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."

Comments

That poem is scary..

[QuantumG]

Your karma check for today: There once was was a user that whined his existing OS was so blind, he'd do better to pirate an OS that ran great but found his hardware declined. Please don't steal Mac OS! Really, that's way uncool. (C) Apple Computer, Inc.

So let me gets this straight. There once was a user who really didn't like Windows (or whatever) and so he decided he wanted to run Mac OS X. Unfortunately, Apple refuses to sell him a copy of Mac OS X that will run on his PC, so he cracks it (or downloads the crack from someone else). Ok, so two questions occur to me:

1. 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? And shit, for all we know, there could be a person W who is happy to buy a copy of the program from person Z, even though it won't run on his PC and then go get the crack so he can run it on his PC. Is Apple try to equate "stealing" with getting something that you paid for to work on the hardware you want it to work on?
   
2. How is this uncool? Apart from the fact that plenty of people think having the skills to crack software and having cracks available for the world to download is a pretty cool thing, is Apple trying to say that only Apple hardware is cool? Or are they just trying to say that refusing to be bullied into buying a complete computer when all you want is the OS is uncool? Cause I think people who stand up for themselves are actually pretty cool.
   

It kinda frightens me when people feel a moral imperative to justify what they do for a living. I've worked on DRM (actually "product activation", but I guess this crowd would consider that DRM) and the whole time that I did that I never felt anything but kinsmanship towards crackers. It takes a lot of cracking knowledge to create a reasonable barrier that will slow down cracking (and that's all this technology can ever be), so I'm of the opinion that only people who have actually been crackers can make good DRM. How can you go from being a cracker to hating them just because you're on the other side of the fence now? Does your pay check really control your thoughts that much?

Re:Apple does it better.

[Gentlewhisper]

"Apple is, in fact, more anti-competitive than Microsoft is"

In some ways but in others not so much. Apple isn't anal about giving its users OSS apps and tools out-of-the-box. Microsoft is. In OSX, for example

        $ whereis python perl ruby ssh apachectl nfsd gcc /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/perl /usr/bin/ruby /usr/bin/ssh /usr/sbin/apachectl /sbin/nfsd
        / usr/bin/gcc

To name a few. Microsoft would never, ever give you any of those out-of-the-box

Indeed, Apple merely took these free code, code that they didn't even spend $0.01 on, and packaged it as their own for their own gain and profit. Oh thank you Apple! Thanks for selling me gcc for $129! Nevermind the overpriced box I will need to buy to run it!

Re:Signed binaries = good, encrypted binaries = ba

[Pete]

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.

Your choice of words (ie. "do as you wish with other people's IP") is revealing here. Software that you've (legally) acquired, running on your machine? Why shouldn't you be able to investigate and modify it as you like? Note that I said "modify", not "redistribute".

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?

Fundamentally, the whole concept of "intellectual property" just doesn't work in the same way as physical property. I guess that's why many (most? all?) software vendors try to suggest that their software is "licensed", not "sold". Pity that most consumers don't see things quite the same way. :)

Anyway, your link between "fundamental" freedoms/rights is a little hazy. It doesn't have to be enshrined in the law for people to support it as a freedom (or indeed to consider it a right).

Unfortunately, you don't.

It's not something that has to apply to all software - the point is more that you can choose to only use software that guarantees those freedoms.