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Mac OS X Cracked For PCs Again
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica and The Register are reporting the Apple Kernel 10.4.8 has been cracked using Apple's publicly available source trees. This is the first time Apple was hit by hackers again since Maxxuss silently left the scene.The funny thing about this is the hacker who cracked OSx has released his sources according to APSL. He told Ars Technica in an interview that he did this because he believes in freedom of information, but will this now harm Apple's opensourceness?" From the article: "Unfortunately, free and legal are not necessarily the same thing, and the EULA for OS X requires Mac hardware. However, there is an interesting comment on the blog, one that asserts the requirement of Mac hardware is a "post-sale" restriction. Such a restriction may not be applicable in certain countries, such as those of the European Union. Expect to see what Apple Legal thinks about that shortly."
Apple need to collaborate with Microsoft, and make the Apple Genuine Advantage. As a leader in the field of pissing off customers, Microsoft can proudly show Apple how to protect its interests against those nasty hackers.
Oh You POS
However, there is an interesting comment on the blog, one that asserts the requirement of Mac hardware is a "post-sale" restriction.
If it's a post-sale restriction, and you're not buying it, problem solved.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
OS X is a great OS. If more people could try it out, there'd be a lot more converts.
Agile Artisans
They'd let people install it on anything they want... just make it "illegal" to do so. It's not like Windows' market share was achieved only with legal licensed copies.
It doesn't say it because it isn't true.
From TFA:
I had to remove a key which you need to reinsert if you want to run its GUI, due to legal issues. I called it the "magicpoem" maybe you got the point now. The hex for it is around so don't mail me about it, I want [won't] spread anything illegal.
So here's what I'm wondering.
Apple's EULA says Mac OS X can only be used on an "Apple-labeled computer." But what does that really mean, legally? I've heard some people suggest that if you stick your own label that says "Apple" on a PC, then it should count as being "Apple-labeled," but I'm assuming the real meaning is "a computer that has been labeled by Apple."
So, what if you buy an old Blue & White G3 tower, remove the motherboard, and install a P4 or Core 2 motherboard (along with CPU and RAM)? Can this machine still be considered "Apple-labeled"? Surely you can upgrade the hard drive or RAM without voiding the EULA; which other components are OK to replace before the result can no longer be legally considered "Apple-labeled"?
Of course I'm talking about using a legally purchased retail copy of Mac OS X.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This is really not a case of anything being cracked. The source code was available, all this guy did was remove the requirements for particular hardware. Consequently, as we've all known before the gui doesn't work without the checks that were implemented, and you still need something illegal to get it going as an actual OS X install... all you have here is Darwin running out of the same tree as OS X. I'm sure Apple knew this would happen as soon as they released the kernel source.
"Post sale restrictions" are IMHO the legal flaw in just about *every* EULA.
You've gone to the store, you've purchased a product, you've driven home, you've opened the product and are in the process of installing the
product and WHAMMO -- you're forced to agree to something after you've already expended time, energy and money towards posession of that
product. If you disagree with the EULA, you'll need to expend further time, energy and money (and bereaucratic frustration) in order to
undo the financial transaction and receive compensation. (Ever try taking XP back to Staples and saying you didn't agree with the EULA?).
This is a form of trickery and extortion that goes far beyond bait-and-switch. It is a transaction in which 'good faith' on the part of the
manufacturer is non-existent. EULA's are legal documents which cannot be given due diligence (because the expense of said diligence would vastly
exceed the price of the product), and they are agreed to by minors, the elderly and consumers with no legal background every day. The price
for disagreement is more wasted effort, more lost time and more lost money.
Post Sale Agreements should be illegal.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Give me a break. Porting the Darwin kernel and then running an OS X userland on top of it is not "cracking". It may be in violation of Apple's EULA, but I really don't see any reason to get pushed out of shape about it.
Apple will do whatever they will do in response to it. If they're smart, they're just going to leave it alone: in the end, this really doesn't matter, since people by Macs for the whole package; OS X itself really isn't all that special.
