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Psystar Activation Servers Down?
An anonymous reader writes "I purchased Rebel EFI in support of Psystar's crusade back in October. Just 3 short months later, I have no support. I found this out when I upgraded my hard drive and installed Snow Leopard using Rebel EFI. The program can no longer 'phone home' to activate or download/install drivers. This is a direct contradiction to Psystar's promise posted on their website: 'Psystar will continue to support all of its existing customers of hardware and software through this transitional period. Warranties on hardware will continue to be honored as long the customer has a valid warranty. Rebel EFI support for existing customers, as always, will remain exclusively available through email and the built-in ticket interface.' Has anyone else run into this issue? It has been 9 days with no response from Psystar by e-mail or phone."
Our Apple Certified Genius Ninjas have your IP address and are on their way over to assist.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
...to join a crusade.
Lots of people thought that the German National Socialist party was going to be able to turn the German economy around, restore Germany's relevance in the world, and ultimately defeat the countries that put them in that situation at the Treaty of Versailles.
Look, not every horse can place.
I really don't see how anyone in their right mind could honestly expect that Psystar was going to survive aggressively going up against Apple such as they did. Be glad you got the amount of use that you did out of the pay version of Rebel EFI. IIRC, RebelEFI is based on a open source EFI... can't remember the name, but I'm sure a fellow slashdotter will mention it.
Web hosting that doesn't suck!Dreamhost
What the hell is Psystar? Are we expected to know? Google it?
It seems you needed a lesson in respect of other's hard work. Now you've learned the hard way that it doesn't pay to try and rip off someone.
Speaking seriously though, after the injunction that included RebelEFI, what did you think was going to happen ? Why even purchase a product that requires activation when all it is, is a rip off of an open source product ? I'm betting there's going to be a lot of flames in this discussion.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Ok, you knew perfectly well where this was headed. You knew they lost the case against Apple. You should write off your "purchase" as a donation.
I know it's a slow news day but why is this news? The fact that the company that created the software lost a major court case and the company filed for bankruptcy wasn't enough indication that things are not as peachy as the company claimed?
#editorfail
1. This is why you don't buy anything (if you want support) from a company that is getting sued out of existence.
2. This is why you don't buy anything that you can just do for free. It really isn't difficult to make a Hackintosh these days. You bought something that only simplified the process marginally, if even that.
3. This is why you don't be really, really stupid about buying things.
Obviously you've never really owned one. Or you are a verrrry slow learner.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
The whole idea that Psystar was using strong DRM to protect their code to strip the honor-system-level protections from OS X installs was mind-meltingly ironic in the first place. The fact that they're so quickly demonstrating why buying anything protected by strong DRM is a bad idea just adds salt to the dish.
This is what you get for giving money to Psystar. Anyone could have told you it's a bad idea.
I like what Psystar was doing but it was always a bad idea to buy from them.
Apple is pretty controlling, in my opinion, there's no way you can believe that they would have let Psystar do anything with Apple's software that they don't like.
Consider it a lesson learned and search for hackintosh and learn how to sort out Mac OS on the PC yourself or take the loss and buy a proper Mac or put Linux/Windows on the machine you have.
This guy has to be trolling.
grounds for a class action. see how far it gets ya
n/t
This is why I've switched to Linux. It has nothing to do with getting everything for free (I've paid for Windows). It also has nothing to do with me modifying code. I'm just sick of the capitalistic malware infestation that is product activation.
RebelEFI was just copyright infringing code. They pissed off Apple and they also pissed off the development community behind EmpireEFI. This can't end well for them. It would seem that Psystar is just a scheister organization.
Spend a couple hundred bucks on a Dell netbook and move your snow lep. over....?
A Friends machine works great...except for a few bugs in the multitouch area..
'On December 15, 2009, the judge in the California action issued a permanent injunction barring Psystar from manufacturing, distributing, or assisting anyone with any sort of device or technology "that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure".' (emphasis mine)
In other words, you're screwed...
December 22, 2009
Psystar has voluntarily suspended the sale of our Rebel EFI software product. Psystar feels it would be prudent to halt the sale of Rebel EFI while we explicitly ask the court for clarification on the legality of Rebel EFI. Our patience has been tested but our resolve is unwavering. Psystar's vision of bringing the Mac OS to generic PC hardware is and always will be unyielding. Although Rebel EFI may be temporarily unavailable for purchase on the Psystar online store, those who purchase a t-shirt or donate over twenty dollars will receive one free copy of Rebel EFI once the court has ruled in our favor on this issue. ... (more moaning and groaning) ...
