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How Encrypted Binaries Work In Mac OS X
An anonymous reader writes "By now we know that OS X uses encrypted binaries for some critical apps like Dock, Finder and LoginWindow. Amit Singh explains the implementation of this protection scheme which makes use of the AES crypto algorithm and a special memory pager in Mach. The so called Do Not Steal Mac OS X (DSMOS) kernel extension helps along the way by decrypting things for the special pager when apps get executed. A funny thing is that if you print the pointer at address 0xFFFF1600 in your own app you get as output Apple's karma poem for crackers! According to the article there are 8 protected binaries in OSX including Rosetta and Spotlight meta data demon. Interestingly Apple's window server is NOT one of those."
Actually they're up to about 6% marketshare in the USA, and I think about 8% in the EU. And as for relevance, Apple, like Google are figureheads. When Apple do something, the rest of the market take notice. Like Widgets in OS X 10.4.....after Apple released this, Microsoft weighed in with 'Gadgets' (Yes, I know widgets come from Konfabulator, but Apple made them famous, and after Apple did so, Yahoo! bought Konfabulator, something that wouldn't have happened without Apple copying it in Tiger). So what Apple do is important because you tend to find 6 months after Apple do something, everyone else does too. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Microsoft use the encrypted binary idea in Vista SP1 or whatever comes after Vista (too late to put in Vista). I also wouldn't be at all surprised if Microsoft totally screw it up.
The truth shall always be free: Boris Floricic is Tron.
By now we know that OS X uses encrypted binaries for some critical apps like Dock, Finder and LoginWindow.
Actually, I *didn't* know that. I'm not going to "steal" the OS, why is Apple hiding parts of it from me? What else is hiding in there?
Apple seems to be very slowly turning evil again. *sigh*
Actually, it's copy protection written into the firmware. By locking down the hardware side, and making their software incompatible with anything else, they've DRM'd the software while making you feel fresh all day. But we all know what that smell is covering up.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Everyone, including Apple, knows that no copy/license protection system is foolproof. The best you can ask for is something that's difficult enough to break that it effectively deters the mainstream "casual pirate" - remember, even bank vaults are rated on how long it would take a skilled safecracker to open the lock, and never guaranteed to be impenetrable.
You're totally missing the point, which is that Mac OS X users aren't made to feel like criminals like Windows users are. The software has no copy protection, as I said. As long as you are using it legally (as in, you are running it on a Mac), you just install and run it with no product key or activation or any other bullcrap. It's quite refreshing compared to Windows.
The fundamental purpose of Copyright law is to allow a creator to control how their works are disseminated. Obviously, Apple wants you to buy their hardware if you want to run their software, and they're perfectly within their rights to do so.
Say Chevy offers Radiohead $1 Million to use one of their recordings in a stupid truck ad, and Radiohead refuses. By your logic, Chevy should then have the right to use the recording anyway, because since Radiohead refused to sell them the song they're not losing any money.
You may think it's right, but hundreds of years of copyright law would disagree.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
Oh, I should also add that they are within the law, not "within their rights," as nobody possesses the innate right to prevent other people from copying ideas. Rather, copyright is an artificial (i.e. government-imposed) force to impinge on the rights of its citizenry in the interest of promoting something--here, software development.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
The DSMOS extension, by definition, can't itself be encrypted so why didn't he run dump of it and either extract the key or confirm IntelMacs are using TCPA hardware so the wailing can begin?
Maybe because of this little bit of text which is in both the binary and two copies of a file called LICENSE:
Yeah, that seems to be a sufficient warning that it's not kosher under the DMCA to look into how it works.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Er, no.. the fundamental purpose of copyright law is to enrich the public domain by providing an incentive to authors to create new works, which will eventually make their way into the public domain, where anyone--yes, even Chevrolet--can use them as they wish. Granting control over distribution can be part of that incentive, but it doesn't need to be; the fundamental purpose would be served just fine if Radiohead were legally required to sell the right to use their song in a truck ad, because $1 million is still a pretty big incentive.
Our legislators may have lost track of that fundamental purpose, but that doesn't mean we should forget it too.
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The point is that if you are an Apple hardware buyer, then you'll never have to deal with false positives disabling your system, unlike WGA.
And if you are not an Apple hardware buyer, then they don't want you as a potential customer anyway.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
OSX is denying the user one of the fundamental Freedoms. Although it is not the worst offender (*cough microsoft cough*) it is moving in the same direction as Vista. The user is not fully in control of the computer system. There are parts of the computer system about which the user is not permitted to know.
"How is this stealing? I mean, if I'm willing to accept the somewhat unsound argument that if person X aquires a copy of a program from person Y instead of person Z (the owner of the program), then person Z is missing out on revenue from person X, and I'm willing to call that "stealing", even if that is all true, that isn't what is happening here. Person X can't by a copy of the program from person Z that will run on his PC. Person Z is refusing to sell it to him, so how is person Z losing out?'
Simple. When someone owns something and won't sell it to you, you don't have any right (legal OR moral) to take it from them without permission. Yes, even if you're just taking a copy.
