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Apple Sends Hidden Message to Hackers?

Posted by Zonk on from the cute-very-cute dept.

RetrogradeMotion writes "The OSx86 Project is reporting on a hidden message to hackers in Apple's new MacBook Pro. The new Intel-based OS X contains a file named 'Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext' and is accompanied by the message, 'The purpose of this Apple software is to protect Apple copyrighted materials from unauthorized copying and use.' The file is not present in either the PowerPC version of OS X or the Intel version shipped to developers last year. While Apple has sent messages to hackers before, is this a tounge-in-cheek introduction to the anticipated (and hated) Trusted Platform Module? Is locking down OS X a strategic necessity or a missed opportunity?" Obviously a big maybe here, but a good story just the same.

35 of 631 comments (clear)

  1. Do hackers read .kext files? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought they only read .knfo files.

  2. Brian, there's a message in my Alphabet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    It says ooooooooo.

    Peter, those are Cheerios.

    1. Re:Brian, there's a message in my Alphabet. by wass · · Score: 4, Interesting
      My friend, back in 1997, claimed that sometime a few years earlier he and his friends were trying to hack some game on his Mac, so they were browsing the various files with a hex editor. Apparently one of the files, somewhere in the middle, had alot of text saying "blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah" for many 'pages', and at some point in the middle said "why are you reading this?"

      Hell, maybe this example is even common knowledge amonst the slashdot crowd.

      --

      make world, not war

    2. Re:Brian, there's a message in my Alphabet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      And the winner of the inability to understand a fucking sentence award is Jester998!

    3. Re:Brian, there's a message in my Alphabet. by Carthag · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In the soundtrack for the Amiga game Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge 2, composed by Barry Leitch, there's a sample saying "you will not copy this game". It's practically impossible to hear while playing, but if you get ahold of the .mod file, it's sample 2 or 3 (it's been a while since I loaded that one up). I remember reading rumors that it was originally supposed to say "kill your parents" but in the end they chickened out and went with the anti-copying message.

      Ironically, the version I played back then was copied.

  3. Re:Can't Apple be forced to release OS X for all x by IntlHarvester · · Score: 4, Informative

    It was IBM, but they were also under Anti-Trust scrutiny that placed a lot of restrictions on their business. Another example: They were forced to license things like ISA and VGA to PC clone manufacturers for a very low price.

    --
    Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  4. Recursively funny by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anyone else amused that they quoted the text saying not to "distribute or reproduce" any portion of the text? Hehe... Too late!

  5. Dont steal Mac OS, steal Windows! by CivilianHero · · Score: 5, Funny

    'Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext' Ok... stealing Windows!

    --
    The best excuse for a President, a King or others *insert your words*, is God. God has still yet to find an excuse.
  6. Of course they want to keep it offa non-Macs! by Diordna · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Think about it. One of the reasons Windows can be so annoying is that there are a bazillion different configurations. Apple can keep OS X running smoothly because they know exactly what's inside their machines. Once it gets put on a Dell, some idiot's going to complain about how buggy OS X is because it doesn't run on his own personal cobbled-together POS.

    1. Re:Of course they want to keep it offa non-Macs! by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Imagine a world where food can be made in an inexpensive solar powered replicator but people still starve because the software used by these devices is "protected" by copyright and DRM. That's the argument for "Intellectual Property". If you're for IP then you're for the complete control over a work by the owner of that work. If that's not your position, if you can imagine just one situation where the owner of the work should not have complete control over that work then, please, don't use the term. The decisions we make now about infinitely reproducable software will determine what is acceptable to our children's children when everything is infinitely reproducable. Already the idea that officials should have the right to invade our homes to ensure we are abiding by licensing agreements is considered reasonable to most people.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    2. Re:Of course they want to keep it offa non-Macs! by shark72 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Imagine a world where food can be made in an inexpensive solar powered replicator but people still starve because the software used by these devices is "protected" by copyright and DRM. That's the argument for "Intellectual Property"."

      That's a textbook definition of a straw man argument. Nobody who wants the right to make money off of their ideas also wants people to starve. Shame on you for even implying that.

      "If you're for IP then you're for the complete control over a work by the owner of that work.

      And when George Bush and his ilk use the "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists," line, it's obvious bullshit, too.

      If you want to save some money by buying a cheap Intel PC at Wal-Mart and installing OSX on it rather than paying Apple's high margins, then groovy -- go for it, if that's what you want to do. This makes you a careful consumer, not some crusader for human rights. If you'd rather keep the money for yourself, than give it to some purveyor of computing hardware or operating system software or record company or film studio, and this fits with your moral compass, then you're simply looking out for your own bottom line. It's saving a few bucks, not the Montomery Freedom March.