Wow, so much FUD. "overpriced" even though the Mac Pro is $1,000 less than the equivalent Dell and the new MacBook Pros are also less than the equivalent Dells. You even end with the old "iPod users just want to look cool" canard.
There are many ways Apple can (and probably will) tie OS X to Mac hardware. They've got people who can do it (to date, there has never been a crack for Logic 7 Pro and its USB dongle).
"Sufferin' succotash."
You keep using "0x86". I think you mean "x86", denoting [3456]86 chips. 0x86 is the standard representation for the hexadecimal equivalent of the number '134'.
Stop being overly critical, guy!
Before the i486, the Intel Architecture chips were the 8086 (and the 8088, but it was just a crippled 8086), the 80186, the 80286 and the 80386. The standard way of describing a member of this family was 80x86. Perhaps the grandparent just has a defective 8 key that only works every other press...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Apple must exit the computer hardware business as quickly as possible. The powerful competitive forces marshalled by a multi-billion-dollary industry will destroy Apple. Who wants to buy an overpriced computer from Apple?
OK, who gave the guys over at Gartner Slashdot accounts?
I wrote a simple script that simply switches between wireless and wired networks automatically without disconnecting any of my existing connections on IRC and so on.
I plug in the Ethernet cable, a script automatically starts and disables wi-fi card, duplicates NIC settings from the wi-fi card (IP address and so on) then brings up Ethernet. My applications just continue running, still connected to servers and such. If I pull out the ethernet cable, Wi-fi starts up, connects to the relevant network (if it's there) and my applications still aren't disconnected from anything.
This is really useful for me when I need to move around, but every now and then, I need to connect to a wired network so I can do network intensive tasks quickly, such as speedy backups, huge file copies, low latency network gaming, conference calling (works fine over wi-fi, but artifacts sometimes occur).
Mac OS X does this automatically, without needing that little script you wrote. Just give both interfaces the same IP information, and it will seamlessly switch to whichever is higher in the list of connections.
Once again, all kinds of power, and a GUI that makes it trivial to use.
The other thing is, whenever I need to use a scanner, tablet, Bluetooth dongle, wi-fi card -- anything. I can just plug it in, and it works, no need to download drivers, configure the thing. It just works almost instantly. Now, MacOSX? I find a lot of hardware doesn't "just work" on that, if it works at all. I have a Bluetooth dongle that crashes the OS, but works fine on Windows and Linux.
Not exactly persuasive, since it's personal experience. My experience has been that pretty much anything that's USB or Firewire just works, including such dongles, serial adapters, modems, printers, etc. Most PCI/AGP/PCI-Express works as well, although that is more spotty. A lot of that is thanks to class drivers, and a lot is thanks to open source (CUPS and Gimp-Print, for instance).
At the same time, I can sit here and spin tales of how my MegaRAID adapter in my server wasn't recognized by several Linux install CD's, then was broken in the kernel for a few versions, and when I finally switched to an IBM ServeRAID 3L, it wasn't supported by Windows XP!
In 20 years of using the Mac and 10 years of Windows and Linux experience, I'd say you're most likely to get something to work with full functionality on Windows. You may have problems and conflicts, but full feature support is a priority. You're most likely to get most functionality on Mac OS X. Some things are only partially supported (printer or scanner features, for instance), and there are occasional devices that don't work (video cards needing Mac-specific firmware - why is that?). As for Linux, all I can say is it's very hit or miss, distro to distro, version to version. Things break much more often on Linux. It might just need some new package or config tweak, but running a system update (synaptic, yum, emerge, etc) is sometimes like russian roulette. I backup my Linux system fully before applying updates - I don't need to with OS X or Windows.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
You're using the wrong products. The Mac Pro is the desktop system with the dual Woodcrest processors.
The MacBook Pro (laptop) isn't cheaper than a Dell notebook. Though the new ones are closer -- and they come with sufficient RAM (2 GB), hallelujah!