Apple Files Patent for "Tamper-Resistant Code" 401
freaktheclown writes "The US Patent and Trademark Office has revealed that Apple has filed patent no. 20050246554 for a "system and method for creating tamper-resistant code." The system is presumably for use in Apple's Intel version of its Tiger operating system."
Oh, I get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Why didn't I think of that?
Seriously, this idea sounds so silly, it will only invite more developers to hack OSx86 in their spare time. With OpenDarwin already ported to x86, unless they make serious changes to the OS X kernel, I doubt any measure of TPM will be able to keep people from homebrewing their Macs now.
That's fair. (Score:3, Insightful)
Are they trying to patent checksums? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a checksum would fall into that category.
Re:Oh, I get it (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Oh, I get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't they mean... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds hip and jaded, but it also belies a disturbing lack of faith in society. Next you'll declare that all employees care about, by definition, is their paycheck -- therefore they don't care if their job consists of beating children with baseball bats, as long as it pays the bills. And all politicians care about is getting elected, therefore they'll just put their feet up and masturbate once they get into office; and all men care about is sex, and all women care about is babies ... et cetera.
In this specific case, what's wrong with Apple developing technology to make its products hard to emulate or reverse-engineer? Aside from its potential for harassing pirates, I don't see the harm in it. And the harm to pirates is most likely illusory anyway, since pirates and crackers are a very, very resourceful demographic.
Tamper-proof code is still ultimately only as secure as the hardware at its weakest link, and that weakest link for Apple will be this: The DVD that a new OS upgrade ships on. Put it in the drive, read it off. From there, it's only a matter of a carefully developed emulation environment and a precise sequence of code patches until the software is just as redistributable as the latest RedHat image.
Still, and as has been said a million times already, Apple doesn't need to make it impossible - just inconvenient for the layman. And even if Apple ties its OS to its hardware with a zillion steel cables, ... what's the loss, for a company that refuses to license them separately? You wouldn't complain that the software operating your Honda Accord isn't portable to your Ford Taurus, would you? (Well, if you're a Linux rivethead, you'd probably point and laugh, but you still wouldn't complain.)
As for the Powerbook with strips "all over" the LCD ... call AppleCare and keep complaining until they take it back. A friend of mine (who now works for Apple, ironically) sent his 15" PowerBook back THREE TIMES before receiving a machine that didn't have white spots on the LCD, and Apple paid the postage both ways each time. (They also told him they were tracking all the returns in order to build a legal case against the supplier of their LCD screens.)
And as for "why shouldn't I just buy a Dell", ... I don't know, why shouldn't you just buy a Dell? Get the freaking system you'll be happy with. The rest is just slashdot-esque dick-measuring.
Apple's Gift to the BSD Community (Score:5, Insightful)
23: The method of claim 20, wherein the second operating system is selected from the set consisting of Mac OS X, Linux, and Microsoft Windows.
29: The method of claim 24, wherein the machine includes an operating system selected from the set consisting of Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
66: The machine-readable medium of claim 64, wherein the first operating system is selected from the set consisting of Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
67: The machine-readable medium of claim 64, wherein the second operating system is selected from the set consisting of an Apple Macintosh Operating System, Linux, and Microsoft Windows.
Re:What if MS makes Windows Incompatible w/ Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed, Microsoft might be secretly happy about this scheme, since they might be less beholden to Dell.
Re:That's fair. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they want to be BETTER in all ways, and let that sell their computers.
Jobs is a perfectionist, I think, before he is a capitalist.
You make better customers when you do this, have a superior product in all ways. How many Windows fanatics are there compaired to the Mac people. Much more? Pretty good being that MS has a 80% market share, yeah?
And even if I could...would I? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Link to patent publication (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I ask again: what DRM? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's all well and good... I trust Jobs despite his egotistical nature (unfortunately, he's often right). But...
What happens when he no longer runs Apple (succumbing to that great GC in the sky, or losing interest, etc.)? Do you trust #2 at Apple to keep this claim? And for how long?
My letter to Apple for what I want on a x86 Macs (Score:4, Insightful)
What the (blank) department would like to see in future Intel based Macintosh computers.
1. A multi-button mouse. With the recent "Mighty Mouse" part of this need has been address. Although, this mouse could use more ergonomic feedback and improvements. A default option from the Apple Store for the "Mighty Mouse" is fine, but additional choices for a two button or three button mouse from a pull down menu choice will give customers more flexibility.
2. The HFS+ journaled filesystem must coexist with an NTFS, or any Linux filesystem like XFS or ext3 on a multi- partition harddrive.