      --
      Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
    3. Re:Of course they want to keep it offa non-Macs! by Thomas+Miconi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you're for IP then you're for the complete control over a work by the owner of that work.

      And if you're for "normal" property, then you're for the complete control over a physical item by the owner of that item. To follow on your example, if someone is having a heart attack and theirs friends ask if they can use your car to drive him to the closest hospital, obviously you'll just have to say "uh, no, that's MY car, that's MY petrol, I paid for it, get lost". Cos you see, obviously that's what "property" means. If you don't feel that way then obviously you don't support property, so stop using the term !

      </sarcasm>

      Thomas-

  7. why bother by fermion · · Score: 4, Interesting
    One problem with using a full commidity system is one them has to go to great and often silly lengths to make it look non comodity, else everyone else just copyies it. If Apple wants to limit Mac OS use to Apple equipment, then Apple should just say it won't support anyone who is not using Apple equpipment. Honestly, the foray into non-Apple hardware proved that cost cutting merely causes problems. I don't know anyone who bought one of those non-Apple machines that did not have big problems.

    Now, with regard to the text in question
    software is to protect Apple copyrighted materials from unauthorized copying and use.
    this could merely indicate that Apple is going get more aggressive about insuring that the OS in use is indeed paid for. That is, if a single user copy is bought, then it is only used on the single computer. I have no problems with this, as a five user edition can be acquired for less than Windows XP. Now, if this copy protection becomes too much of hassle and wastes my time, such as typing in long serial numbers, I will likely be looking for an OS with less hassle.

    But the facts remains that the move to intel will expose Apple to a greater risk of unlicensed use of thier product, and they are likely to react accordingly, no matter how silly. I hope they don't make me pay for an extra chip to manage thier shrinkage issue. I hope that it is a simple matter of registering the machine and the serial of the software at Apple, as they appear to do now, and then just leave us alone. Honestly, if I wish to install one of my licensing of Mac OS on an extra PC, and I cannot, then I am likley to an become an irate customer. And given how ambivilant many of us are about the move to intel, I would hope that Apple would think long and hard about transforming that ambivilance to outright annoyance.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    1. Re:why bother by Senjutsu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's the Doom 3 Effect -- Millions of people bittorrented the game 3 days before it hit retail shelves, and then felt like they had to justify the reason they didn't want to pay for it. So the overwhelming reaction was negative. Meanwhile, Half-Life 2 was DRM delivered to paying customers, who of course had a overwhelmingly positive reaction.

      Yes, that's a much more rational and likely explanation for the opinions on those two games than the fact that Half-Life 2 was good game and that Doom III was a pretty tech demo with shit game-play.

  8. Re:Can't Apple be forced to release OS X for all x by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except in that case there was some unfair monopoly issues involved.

    In apples case, the market share is far to small to be even considered for that.. So they can bundle as much as they want.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  9. Legality of Apple tying software to hardware. by GnuPooh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OK I've asked a couple lawyers and they all seem to agree. If Apple sells their OS separately on their website (which they do)*. They can't legal say that you can only use their software their hardware. The other side of course is you need to break the DMCA to use it on any other hardware. I'd really like to see someone challege Apple in court. I don't think they can legally say you can buy their OS, but can only use it on their hardware.

    * Currently, they only sell the PPC version, but let's assume they'll offer the next release to Intel Mac users.

    1. Re:Legality of Apple tying software to hardware. by E8086 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If that's the case, it sounds a lot like the garage door opener and Lexmark ink cartrige arguements, both rejected. You can only use our remote with our door opener, you can only use our ink cartriges with our printers. Both tried to "encrypt" the devices to claim protection under the DMCA(anti-napster act) to stop the generic device makers and both failed. Now it seems Apple could be trying to prevent the use if its software on generic PC hardware. To challenge this in court, assuming you've legally purchased the software and have all the receipts and paperwork all should have to do is use "to use on generic hardware" in the right places and make it look like Apple is trying some anti-competition practices.

      --
      F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
  10. A better message would have been: by kadathseeker · · Score: 5, Funny

    Keep up the good work! Thanks guys, without you jumping on every Winblows exploit, we would never have gotten where we are today. Linux and OS X for a brighter future! - The Apple Team

    --
    The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
  11. Re:Idiotic comment about unbundling software by ethanrider · · Score: 5, Funny
    People who don't understand monopoly law should have their fingers hacked off so they don't post such stupid comments.