Any and all information regarding Rebel EFI, future software products and all other things Psystar should be directed to press@psystar.com or legal@psystar.com.
"Don't worry about the problems you have in mathematics, I assure you mine are much greater." - Einstein c.1919
Boo hoo, you got what you payed for. Now stop complaining.
Would you like Psystar to find the money to continue by a) looking under rocks along the highway b) selling plasma with the bums downtown c) rooting around in their asses until something is found?
Or maybe you think the promises of people who predicated a business on breaking the law* are actually worth something? That's almost endearing.
(*save your spiel about the laws being unjust. They were fairly well understood and the court upheld them, so reality wins over idealism here.)
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091215225827172 - see paragraph 4. "...It has until December 31st to comply, but if it can comply in one hour, then that is what the judge expects to see. Also Psystar must destroy everything it has used to circumvent Apple's products..."
The "destroy everything" by December 31 order would pretty much explain the outage.
This just in: Software that requires contacting a remote server doesn't work when the remote server suffers a total existance failure.
Up next: People die when they're killed.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Apple was well into their lawsuits against Pystar in October. Why would you purchase a product that from a company that was getting them sued, especially when most reporting at the time was that Pystar was probably going to lose?
Mod parent up! When did /. become foo's support forum?
Yep. So, what are you going to do? Sue them? Get in line and there won't be anything left for you anyway. Usually I feel sorry for customers abandoned by a bankrupcy but in the case of Psystar I'd say this is more #suckerfail than anything. Anyone with the sligbtest clue about IP law would know that Psystar, right or wrong, would be slapped to hell over this. And probably being in the wrong, too.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Psystar had no respect for Apples intellectual property, why do you think they had hany interest in supporting you? After they were killed by the courts, who did you think would keep their systems operating? The magic IT fairies?
Psystar were just ripping off other open EFI emulators anyway. Search around, there are plenty of legit free ones, not stolen copies like Psystar were shipping.
Silly monkey, did you actually think Psystar was fighting Apple on some idealogical grounds other than justifying making money by ripping Apple off? The irony is thick. Psystar's infrastructure, which was to protect their profits, takes you down with them on the ship when things go south. Nice.
But, who knows, maybe somebody will start a company reverse engineering Psystar's DRM so for a small fee you can get your computer working again? ;')
I learned that after paying money to 321 Studios for their DVD X Copy software (via Best Buy). Registered but didn't get around to using it before they lost in court, and since it required activation and the server was gone, I never got to use it.
Not that I needed to. There's very nice free software out there for that purpose that will continue to function long after their development ceases. I was just contributing monetarily to their fight.
But then they sold their e-mail list to spammers....
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
thanks for the hashtag #slashdotisnottwitter
Did you honestly expect Psystar would honor the 'promise' they made to you when the steal, and re-sell the hard work of the hackintosh community in order to allow you to steal the intellectual property of Apple? The entire company was based on stealing the property of others hard work. Now, what I would have liked to have seen, is Psystar would have worked to improve Linux using some good ideas from OSX. Lets face it, Linux is not perfect, it has sever shortcomings, thats why people pay money for OSX. OSX does several things right, like application deployment (everything packed in a single directory), why not incorporate some of these ideas into Linux? Well, that would require hard work, instead of stealing from others.
"Also, seriously? What kind of retard would send those ass clowns money?"
That should be modded Insightful, not Flamebait.
Some things are so monumentally stupid the only appropriate response is scorn and contempt.
Also relevant:
Slashdot doesn't feature ways to crack Windows activation, but it does feature workarounds to Apple restrictions. Why?
Those not wanting to be a corporate bitch should not buy corporate software, water is wet, and the sun rose in the East.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
When Pystar first brought a machine on the market, it became quickly clear that their hardware was junk and they didn't know what they were doing. IIRC, one early reviewer bought a machine and found that it was unstable because they had OVERCLOCKED IT.
Having experimented (and failed) with overclocking myself, spending lots of time reading and dicussing on forums issues like Vdroop, Vgtl, Vdd, multiplier ratios, etc., etc., I can tell you that running a processor out of spec is challenging because you don't know where in that processor's performance bin you are, and your results are almost guaranteed to be different from someone else's, and Intel Quad cores are notoriously hard to overclock, and well it boils down to more of an art form of experimentation and testing than science because you can't get Intel to tell you the actual characteristics of the chip you bought. And moreover, you can run all the artificial tests you want and still end up with an unreliable system because memtest86 and prime95 don't test all the corner cases and enough combinations of scenarios. (I had run memory and processor tests for a week straight, and everything seemed fine, yet I would get kernel panics while parallel compiling Gentoo packages. I could just never manage to figure out the right combination of Vdd and Vgtl, and I could never for sure rule out the memory system being the source of the errors. So I just decided that I'd rather have a reliable system and longer life than 20% more throughput.)
It's irresponsible for vendors to sell you an overclocked system, because they can't guarantee that it's reliable. Rather, they are fooling you into thinking you're getting a better system than you are, ripping you off in the process. This is just one example of the many incompetent and/or highly questionable things that Pystar was doing that made me want to stay as far away from them as possible.
It would be one thing if this company tried to produce BETTER hardware than Apple. Trouble is, that would require intelligence and discerment, and people with that kind of smarts would also have been smart enough not to screw with Apple directly.
If I wanted to sell knock-off Apple hardware here's how I might go about it:
- Find a way to become an Apple reseller with minimal contractual obligations. This way, you can sell MacOS X discs without raising any major suspicions.
- Sell and support genuine Apple hardware.
- Also sell and support high quality Linux and Windows white-box PCs that just happen to have peripherals compatible with MacOS X.
- Add development support to an open source EFI project
- Let word of mouth get around that your systems are good for running MacOS
- But publically state that you do not provide OS support in this configuration because it may violate Apple's EULA.
- Get your lawyers to make sure you have plausible deniability every way you turn.
All of this requires forethought (or hindsight in my case). Pystar clearly did not have this. (I might not either. I might have just suggested a really bad plan.)
But like I say, the main thing that bothered me about them is that their hardware was crap. It's one thing to ride on Apple's shoulders. Directly supporting OSX but on GOOD hardware is arguably questionable, from a legal standpoint. It's entirely another matter to do incompetent things that could make them look bad. That'll REALLY get them chasing after you.
I've never really understood the whole hacking culture in the first place. People don't want to buy iPhones because they're not hackable enough. Ok, I support Free Software, so I can totally get on board with avoiding something that's proprietary and has DRM and all that. But even if the iPhone were 100% open source, it still would not interest me to hack it. I'm a professional chip designer. I like designing NEW hardware. I like being given an engineering challenge that requires that I create new functionality to serve a market need. I have no desire to confine myself to the spe
I'll take the ability to right click any file and say "send to F:" instead of running everything through shitty itunes.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
We've seen the knockdown blow... but this is proof that they are not answering the bell anymore and that means they're out.
If there's any consumers left thinking their machines still work, get out. Next MacOS security hole to be announced will be unpatched on these Hackintoshes, and they'll be unsafe to put on the Internet as a result.
...OS at http://www.ubuntu.com/ http://www.opensuse.org/ http://www.fedoraproject.org/ ...or you may buy the apropriate hardware for your OS at http://www.apple.com/
Thinking that the court would accept Psystars argumentation against Apples license was foolish.
I'd do it, but I actually follow the suggestions and try to use my frequently granted points to promote.
So just use one of them.
(hint: I'm typing this on a PC running OSX and never even touched rebelEFI)
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Step 1. Go to InsanelyMac and find the links for the Chamelion (sp?) boot loader. This will do practically the same thing, from what I've been told, and it worked extremely well for me when I used OS X on my Dell (took it off b/c I wanted real Office and some other Windows-preferred applications, but didn't want it in a VM).
Step 2 While you're at InsanelyMac, look for a tutorial on how to install OS X on your hardware. If there are none (which shouldn't be the case if the computer's popular somewhat), there are default methods to follow, which can help you give back by making one!
Step 3. Install OS X, hope that nothing breaks and enjoy!
Let's see, buy an unauthorized clone and expect the system to continue working. What's wrong with that logic?
I am amazed that people have any serious discussions about this, or that they call it "Pystar's Rebel EFI". Rebel EFI is an open source program that was stripped of copyright notices, renamed, and re-distributed without authorization. To assign it to Pystar, and certainly to give Pystar money for it, is dignity that they don't deserve.
vee haf vays of making you vear ze cheek makeup!
You bought software containing DRM (ie, requries "activation"). You deserve to be screwed.
Seriously. Activation means you don't really own it. And if you don't own it, you can't control it. And if you can't control it then it *WILL* be take away from you eventually.
You would think people would have figured this out by now.
Preface: I've become a fanboy, sorry.
I did. I ran OS X on a Dell for a while, but you know what? I really didn't want to deal with all the little pain in the ass things that happen when you run OS X on non-OSX hardware. No matter what you do, there is ALWAYS something not working right.
As soon as I bothered to educate myself a little about OS X on Mac hardware (The trackpad pre-right click/gestures sucked ass :) I just bit the bullet and bought one.
It wasn't cheap, but its been a good machine so far my only complaint is the cooling (lack of) and heat it generates. Other than that its nicer than the Dell I ran OS X on, and cost less (a year or so down the road).
Running a hackint0sh is fine if you're trying not to spend any money. If you're going to buy something to do it, just buy a damn machine and do it legit, its a lot less of a bother.
The irony of it though is that I'm posting this on a MBP, using Chrome running on Windows 7. What can I say, I had an itch to game a little :)
There is no legal trick, no dirty tactic. Yes, EULAs are horrible, blah, blah, blah, I agree with all of that. But that is totally beside the point.
The point is that the software is Apple's. Period. They can do whatever they want with it. If they want to sell it, they can. If they want to open-source it, they can. If they want to attach a EULA, they can. If they want to _refuse_ to sell it to you, they can. If they want to bundle it with hardware, they can. If they want to add DRM, they can. Get it? It's theirs. They can do whatever they want.
Now, what can you do? You can: (1) Play by Apple's rules and do whatever their license allows you to do or (2) Feel free to create your own OS. When you create it, it's yours, and you can do whatever you want with it -- sell, refuse to sell, add DRM, not add DRM, etc.
Apple can do whatever they want. You (and psystar, and everyone else) can't do jack besides whatever is allowed by Apple's license. It's that simple. Tough luck.
Jobs? Which jobs?
People really are amazing.
In other words, you did so for reasons that were, at least in part, ideological. Unwilling to pay the price Apple sets for the hardware/software combinations it sells, and seemingly unable to use any of the available open source solutions for installing a retail OS X disc onto commodity hardware, you chose to patronize a company whose business model was widely known to be legally questionable at best, and which was engaged in an ongoing legal battle with a company with the intent and resources to defend their assertion that Psystar's business practice was illegal.
Now, having ignored those who posted that they felt Psystar was doing something wrong by selling their so-called "Open Computers" as well as those who suggested that the core of the Rebel EFI product itself was code copied without license or attribution from existing open source projects designed to accomplish the same aim, you wish to take Psystar to task for failing to meet the promises on its website.
What made you think this was a company that intended to keep its promises?
What made you think this was a company that would be able to stay in business long enough to keep any promises it actually did intend to?
You didn't spend your money on a product, and you didn't pay it to a going concern. You made your purchase to make a statement-- that you believed Psystar was doing something good, or at least something right. Your voice was heard; unfortunately, things did not turn out that well.
What more can you possibly ask? This is like picking a lame horse to win because of the great payoff odds, and then beating it into glue when it fails to place.
Sorry, I don't have a car analogy for this. Give me a minute.
I purchased Crack Rocks in support of my drug dealer's crusade back in October. Just 3 short months later, I have no support. I found this out when I upgraded my pipe and got high as the lords using Crack Rocks. The mind can no longer 'phone home' to think or comprehend clearly. This is a direct contradiction to my drug dealer's promise posted on their website: 'Drug Dealer will continue to support all of its existing customers of pipes and rocks through this transitional period. Warranties on pipes will continue to be honored as long the customer has a valid warranty. Crack Rock support for existing customers, as always, will remain exclusively available through email and the built-in ticket interface.' Has anyone else run into this issue? It has been 9 days with no response from my drug dealer by e-mail or phone.
you expect a company that has no regard for an EULA to keep it's own word and support their own users? good luck with that. I hope that they return...
There was an unknown error in the submission.
"Also relevant:
Slashdot doesn't feature ways to crack Windows activation, but it does feature workarounds to Apple restrictions. Why?"
If you don't have the brains to figure this one out, you don't belong here. Any moron can crack windows. Apple is bit more difficult, and also Apple is becomign Microsoft - usually more helpful to bite the company in the ass first rather than letting it bite you in the ass.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Something that mystifies me is the large amount of people who evidently jailbreak their iPhones and customise it in numerous bizarre ways. To me, that defeats the whole point of having an iPhone or owning an Apple product. I can't see why they won't just buy an Android device and be done with it. I buy Apple gear because it works well for me out of the box, and I don't want to mess around with the internals much.
