel PC motherboard. Apple has quite a bit of experience designing their own motherboards, they could easily redo their current custom design, or redo an Intel reference design, and ship something that does not use PC compatible parts and Mac OS X can be coded to only support those parts. Think interrupt controllers, DMA controllers, etc. The real cost savings comes from using Intel CPUs and PCI chipsets, not from having Intel design your motherboard.
Remember, Apple only said they would do nothing to stop Windows from running on their hardware. That does not mean the version of Windows you have today will run, they may merely mean they would not prevent MS from doing a version of Windows for Apple hardware.
Parent
Re:New Mac probably not going to be PC compatible (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the reasons that I switched over to the Mac was that I was fed up with the legacy crap on the PC. I mean, It's been over 20 years; you think we could do something about that memory area between 640k and 1M. Maybe we could replace those interrupt controllers to ones that don't have to cascade off of each other.
My only hope is th
Not really... (Score:5, Informative)
if ( !condition ) { error_message(); }
http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/x86-jumps.html [unixwiz.net]
So, one easy way is as simple as by passing the checks by renaming JZ into JNZ, JE into JNE, JO into JNO, or similar when the serial number is checked.
This way any invalid serial is now actually valid...
You might have to add a NOP to make the instruction the same length.
Other serials are simply generated by having the serial key code compare being blindly copied into another program to create a keygen.
if ( input_key != calculated_key ) { error(); }
Another way is to run it in debug mode and then see the content of the register having calculated_key.
The only product scheme which are more difficult to crack is those which they *seems* to be cracked, but fail unexpectively after a period of time which is very far apart the actual "test".
Days or weeks is a good delay.
And for products which prevent "debug mode" utilities, well, there exist other products to go around this issue by simply masquerading the WinIce/SoftIce application, so it doesn't get detected and prevented from running in "debug mode".
That's all I can tell.
Some of course are encrypted, but even then the code must be "decrypted" before being run so...
it's still possible to analyze it, just a bit harder.
In the end, the best way for a product is to be good, useful, have nice manuals and have a proper support at the right price, then the majority of people will buy it, especially if it's bundled with good hardware, since it wouldn't make sense otherwise.
Parent
Re:Not really... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not really... (Score:3, Informative)
Of course I knew off by heard all the timings of every instruction
True (Score:3, Interesting)
Give it a couple of days... (Score:4, Insightful)
Streaming WMV? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Give it a couple of days... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I think the two are intertwined. It's impossible for a computer to decide, after all, when you're pirating something. There's no distinction between ripping a CD you bought to put on your iPod and ripping one you borrowed to put up on p2p networks. The only way to prevent the second is to prevent the first.
And let's see... Can I play a DVD on Linux legally yet? Without the ability to pirate, that causes me
Before we get the 'bad evil apple' comments ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no, your pirated pre-release software can't be upgraded! Teh horror!
Before we get the "beleagered apple' comments (Score:5, Insightful)
And in all honesty I want my platform to continue living - I need Apple to stay proftiable in the computer business because I want to continue to buy their computers. Sadly this means that I now support any kind of gestapo like tactic that they use to keep the OS locked to their hardware.
Hopefully they can find a middle ground but the past few years have taught me that technology cannot build a wall that technology cannot also knock down - it will be a long uphill battle - I hope the FSB on the new powerbooks is worth it.
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Re:Before we get the "beleagered apple' comments (Score:5, Interesting)
If Apple released a generic version of OSX86, MS would jump up and crush them with all the marketers, lawyers and assasins in it's arsenal, so that's a bad plan. With OSX86 only on Apple hardware, nothing will change - MS don't care, you and I will still use it, everyone else will use Windows. With people pirating the OS, however, MS still won't react since they have nothing to react against, you and I still buy Apple products, but some of those Windows users try and like MacOS. After a while one of two things happens: they go out and buy a Mac, or Apple decides it's "unofficial" installed userbase is large enough for them to deploy a generic OS and still survive Microsoft's retaliation. End result: more tasty Apple goodness but with the advantages of PC or Mac hardware too. Maybe not the perfect plan, but plausible nonetheless.
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It's about responsibility (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true that Apple could benefit from some piracy on the generic vanilla PC side, but this would do little for the long run. There are many people who would love to run OSX and could care less what the PC it's running on looked like or the build quality. If Apple lets the situation get out of control it will put it's hardware business (which is Apple's real business, despite what people keep trying to claim about the iTMS and OSX upgrades) in jeopardy.