    Clearly they should be shot on site, in case they learn to type with their elbows.
    --
    ACMD eht detaloiv evah uoy ,erutangis siht no noitpyrcne eht gnikaerb yB
  12. At this point... by greyrose111 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it's an absolute necessity to lock down OS X from PC use. Apple has, after a series of costly mistakes (i.e. believing that a major corporation like IBM would actually spend money to actively develop a chip that has less that 4% market share) backed themselves into a corner when it comes to software and hardware development. Not to say they aren't good at either of those, but they now serve a very focused and very concentrated user base, consisting mainly of schools and, of course, artists of every kind. The cost is that to continue making the products they do, they must charge a relative premium.
            And if their (excellent) software were suddenly available for the $350 dollar PC you bought from dell (don't tell me no one in their right mind would dare put the holy OS X on a dell... there are enough people not in their right mind to make that common practice) their computer market would be cut in half because frankly; every school, business and especially those poor ass artists, would love to run a safer and more creative friendly platform on a cheaper computer.
            Now, maybe they could make more money if they just dropped computer development completely, but I think someone over at Apple believes that they can start to take some more serious market share back... and with the Intel Macs, it looks as though they can.

    1. Re:At this point... by jbolden · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Microsoft's success has pretty much always been based on winning price wars. They won the OS battle by having the cheapest OS combined with cheap hardware. They won the office suite battle by selling for around 30% of what the compitition was selling for. They made huge progress on the server front by being much cheaper than Oracle, Sun....

      How is Apple supposed to win on that front? Apple has never shown the ability to outperform companies like Dell with respect to logistics. Apple has never shown an ability to offer the best value for the money in a mature market (according the the mainstream). What Apple has shown is an ability to out innovate.

  13. Re:Can't Apple be forced to release OS X for all x by Malor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't think that's true. I believe ISA was simply reverse engineered, I don't think it was ever licensed by anybody. That was the whole point to the PS/2 and the Micro Channel architecture... it was something IBM actually owned and COULD license. They had this vision of a piece of every PC out there, but MCA was complex, expensive to implement, and then expensive to license on top of that. So, for the most part, the industry just went around them, with EISA (never broadly taken up), VESA Local Bus for graphics, and then eventually PCI. Micro Channel died a quiet death.

    I don't think anyone has ever attempted to license VGA, either. NVidia and ATI license out their modern 3D chips to third parties, but basic VGA functionality is, to my best knowledge, a completely free specification, and always has been.

  14. publicly perform? by JourneyExpertApe · · Score: 5, Funny

    You may not copy, modify, reverse engineer, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, transfer or redistribute this file, in whole or in part.

    "For this next song, we're going to play 'Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext'." WTF?

    --
    If you can read this sig, you're too close.
  15. It worked for MP3's by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 4, Funny

    Every iPod has a sticker that says "Don't Steal Music". And we all know iPod users are the least likely to steal. This is obviously because Apple users in general always pay attention to little lables like this. And by touching anything Apple, even their code, by proxy makes you an Apple user, it's like a disease, it's catchy.

    I believe anyone hoping to see OS X running on non-Apple hardware is gonna be SOL now.

  16. Re:Needs a Coral link... by compgenius3 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do you even know what a fucknut is?

    --
    Sexual intercourse is kicking death in the ass while singing. ~Charles Bukowski
  17. Funnier file name by bersl2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    'Dont Steal Mac OS X.kthnx'

  18. Re:Can't Apple be forced to release OS X for all x by tm2b · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I had an Amiga (also a 68k processor), and there was some company back then that sold a board that allowed you to take ROMs out of a dead Mac and put them on their board, and then you could boot Mac OS up as a task under AmigaDOS.
    LOL. Yep, that was the EMPLANT, and worked really well. The main problem with the product was that the company's president (Jim Drew) would consistently absurdly overpromise on the newsgroup (to the point where people were maintaining a huge file called "Jim Drew's lies"). The product itself was pretty solid, except that it turned out that despite Jim Drew's claims that the board had a custom magic emulation engine, really wasn't much more than a glorified dongle with serial ports and a socket to read the Mac ROMs.

    At some point later, Christian Bauer released Shapeshifter to compete with EMPLANT, and then after Jim Drew claimed that Shapeshifter was stealing EMPLANT ip (which kind of put the lie to his earlier claims that the card held the emulation engine) released the GPLed Basilisk II, which is still usable on modern hardware - emulating the MCM680x0 Mac under Windows, x86 Linux and Unixes, and PPC Mac OS X.

    In any case, if I recall correctly the ROM wasn't even used directly... you could obtain a ROM image on the net if you didn't have one to rip with the card.
    --
    "It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
  19. Hackers are irrelevant by AHumbleOpinion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple management will fail in its attempts to thwart the hackers.