3. Intel based Macs should have IEEE-1394 support and have Firewire target mode and netboot from EFI (the new Intel based BIOS)
4. Intel based Macs should be able to run Windows XP SP2 on it and future Windows Vista. i.e. minimize or eliminate custom ASICs on motherboard that would cause problems installing Windows. Dual booting Intel based Macs will be desirable, but what would be even better is virtualization using Intel's Vanderpool technology to run the few Windows applications that haven't been ported to Mac OS X i.e. AutoCad, Rhino 3D.
5. Intel based Macs have to support PCI Express x16 for graphics cards. Support high end professional graphics card from Nvidia Quadro and ATI FireGL with CoreImage support is absolutely critical for engineering, scientific and the visualization industry. If possible a 3rd player supporting Mac OS X, like 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm series. This would greatly benefit the Mac OS X platform as a more serious player in the CAD and high end computer graphics industries.
Last but not least for all Macs (x86 and PPC) an easy integration with Active Directory or AFS for user login. Currently both methods require work on Mac OS X.
Re:Has anyone actually read TFPA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Creating a chip to sit on a memory bus and decrypt instructions as they are fetched from memory, which is what this really sounds like, is sick and wrong. One question that leaps immediately to mind is what kinds of hoops you have to jump through to get your operating system 'keyed' so it will boot on the iMax86.
Jeers to Apple for attempting to create a system we won't be able to run open source operating systems on, if that's what they're shooting for.
evil, bad patent (Score:3, Insightful)
The USPTO will probably grant this, or many of its claims, despite its lack of novelty. But this patent is a poster child for what is wrong with the patent system.
Re:That's fair. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure it runs, but it runs best when there is a remote control driving it.
My point is that Apple have logical ways that entice people to spend their money rather than hack around it, if the mac is for convienience and luxury, then hacking, possible slowdowns via emulated hardware and losing stability are simply not on the agenda.
Additionally a similar argument is that alot of Mac software doesn't come with activation(when their intel counterparts do.) This is because there is strong correlation between people that purchase macs and people who are willing to cough up the dollars for software to run on it. A person who is unwilling to pay for software, is also someone who is unwilling to pay the premium prices that apple ask for.
And Another: You can burn all your DRM iTunes Music Store songs to CDs, re-rip them and put them on any device you like... but the majority are happy with just using it on an iPod.
My point is that, by taking away trivial hacks to make OSX work on generic hardware, the people who are likely to buy a mac, still will. The people who are never going to buy a mac, will hack it and run it on any hardware they like and probably aren't interested in purchasing an apple anyway; but this will just eat away a bit of that MS Windows marketshare. (Which makes Jobs happy.)
Re:Oh, I get it (Score:3, Insightful)
What this will do (and this is why it's "tamper-resistant", not "tamper-proof") is make it enough of a pain in the ass that I can't just take my OS X CD and merrily install it on my friend's Dell box. Which will ensure that most users simply won't bother. The geeks can hack away, and Apple will complicitly aloow it by simply not caring that much; we geeks represent too small of a market, and many of us wouldn't be paying for the software anyway. Apple just wants to make sure there aren't hundreds of Mac newbies out there calling their support line with questions like "I bought OS X and installed it on my Dell. Why won't it work?".
Re:That's fair. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't really mean to sound whiney, but it's never cool to like the market leader. It's cool to like the smaller company. Macs are good for art, so the artist clique are the ones that identify the systems as cool — just as "proper" geeks are usually Linux enthusiasts. It's all image.
I don't think there's as much of a void between Apple and MS as people think. Apple's market share just comes from their "cool factor", so it's something they focus on.
Re:OS X on commodity hardware (Score:2, Insightful)
Spoken like a true zealot (Score:3, Insightful)
You aren't on Apple's board of directors. What qualifies you to discuss his company's methods and intentions as if you are?
True, I don't know you either, but your words suggest that you're on a steady diet of Apple kool-aide.
Why is it that software patents and IP law in general is evil except when it comes to Slashdot darlings like Apple and Google? The inconsistency and hypocrisy is a sure sign that religious fanaticism has replaced reasoned thought.
And no, I'm not new here!
An avenue for a virus? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:uh oh.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but this just comes of as a sorry effort at excusing the behavior of crackers. "We're just at the mercy of our primate urges! We deserve pity and sympathy! We know not what we do!"
Yet it's also an effort at self-mythologizing: "attempting the unthinkable". Wow, that's heavy. As if shoplifting is made 'unthinkable' by the existence of security cameras.
The same argument could be tried by rapists "Women shouldn't try to deny men sex, because that just drives us to take it by any means necessary".
It's bollocks for rapists, it's bollocks for shoplifters, and it's bollocks for crackers.