Also, Apple has an image as a serious company to maintain for their shareholders. They may want a little piracy to get word-of-mouth, first-hit-free publicity in the Wintel world. But if they stand idley by and become complacent about the piracy/hacking of OSX86 their shareholders are going to wonder how much Apple is working to protect it's core hardware business and their stock investments. Apple may be making a mint off iPod sales, but Macintosh sales are still the company's bread and butter. Apple has to show it's commited to a business plan in it's switch to Intel and not being blaise with the company I.P.
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Re:It's about responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's hardware business is already in jeopardy -- PC margins are extremely low and getting lower. The $100 PC is only a matter of a couple years away. Bill Gates is even predicting that PC hardware will be given away for free with software or services.
I think Apple's move to Intel really is not predicated on performance or watts (Macs sell just fine without them), but survival in a profit-free hardware market. When HP and a few other vendors crater, Jobs will come out of this with millions of OS X/.Mac/iTunes subscriptions and looking like a genius.
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Re:It's about responsibility (Score:4, Insightful)
When you hear analysts saying this (which is where you're obviously getting it from) they aren't talking about Personal Computer makers, they mean PC makers, as in the Windows and Linux variety. Why are margins so thin? Well, look at their prices! Except for the Mac mini, Apple isn't even trying to compete with them on the only metric they really use - price and performance "figures".
There's a reason Apple and Dell have continued to pull in healthy profits over the tech bust. Dell has volume to make up for it's cut-throat pricing, and Apple has the fact they actually price their products with decent profit margins and aren't having to battle directly with the cheap PC makers (the question of what operating system a machine runs means both have markets they don't have to worry about the other horning in on).
I think Apple's move to Intel really is not predicated on performance or watts (Macs sell just fine without them), but survival in a profit-free hardware market.
I think a lot of it is brand recognition. By moving to the chips "everybody else is using" it makes marketing the machine a lot easier speedwise. Consumers know the Intel brand and while they know IBM, they don't know IBM as a microprocessor maker, but as the PC company that (no longer exists and) made the Aptiva a little over a decade ago. Nobody will ask "Well how does this compare to that Pentium 4 3Ghz?" like they did with the PowerPC chips when they're looking at a Macintel.
When HP and a few other vendors crater...
HP wont crater because of poor profits from not being able to limbo as low as Dell. They're going down for the same reason lots of great companies go down. They stopped being a company and started being a corporation. Which meant bean counters were given too much power and a line of great products started having corners cut on them. The company profits off it's old reputation as a maker of quality printers and PC's for awhile and one day people start waking up and realizing the printer they bought is really just a... (how did that poster in the scanner recommendation story put it? oh yes) a flimsy ink cartridge holder.
Jobs will come out of this with millions of OS X/.Mac/iTunes subscriptions and looking like a genius.
1) Apple doesn't make much of anything off iTunes, and I don't see them adopting a subscription model given their current formula is working so well.
2) I don't see
3) There wont be much market for OSX subscriptions if piracy of it isn't curbed. Apple can't claim that it wants to make sure OSX86 runs on Macs only and never take steps to break piracy/hacking down. Apple's changing of the Intel developer build OSX in this latest version is simply their action speaking louder than their words, which is why it's garnering such attention.
Parent
Re:Before we get the "beleagered apple' comments (Score:3, Interesting)
As a institutional buyer. Mac OSX on unsupported x86 Intel hardware doesn't appeal to me. I want to call someone who is accountable if something doesn't work. Who tests out the possible drivers, hardware, software all are working smoothly. Not start childish finger pointing that I've experience from other vendors and wasting my time. I'm glad as a system administrator I don't have to d
Re:Before we get the "beleagered apple' comments (Score:5, Informative)
HP??? You are kidding right. They make great printers but I don't think HP support or the quality of their computers are good at all. We used to have a contract with HP and now they are out
Consumer Report June 2003: Desktop computers Readers report, surveying 39,000 readers ...etc. Then for Technical Support it was Apple, Dell, Gateway, Sony, HP...etc.
Shows Apple with the highest ratings for Repairs. Followed in order by Dell, HP, IBM
Now in June 2005. Consumer Reports Tech support: Desktops & laptops survey shows for Dekstops it was Apple, Dell, Gateway, HP, Sony ...etc. And for laptops Apple, IBM, Toshiba, Dell, Gateway, HP ...etc.