    The hackers and a handful of tech savy users that want OS X on generic hardware are irrelevant. All Apple needs to do is prevent someone with the skills of an average user from being able to get Mac OS X working reliably on generic hardware. The generic PCs running Mac OS X will be novelties, more conversation pieces than serious work environments. There will not be a robust set of drivers, merely what ships on geniune Apple hardware. Apple can break the hack used to get it to work every system software update. It will be a somewhat unreliable machine, unavailable for days at a time while hackers reverse engineer and workaround the latest software update. Will they do so, sure, but it will be irrelevant to mainstream users.

  20. Re:Idiotic comment about unbundling software by TrumpetPower! · · Score: 4, Funny

    ethanrider wrote:

    Clearly they should be shot on site, in case they learn to type with their elbows.

    Actually, they should be taken off-site to be shot--it's easier to clean up that way.

    Cheers,

    b&

    P.S. Dig the hole first.

    --
    All but God can prove this sentence true.
  21. Re:Idiotic comment about unbundling software by I+Like+Pudding · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why does the parent poster claim that Microsoft is a monopoly yet Apple isn't?

    Because the parent poster is not fucking retarded.

  22. Re:Idiotic comment about unbundling software by heinousjay · · Score: 4, Funny

    I liken this situation to a joke I heard from Jon Stewart. It's not exactly parallel, but I think it makes the point.

    Jon asked the crowd if anyone supported legalizing marijuana. A giant cheer erupted, and it was quite evident that the overwhelming feeling in the room was "definitely." Jon paused (impeccable timing, that man) and said, "Why? Are you having trouble finding it?"

    --
    Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
  23. Re:Needs a Coral link... by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This message is in a kernel extension (kext). I don't think this is a "hidden" message so much as it might be a kernel message that displays when OS X doesn't detect its own Apple hardware. When people start hacking OS X to run on generic PCs, I wonder if this message is what will display somewhere on bootup.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
  24. Re:Slightly offtopic by demon · · Score: 4, Informative

    But they don't even bother to give something back by opening their hardware specs so the people that wrote/write BSD can use their OS on Apple hardware?

    Well, if you really want to call it "theirs". The wireless chipset that the "Airport Extreme" cards are built around are produced by Broadcom - and Broadcom has had a multitude of excuses why they can't release open drivers. If you open up your Apple hardware, you'll notice a lot of chips made by other companies, and they're bound to the conditions of the license they acquired use of the technology under. It'd be nice if they could release specs, I agree - but this is one situation where my and your desire on it is irrelevant to them.

    --

    Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
    Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
  25. Text in the code... by Dirtside · · Score: 4, Funny

    "seineeW erA setariP X SOcaM"

    --
    "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
  26. Re:Logical Thought: Apple & Hardware Profits by curious.corn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hmm, I guess you've never tried to install Linux on an ASUS notebook. Today, three years later it might be an easier experience but believe me it used to be a royal pain. Wicked broken bioses that wouldn't sleep the machine when the lid closed, nasty bugs that would lock up the gfx hw so badly to require a cold restart, crappy P'n'P that wouldn't enumerate the attached hardware and make linux struggle when looking for it and stinky bioses that wouldn't properly shut down the PIC (or perhaps jitter some "lid open" signal, but that's not sw, it's plain bad hw) and wake windows 2000 when the laptop was sleeping... and presumably inside a bag.

    I had to choose between a vertical solution where the same company designed both hardware and software and quickly nailed every single darn bug (not only security gaping maws) or a chaos of different hardwares only loosely following specs and hoping to fix 'em in software workarounds.

    I bought an external firewire enclosure; it used to work fine but the damn chipset firmware decided to quit claiming it's fw id as by spec. Os X would refuse to sense the device unless, once in a while the signals would be stable enough to get the firmware to follow procedures. I had to wait for an xp64 fix that incidentally added the necessary firmware workarounds (IE increasing wait states during power up) to get the thing reliable on the mac. Hmm, and that was an add-on... imagine that multiplied for all peripherials in a regular pc. Apple takes the chore out of computing.

    Apple is turn key. I bought a bluetooth thingie and the guy at the shop said: "hmm, I don't know, this device is a bit fussy I struggled a weekend and failed on a couple of XPs". I plugged it in, waited for Os X to bring the bluetooth portion alive and synced my address book within 5 minutes. The guy at the counter was close to tears; I was happy to have bought an Apple Powerbook with Os X.

    Ok, I could choose a dell, run windows home and follow the program, but I'd be struggling with viruses, spywarez and surrendering 1 GHz and a RAM stick to Norton to get my job done. Or I could run Linux and curse the damn manufacturer for making cheap broken hardware and only provide software fixes for windows.

    I still long for open, fully spec'd platforms, properly designed hardware modules and combinations and timely updates to fix deviations from the agreed standard. Today, by a bad approximation, that means using windows. Today, I won't run windows and I will happily pay 100for the privilege of better software bundled to neatly ironed hardware (where linux, btw, is a champ)

    --
    Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan