Is it possible to pirate a free app? I also wonder the same thing with my dad who pirated a song he already owned on an authentic Cd. On topic, it might be possible to convince Saurik to get I********* off of Cydia. That could stop pirating for awhile. I'm only a consumer and know nothing else other than how the actual cydia store runs and what apps pirate. I don't pirate, I've been tempted, but I have morals. I have no idea if we can do it, but if Saurik has a good mind - and if he can - we might be able to pull one of the most used pirater apps. Before responding with "stupid, you can't do that" remember I know nothing and it's just a suggestion.
Removing 'that' from Cydia would help for a short while, but even then, people would figure out with the domino effect how to find apps other already existing ways that are just as easy, and that information would spread quickly through teh internets. What FDG did with Across Age was awesome and funny, but it's really only a very short term prevention method. Like I said, if you have a flashcard for doing homebrew stuff on a DS, you can easily find games that used (at least in principle) similar methods, only to have the hacker community release patches for games that remove the authenticity check. I'm sure the same thing will happen with apps that utilize something like this. I do agree with carlo though, it kind of bothers me that Apple is trying to make the iPhone such a closed platform, yet seemingly not doing a whole lot to protect the developers that have most definitely contributed to the device's success. From people I know who have jailbroken iPhones, the main reason they do it is for the customization, being able to potentially pirate apps is more of a byproduct. I haven't and won't ever jailbreak my 3GS, but I used to have a 3G that I played around with jailbreaking just so I could learn about it, personally I didn't think it was at all special, but I bet it would help if Apple would allow apps for customization on the App Store, while doing more for blocking jailbreak/pirate apps. Best of both worlds in my mind.
Talking about action, wouldn't it be time for a real mass request from the devs toward Apple ? They have to give us answers. It's their hardware, their OS, and it's because of the OS being hacked that apps are pirated. So logically, it is their responsibility to protect us from piracy. Should we start an official letter, with several famous devs signatures ?
I will agree that the vast majority (probably 95% or so) who pirate aren't hurting sales because, given no other option, they wouldn't have spent the money on your app in the first place. Ethically though it still bugs me that they're getting someone else's hard work for nothing, so I feel like there is an obligation not to make it easy for them to get it. Like put a bunch of little, mildly encrypted (ROT13 anyone?) booby traps in there, either to taunt/deride the pirates, phone home with certain bits of information and then have your website post those details in a live list (avoiding sensitive information so Apple doesn't call you out for it), or disable/glitch certain bits of functionality on detection of a pirated app. I mean, if it pisses them off, what are they gonna do? Leave you a bad review? It'd be especially funny if you put some sort of impassable or annoying glitch in there that deliberately looks like a glitch and have them go on forums asking about it, only to find out that it's only pirated versions that have it.
It is illegal, I have a friend who had to pay much money, because he did not want to search for the CD. It plays no role whether you own it or not.The download is illegal... So...it is right, my account is banned (Other Thread), whereas I did not download cracked apps...That is sick...Ban I Tunes, so the only way to get the apps is finally to download them illegally. I wrote to apples support, they must know what is going on. Where do you have the news from ?
From everywhere on Google. Most are dated as yesterday. edit : well, it doesn't seem to be "mass" banning anymore. But some blogs are suspecting Apple to just do a test for future official measures.
They modify the code at the binary level?? I don't understand how they can do that accurately. Er, yes. There's a difference when an author giving their work for free by choice, and when it's being taken from them against their permission.
"Disassemble the binary" just means to disassemble the executable, which generally means to break it down into ARM assembler code (in this case), and from there they can modify and recompile back to an executable.
People still do this? I thought that was only something people did on ancient Z80 machines when no decent compiler was available. Which paper? And is it that they simply know the hex codes for the function mnemonics, or do they just search for common function call patterns? Because if that's all they do it seems to me all you'd really need to do is change up the protection functions a bit to throw them off. Assuming they can't read hex code like other people read books.
everything comes down to assembly Z80 is just an older CPU - ARM is the current CPU in mobiles well; for 68000 machines; you can NOP (0x6e71) checks so that they do not do anything (ie: when checking if a feature is set/unset). there are standard opcodes for all assembly mnemonics. i posted a link to the paper earlier in this thread (google for "palm software protection pdf" as well). even managed code (java, .NET) has opcodes - which end up being emulated. you can patch those as well this isn't rocket science.
To me, the best part of pirating is when you pirate apps that are on Cydia. I always found that rather ironic.
Just that out of 800 songs downloaded from the web, they would have just 10 or 20 that they would have paid for... it was a time (long time ago), we use vinyl disc, and i was a teeneger, and i saved money to buy the band i liked, it is not impossible. Here we are developer, in a developer section of the forum so i guess we want solution good for developers, i want a security chip on the iphone and i want a menu to custom the homescreen, is that too much to ask to Apple ? i think we could cut piracy with proper actions . I am not saying 100% will convert to sales, but the few who will, will be benefit for the developers. The appstore is a business, i dont want the store to put my good without any protection, because at this time, it is more like a "donation" payment for developer.
But is there no way to hide real code inside the piracy checks? So if the pirate turned off the piracy check, they would also make a feature of the game fail? Surely a clever programmer could make several levels of failure throughout the game, so if they removed the piracy check, feature 1 would fail, then if the pirate re-enabled feature 1 manually, feature 2 would fail, and so on…
Okay, thanks, I'll check it out For anyone else too lazy to go to the first page, it's here http://www.docstoc.com/docs/23890544/Palm-OS_r_-Platform-Software-Protection
thanks i typically google for it - hehe. it is an old doc; from 2000 - but, the same principles apply. i know when someone has tampered with my app - and then i report it to my servers (when submitting highscores) as being a pirate.. if i ever run a contest; they wont win but, i dont stop the game or do anything bad for the pirate users - they are in fact, still users.
