Apple Files Lawsuit Against Virtualization Company Corellium for Illegally Replicating iOS and Apple Apps

[ILikeAllOS]

Apple should just buy this company.
Then find a way to use this tech to allow researchers to look for vulnerability or to somehow make iOS development available on other devices, like Windows/Linux, or even iOS (at least for the iPad).

 

[cmaier]

Apple should just buy this company.
Then find a way to use this tech to allow researchers to look for vulnerability or to somehow make iOS development available on other devices, like Windows/Linux, or even iOS (at least for the iPad).

No they shouldnt

 

[mabhatter]

Apple's claims of infringement sound legitimate, but this phrase seems over the top to me:

Corellium makes no effort whatsoever to confine use of its product to good-faith research and testing of iOS.​

Suppose for a minute that they hadn't violated Apple's IP and were instead offering this service with a license from Apple. If a product or service like this can be used for both proper and improper or illegal purposes, must the company make efforts to "confine the use" to proper purposes, and be legally liable or subject to lawsuits if they do not?

Yup. This whole thing isn’t new. Like half a decade ago people got the bright idea to put Windows Desktop boxes up on the internet in VMs... but not pay Microsoft for doing that.

They got their asses kicked to the curb... because nobody is going to pay Microsoft Enterprise OS fees to run a service like “Steam Play” that requires lots of individual Windows copies. Microsoft’s license terms pretty much wiped out that business model.. Microsoft will happily let “you” use Windows in Azure for a tiny bit of money... but the Enterprise licenses are like 100x more if you want to “sell” that.

As licenses can have “whatever thy want” in them, such usage/non-hacking/geo-locking are almost always built in... you violate that part of the license, it gets taken away... now you’re operating as illegal infringers again.

They are advertising a system accurate enough to “security test” and claiming ARM virtualization. That rules out just putting up the XCode emulator. (Which would be copyright violation) There’s no way they “rewrote in a clean room” ALL of iOS (like WINE did) that’s an enormous task that would take a decade. So the only remaining explanation is that they pulled iOS from Jailbroken devices... that’s very illegal. Apple has no provision to license iOS separate from a device. There’s no legal license available.

I suspect that this is in the news now because of the push to declare Apple “a monopoly” in some manner. This is a setup lawsuit... a smart person wouldn’t d this in the first place and a smart investor wouldn’t back it. This is an attempt to get Apple in court and get some kind of judgement and public opinion that “Apple is evil” protecting their IP like any other company would. So who are the deep pockets behind this company now?

 

[Kabeyun]

Apple should just buy this company.
Then find a way to use this tech to allow researchers to look for vulnerability or to somehow make iOS development available on other devices, like Windows/Linux, or even iOS (at least for the iPad).

As I said before:

Why would Apple reward malfeasance? Not a clever precedent: “Hey everyone, steal from us and we’ll buy you out for millions!”

 

[kingfish78]

Apple has no provision to license iOS separate from a device. There’s no legal license available.

This is exactly the reason that the entire Corellium thing is illegal and has zero chance of being legally defendable. Apple iOS is licensed only to operate on iPhone / iPod / (and older) iPad hardware. Any other use is illegal. Only Apple can sell these devices, so unless Corellium has a server farm of iOS devices that the website connects each instance to (trust me - they don't), then the whole setup is in violation of the iOS licensing terms.

I agree with your second point too. This isn't about winning the legal suit for Corellium - they can't. It's about winning the case of public opinion. It would be interesting to see who's backing this push, because someone clearly wants Apple to be viewed as the Monopolistic heavyweight bully.

 

[cmaier]

This is exactly the reason that the entire Corellium thing is illegal and has zero chance of being legally defendable. Apple iOS is licensed only to operate on iPhone / iPod / (and older) iPad hardware. Any other use is illegal. Only Apple can sell these devices, so unless Corellium has a server farm of iOS devices that the website connects each instance to (trust me - they don't), then the whole setup is in violation of the iOS licensing terms.

I agree with your second point too. This isn't about winning the legal suit for Corellium - they can't. It's about winning the case of public opinion. It would be interesting to see who's backing this push, because someone clearly wants Apple to be viewed as the Monopolistic heavyweight bully.

That’s a baseless conspiracy theory. This is getting no press, and the public doesn’t care. Over the years apple has been involved in numerous identical situations (think psystar). Nobody in the U.S. cares if you legitimately enforce IP rights, and here there isn’t even a question but that it’s legitimate.

 

[CarlJ]

Probably Apple would have called the FBI.