Technically, Rebel EFI doesn't crack Apple restrictions, that still needs to be done by other means. It's an EFI emulator. Nice use of rhetoric, though. Not quite at the level of "You wouldn't steal a car, don't pirate a movie", though.
Yes I know, I'll get modded offtopic. Don't care.
Windows Geek Gun - Looks sharp and advertises all sorts of 'new' features. However, one in ten times when one pulls the trigger the gun fails to fire and instead jams.
Linux Geek Gun - Good looking but also utilitarian. Very reliable but unfortunately the typical user of this gun is in the habit of taking it apart and rebuilding it often. In those cases it is unusuable until it's done being re(compiled)built.
Mac Geek Gun - Sleek, stylish, and very easy to use, but one has to buy bullets from only one manufacturer. It also only allows itself to be fired in certain directions because the manufacturer knows best.
DOS Geek Gun - A single action revolver.
CPM Geek Gun - A musket.
Give me a break. It's 4:00 AM EST here right now and I couldn't sleep so I'm not as sharp as I should be :p
Every time a Psystar thread is posted, it degenerates into people attacking each other over EULAs, Licesing, stealing IP, etc... This is ground covered constantly to no good result. Just once, I'd like a Psystar thread to contain useful information about Psystar and it's possible future. I'm tired of the flaming, attacks, and rehashing of old crap. An easy way to turn generic hardware into a Hackintosh would be great. I own many Macs of all vintages. I have several 3 - 5 year old PC's, the newest being a Dell Dimension 530 I'd love to turn into a Mac Desktop since it's faster and has a bigger HDD than my Core Duo 2.0ghz Mini. Someday, I might be able to afford a new iMac or a Mac Pro tower. But, there's just too much noise in every Psystar thread. Like 99 to 1, noise to signal.
Yep, growing fodder too :P
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
http://www.psystar.com/rebel_efi
That's sort of the ultimate rip off.
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro
next time don't try to be cheap and buy a real mac instead
It is simply not possible that you are an engineer: you actually VOLUNTEERED to provide RELEVANT input with MATERIAL information, without jargon or intellectual condescension, all in a timely fashion and using elegant, clear language.
Those facts give you away as SOME kind of troll. Now be honest: who ARE you and what are you UP to? How's the new liver working, Steve?
Signed (ironically, for the humor-impaired),
Technical writer (HW and SW) with 30 years in the industry
3 reasons:
1. Android and the N900 didn't exist back when the iPhone was released.
2. When it was released it was obviously capable but without applications, which gave plenty motivation for jailbreaking.
3. If I bought it, it's mine, and I'll take it apart if I please.
...AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! "I bought some kit from some guys who were ripping off some other FOSS guys and now they've ripped me off". Lie down with dogs and you'll get up with fleas.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Alright, since 100% of posts so far have been about flaming the guy or calling him retarded, I'm sure he already knows. How about back to the original topic? What should he do to get his software back? There SHOULD be a law in place stating that if a product can no longer be 'activated' it must be 'unlocked' permanently and for free. Yes, this includes hosting servers for games that no longer have master servers (including MMOs).
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
"To live outside the law, you must be honest."
It should have been painfully obvious to you that Psystar was headed for the trashheap. I am not disapproving of hackers who put Mac software on generic hardware. Fine with me, and you don't get much fight from Apple, either. But running this operation? Seriously? Have they ever heard of Apple's lawyers? The judge flatly rejected their arguments, which you often still see in these forums. It's a straight case of copyright law.
Like Dylan said, you can live outside the law, but you better be honest when you do. YOU DON'T NEED that piece of commercial crap you bought because you were a good Party member.
i have rebel.. will not authenticate,but it was worth it,my self made desktop is working top notch, i will never buy a true mac desktop no matter what you stupid apple fanboys say or your leader tells you to say, i hate the mac cult since its changing mac into just another greed driven company..
look at how they blocked devices from using itunes
how they blocked google voice
how they take over companies so they can control every part of the process
this is why i am happy to feel some satisfaction in doing my little part to screw them over the way they did to me when they blocked my iphone from using voip over 3g, and when they didnt provide 64bit drives for my mac unibody , actually the whole unibody sherade is a shame
then to top it they lie all the time , the new battery is only slightly better less than an hour , but they wan to suck you dry , after over paying for warranty and macbook , now you can only buy the battery from mac
mac; the biggest thieves are them, so they cant tell any one what to do
i love psystar , and i will buy more from them, if not there is another company with similar offer(http://www.expresshd.com/) that no one seem to be bitching about ?
wonder why ?