Based on my own experiences the data above is more or less correct, although I've felt Dell slide in the past two years. Dell used to have better support, but lacked testing their products thoroughly sometimes when the slap together components from five different suppliers. Which brings me to the issue of finger pointing.
We've had to fight PC manufacturers many times when our computers don't work, when the sound card driver causes a BSOD, PNY graphics board genlock doesn't work, when the OEM isn't able to control the OS enough to fix problems. Its frustrating as a customer. As for Sun we've had good experience with them so far. Although one black mark I can recall is for their flagship enterprise servers where having major problems two year ago. Sun traced the problem to memory chips from IBM and tried to differ the blame on IBM. Sun's corporate customers where unimpressed and just wanted the damn enterprise servers fixed. So even Sun can have issues, but less so in my experience.
The Apple software/hardware solution tends to work better and there are less people for them to blame, so I don't get the run around as a customer. They provide the whole solution and the buck stops with them when I have a problem, unlike other vendors that make me run around.
If Apple does come up with products that don't honor the warranty, which I have not experienced yet. I'm glad that those lawyers are out there to keep the company "honest" when there are legitimate issues with the product. However, your recommendation hasn't convinced me I would experience less problems from another vendor and the data I provided above speaks to that fact.
Parent
Re:Before we get the "beleagered apple' comments (Score:4, Informative)
Wait. You're comparing Apple's consumer products to HP, IBM and Sun non-PC big iron Unix enterprise support? i.e. These companies more expensive custom RISC hardware \ flavor of Unix support with their much more expensive service contract compared to Apple's standard consumer AppleCare Protection Plan(APP) ? Isn't that a tad bit unfair or am I the only one here?
If you're going to do that sort of comparison with big iron Unix enterprise system, then you should be comparing
- Xserve, Xserve RAID and XSan along with
- AppleCare Premium Service and Support plan with AppleCare Service Parts Kit for Xserve
- with any Mac OS X Server Software Support: level Select \ Preferred \ Alliance
compared to solutions from Sun, HP and IBM. I think your earlier post on Apple support been not as good, was certainly not comparing two alike products. If fact you are comparing two different markets altogether.I happen to be quite pleased with SGI when it comes to their servers with NUMALink and ccNUMA single image systems. In fact they are the best I've come across, but we are phasing out SGI because their hardware is too expensive and even though their support and response times are excellent. SGI's service contracts cost way too much. So if you are comparing similar Unix enterprise vendors to Apple's consumer level products and service + support you have to ask how much are you paying for your premium Unix enterprise support? I'm baffled by your comparison.
apple's support went into the shitter bigtime in the mid 90's and never recovered
I do not think you have been using Apple hardware since the mid-90's and your evaluation would be 10 years old. My experiences with Apple, Wintel, SGI, Sun, HP hardware is current, since I run all the systems to this very day. Now if you have real data to show Apple's enterprise service support is poor, then you have an argument. However, since Apple's recent foray into the server market is still too early. I doubt you would have any real numbers to show that their support and service is poor compared to the other Unix vendors.
To reiterate my point. I feel Apple's consumer support is quite good and as for their enterprise server market its too soon to tell. Comparing Apple consumer iBooks and iPods (as you did) to Sun Solaris, HP-UX and IBM AIX workstations is ridiculous in my opinion.
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Piracy crush Apple? Piracy has SAVED Apple! (Score:5, Insightful)
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what's new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it though, most apps from 10.3 don't work properly in 10.2, but that doesn't mean it's apple's way of keeping pirates away. Since all these X86 versions are beta quality anyway, they're probably working on a much faster development mode, and things break easier.
Then again, they could be doing it on purpose, in which case they have the right, since it's their OS.
Re:what's new? (Score:3, Informative)
They were! (Score:3, Interesting)
Major updates underneath between releases.
HOWEVER - this was when they were fleshing out the base of the OS. New libraries, new coding practices, new releases of major components that were incompatible with prior versions.
You could still coax some NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP apps to run, though. I imagine it's the same. Some Cocoa apps will run, some won't.
Is anything being done for straight ports of old X86 OPENS
Not that uncommon (Score:5, Interesting)
In case you were wondering... (Score:5, Funny)
Anti-Piracy or simple incompatibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anti-Piracy or simple incompatibility? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Anti-Piracy or simple incompatibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Current Binaries (Score:3, Interesting)
Or not? (Score:5, Interesting)
What about virtual servers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps with proprietary hardware that the OS relies on in some way which would have to be emmulated in a typical intel pc?
Surprise, surprise! (oh, never mind...) (Score:5, Insightful)
The point here being, these are not production Intel Macs! Why would you expect to have everything Just Work (which, of course, is the whole reason many folks buy Macs in the first place) - heck, you can only get one of these systems if you're an ADC member! Remember, Apple said that OS X would not work on a generic Intel PC, only on Apple's gear. So now it's starting to come true? Wah!
As for the breakage between 10.4.1 Intel and 10.4.2 Intel - Get used to it - this may well happen a few more times before live product ships next year. I don't think any legit developers are worried about it. Only the pirates. Right now is the "build, test, and learn" phase, anyhow.
Piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
The big question is, does this new policy signal a change?I hope not, I appreciate Apple's laid back policy. Right now I'm trying to determine which flavor works best on my near-obsolete G3/333 "Lombard" Powerbook. It's convenient to be able to try out different options before I license a copy.
Will it hit creativity? (Score:4, Interesting)
Give it 5 years, and they could have 95% people trying blindly, Microsoft style to stop piracy, and have given up making the OS better in the first place.
Re:'universal' binaries ayyy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:'universal' binaries ayyy (Score:3, Informative)
Firstly, the latest version of 10.3 is 10.3.9, and it'll run anything built with gcc 4.0, including things which use the C++ dynamic library. [/pedant]
Secondly, compiling with gcc 4 doesn't completely prevent apps working on earlier OS versions, except in a couple of cases:
Re:'universal' binaries ayyy (Score:5, Insightful)
You're insane.
These are developer systems that cost $1000 each, you can't buy one without signing an NDA, and next year you'll have to give them back to Apple. If your shiny new universal binary doesn't run on a developer system that hasn't been upgraded to the latest OS from Apple... who the hell cares? The binary you compile when Apple is ready to sell x86-based Macs will run just fine on the x86-based Macs that your customers can actually buy. If some developer hasn't bothered to upgrade to Apple's latest version yet, who cares if your app won't work for him?
Does anyone else think that the whole universal binaries idea is a waste of time?
No, I'm pretty sure it's just you. Do you even know what a universal binary is?
Sure its handy where writing two versions is next to impossible, but realistically, thats not very often.
Yeah, I didn't think so. Go learn something about what's going on here before babbling incoherently about it.
Parent
Re:'universal' binaries ayyy (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm-- This is a developer system. It's not finished. This isn't The Thing That'll Be Released Next Year, it's something cobbled together so that folks like me can make sure my software will work on the processor/hardware. It's not a live system that's being 'bugfixed', it's a development system that's actively being developed. That means it'll change. Binary file formats, linker specifics, etc. etc. We're not so much 'upgrading', we're keeping our aim focusssed on a moving target.
...also, having re-read your comment: where do you get the idea that anyone wants to maintain any sort of compatibility with the original 10.4.1 DTK? I mean, it's not like it's been released to the public or anything. Compatibility with the intel build of OS X 10.4.1 is not required; compatibility with the intel build of OS X 10.2 will also have been broken, but you don't seem concerned about that...? Or do you think we should all maintain compatibility with the pirated copies of OS Xi 10.4.1?
(For the record, intel apps built under 10.4.1 still work using 10.4.2; I'd guess that new capabilities/functions were added to the intel dynamic linker, which gcc 4.0.1 uses)
Again, you seem to be labouring under a misapprehension here. Universal Binaries are what are technically known as 'fat' binaries. In other words, they are a file which contains more than one executable file concatenated together. In this case, it's a file which has the i386 binary and the ppc binary within it, padded to fit the encapsulated 'files' on filesystem block boundaries (4096 bytes) and with a header up front that says where they are.
I can't believe I'm having to say this on Slashdot of all places, but universal binaries are not some weird magical thing which runs the same binary code on two different processors. They're not like the bytecode generated for the Java Virtual Machine. They're just a way of storing the binary code & data for different architectures within a single file. That's all.
Oh, and want to see a shipping application compiled as a universal binary? Try BBEdit 8.2.3 [barebones.com] (here are the release notes [barebones.com]).
Parent
Re:another crappy writeup (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What is Apple thinking? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What is Apple thinking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure some people would actually buy legitament copies of OS X for the MacTels, but a lot more people would just pirate it to save money and not buy an Apple Machine.
If you have a choice between buying an Apple Machine at $2000, but you can build an even more powerful machine for that price or lower and stick a cracked copy of OS X on it, where will you spend your money?
Believe me, I'd love to have an Athlon 64 FX-57 PowerMac over some Pentium Mac any day, but Apple has to keep itself afloat. They can't live off the iPod sales forever.
Parent
Re:What is Apple thinking? (Score:3, Interesting)
You put too much faith in Slashdot's write-ups. This has nothing to do with piracy. All Apple can think about* is, in fact, how to make Mac OS X for Intel the best OS it can be, and since they don't have to worry about backwards compatibility yet, they're freely breaking th
Re:Forced obsolescence (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore, apple's not making money off of this. They allowing developers to download it for free.
And even more furthermore, the headline deals with software pirating, which doesn't earn anyone money.
Re:Forced obsolescence (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but this isn't 'planned obsolescence'. This is an Unfinished Product. If I write a program, and at the start I put in Feature X, then later on remove Feature X to make way for Feature Y, before I've even released it as a product, then nothing becomes obsolete. There's no-one using Feature X, because the product hasn't been released. Now, I may have sent copies to some people to test, but that's all they'd be doing with it. Testing. Just like we are with the Apple DTKs, and the Intel builds of OS X.
No
Check your facts again - (Score:5, Informative)
They now sell it commerically (with the development system) for ~$120.
Meanwhile, they are giving away:
-Darwin
-QuickTime streaming server
-Webkit
-Launchd
-Netinfo
-I/O Kit
Nobody in the open source community really asked for any of those things, Apple just opened them.
Then again, the things that people want from Apple has never been part of "a free operating system" that Apple benefitted from:
- QuickTime (particularly the commercial codecs)
- OpenStep / Cocoa / Carbon APIs
- Quartz compositor, Q. Extreme
- Core Image, Video, etc; Core Data
So mentioning the GPL isn't applicable at all. Apple has borrowed from and contributed things back using BSD style licenses.
Trying for force people to share isn't freedom.
Parent
No, it's not (Score:5, Informative)
Incorrect.
The dynamic linker in OS X makes the actual location of functions & other symbols in a linked library irrelevant, since the addresses are computed at run time by the dynamic loader -- the compiler inserts a 'stub' routine and a dummy address. The dummy address is first initialised to the address of a compiled-in function called _dyld_stub_binding_helper, which calls the relevant dyld library APIs to find the real function. The real address is then written over the dummy address, so future invocations will jump straight to the target routine.
I compile apps on OS X 10.4. Most things I compile using gcc 3.3 (because gcc 4.0 auto-links against a library that isn't present in 10.2.x), but I've never had the slightest problem running an app on an earlier version of the operating system. Unless I actually attempt to use a symbol that actually isn't there, nothing goes wrong.
Also, OS X has had weak-linking since 10.2. That means that the stub binding routine can happily return a symbol address of zero, meaning that I can link against somelib.dylib, including somefunc() which only exists in 10.4 & later, and -- at runtime -- I can simply do if (somefunc != 0) to see if the function is available. On 10.4, the function will be there. On earlier systems, the symbol value will just be zero.
Y'know, you should actually read the links you post, for instance, on the page you linked [apple.com] you'll find this useful nugget of information:
...you seem to imply that you're a programmer, so I'd recommend looking at <AvailabilityMacros.h> for further enlightenment.
So no, this isn't "just how Xcode works". Xcode (read: gcc & dyld) work in precisely the opposite way, and for a good reason. What's really happening is that some part of the binary file format has been changed, implemented, or created for the benefit of the Mach-O/dyld runtime.
Maybe it's something new for the Intel machines; maybe it's something that has been available for PPC, but just wasn't implemented in the Intel build of OS X 10.4.1; maybe the latest Intel build of dyld has some performance enhancements which are mirrored by a slight re-ordering of the data/text section format & flags. It doesn't really matter, since even now-- and this seems to be an important yet frequently ignored point so I'll make it very clear --
OS X for Intel is NOT FINISHED YET
Apple can and will make changes. That's part of the reason why folks like me have Developer Transition Kits. So we & they can find things that don't work so well, and would do better if they were changed slightly. This is just work in progress, and things can be changed, removed, added. It's Just Normal.
-Q
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