"Brown University? We have one of those in Providence!" -- Outside Providence
Say I'm a black man. I go into a store to buy some bread to feed my family. The shop keep says "that bread aint for sale". I say I have a moral right to take it. Irrefutable.
Nice strawman. Because we all know, any attempt to control my property is equivalent to trying to starve a poor black family.
Your razor blade argument is equally crap. Those blades belong to the store owner. I don't care what you thought, you have no moral or legal right to steal more blades or to force him to give them to you. End of story. Irrefutable.
If you don't like it, shop somewhere else.
Clear, Dark Skies
OSX is denying the user one of the fundamental Freedoms.
Uh, it might be a "fundamental Freedom" if you had a "fundamental Right" of some sort to do as you wish with other people's IP. Unfortunately, you don't. A significant number of people make a good living for themselves and their families working for companies that, while being very understanding and supportive of the free software movement in its proper place, gain competitive advantage over their peers by employing the best intellectual talent to solve problems with technological solutions that if copied would eliminate any sort of advantage that company may have in solving a certain problem.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
The right of a vendor to refuse sale to any person, excepting a few prescribed categories (e.g. racial discrimination) has been long established. (The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co. vs Cream of Wheat Co., U.S.C.C.A. 2nd Ct., 1915 being the earliest I could find.) If you are quoted a fare to get on a bus, or for any other good or service, and you attempt to pay for it with some large bill, the vendor is not obligated to provide change. They could at that point inform you that they didn't have change, and wouldn't be required to give you the service or good for free -- that would be ridiculous. It amounts to legitimizing a theft of services, or requiring everyone to carry around change sufficient to break the largest available denomination of legal tender (in the U.S., several thousands of dollars); if it was true, everyone would be walking around with thousand-dollar bills. That you have been able to get away with it on public buses may be indicative of an internal policy of the bus company or their desire not to create a problem, but I do not see how they are legally obligated to let you ride.
If I go into a penny-candy store and ask to buy 5 cents worth of something, and try to pay with a $20, and the seller doesn't have 19.95 in change, I can't just demand the candy for free. In order to create the oral contract, both parties need to agree to the other party's offer. If my offer is "this candy for five cents," and your offer is "I've got a twenty and I want change," we haven't come to an agreement yet. Both parties make an offer, and then there is consideration, and then there might -- or might not -- be agreement. Only after both parties agree to the terms is there an oral contract of sale created. Just saying 'five cents' doesn't carry with it an implied promise of change from some arbitrarily large denomination of currency that you might want to use, and which could require the vendor to do any number of potentially time-consuming activities (close the store, go to the bank, get change, etc.).
It's not even clear that businesses are required in all U.S. states to accept cash as payment. There is at least one business I know of that absolutely refuses cash, and made it into the national press as a result. A lot of people questioned whether this was legal, and they were in the clear. (It was the cafe "Snap" in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. Story here.) And this doesn't even get into the countless thousands of fast-food joints and gas stations which flatly refuse to accept large-denomination bills (usually $100s or larger, although some refuse $50s as well); I haven't heard of any problems with any of them.
If you're claiming that this widespread practice is illegal, then I think the onus is on you to come up with some factual evidence as to why it is.
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If you purchase a physical item, do you still think of it as the seller's property after you've paid for it and taken it home?
When I purchase a car, the car is my property. Honda is not trampling on my liberties by not giving me all the CAD files and whatnot that were used to make my car.
You're infringing my Fundamental Freedom to visit a Slashdot site without any comments by you on it.
It doesn't have to be enshrined in law or recognized by anyone except me to be a Fundamental Freedom. It doesn't even have to make any sense. I say what's Fundamental. Neener.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Full-quoting because it was inappropriately downmodded (and it saved me having to think enough to type essentially the same thing).
anoncow:What he said. :)
Probably. The problem here is that, whether we like it or not, software is sold as a licence rather than as a product. I'd personally expect EULAs to stand up in court simply because there'd be legal and financial pressure upon them to do so; at the moment, they're just "expected" to be valid.
I don't think contracts are going to leave, though. If EULAs are found to be invalid, it'll just change the way that they are distributed to something that's more legally sound, and very little else.
Underhanded? Probably. But I suppose that this is where the whole "vote with your feet" thing should (in a perfect world!) come in.
You're saying that they "would probably not have made enough money to survive" when Microsoft ended up doing the same thing and is now one of the richest companies in the world. There is money to be made in OS sales. A LOT of it. Apple can't sustain itself on OS sales as a niche player in the market, but the whole point of the discussion was saying that if there would have been Apple clones there's a very good chance they wouldn't have ended up as a niche player.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Strange how a *software* company (MicroSoft) can ride on the coat-tails of a monopoly *hardware* company (IBM), and be successful. A *hardware* company switching over to *software* runs the major risk of the new hardware vendors' mistakes tarnishing the image/reputation of the software, thereby killing the company during or shortly after the transition.
Microsoft never *switched* from hardware to software. They were a software monopoly before they even got into rebranding hardware as their own (mice, keyboards, etc.).