Probably. I was intending to indicate law enforcement in general.

 

[Eorlas]

I really hope Corellium wins. Their tool has helped the jailbreaking scene tremendously.

 

[0924487]

Sounds like Apple should just buy them and use the virtual iOS as a tool for developers and researchers looking for exploits, better than handing out locked down devices to everyone.

A virtual iOS can be copied, modified, distributed, and spoofed without restrictions. A hardware device cannot (to some extent), because of the TPM chips which Apple calls them Secure Enclave.
[doublepost=1565969414][/doublepost]

Does Apple win money from this or do they only get to shut them down?

They would get paid extra.

They would get paid “damages”, “lost profits”, and Apple Lawyers get a cut.

See the last paragraph for details.

 

[justperry]

A

Poor Apple. You dummies gonna pay up cash to Google for stealing Notification Center from them? Annnnd 99% of all the other things you’ve stolen from Android, you dirty thieves? Year after year after year.

Android Q is a total iOS ripoff.

But hey, did I expect anything else from you than this....

 

[Morgenland]

I really hope Corellium wins. Their tool has helped the jailbreaking scene tremendously.

You're making a fool of yourself. It's about these guys here: Cellebrite, GrayKey.Grayshift et al.
It's not about your cute 'scene'.

https://www.cellebrite.com/en/produ...rd-with-data-from-icloud-and-samsung-backups/

Finally, they want to penetrate your iPhone backup in the Apple's cloud.
The same business idea as the Israelis and Russians and more...

Corellium are criminals in the public domain and enterprising in their secret business.
You can be proud of yourself for liking these guys.

 

[imola.zhp]

Did MR reach out to Corellium for comment?

That would require actual journalistic work. MR seems to prefer to collect advertising dollars from its website and lame YouTube videos and allow for a place for fanatics to rave on and on about Steve Jobs.

 

[Morgenland]

That would require actual journalistic work. MR seems to prefer to collect advertising dollars from its website and lame YouTube videos and allow for a place for fanatics to rave on and on about Steve Jobs.

I can't tell MR a place for enthusiasts on Steve Jobs. This is totally absurd. 90% critics and Apple haters.
Too bad there is no similar site for Android disciples. Why actually?

By the way: we rate MR's journalistic work very similarly. It hardly exists.
In this very Corellium file, naive or anxious. We don't know.

 

[alphaod]

Poor Apple. You dummies gonna pay up cash to Google for stealing Notification Center from them? Annnnd 99% of all the other things you’ve stolen from Android, you dirty thieves? Year after year after year.

What are you going on about, Apple didn't steal code or IP from Android...

This is misusing code from iOS... they didn't just implement notifications.

 

[mrkite77]

To produce an emulator (as opposed to a simulator), they must have lifted the copyrighted ROM code from an iPhone. That's why Apple is suing them, for misappropriating their code and trying to make money off it.

The iPhone doesn't have any ROM.. it has firmware, which is freely downloadable from Apple's own website.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

The hackiphone industry is born...

 

[cmaier]

The iPhone doesn't have any ROM.. it has firmware, which is freely downloadable from Apple's own website.

No, it’s not “freely downloadable.” It’s downloadable subject to a license.

 

[CarlJ]

The iPhone doesn't have any ROM.. it has firmware, which is freely downloadable from Apple's own website.

Available to download for one express licensed purpose: running it as designed on real Apple hardware. Any other use will get lawyers coming after you. "Easy to download" is not the same as "free" or "public domain".

 

[kingfish78]

That’s a baseless conspiracy theory. This is getting no press, and the public doesn’t care. Over the years apple has been involved in numerous identical situations (think psystar). Nobody in the U.S. cares if you legitimately enforce IP rights, and here there isn’t even a question but that it’s legitimate.

A quick search of "Apple sues Corellium" returns 5,710 results, but page one alone sources include... The Verge, Are Technica, Bloomberg, Forbes, TechCrunch, Vice, VentureBeat, and ZDNet.

Compare that with "Ruby Ditto Murder" which appears in exactly three news sources - Times Record News, KAUZ, and KFDX.

Sure they’re apples and oranges, but my point is that this lawsuit isn't exactly floating under the radar. And several media sources are already spinning it as an "attack by Apple."

 

[cmaier]

A quick search of "Apple sues Corellium" returns 5,710 results, but page one alone sources include... The Verge, Are Technica, Bloomberg, Forbes, TechCrunch, Vice, VentureBeat, and ZDNet.

Compare that with "Ruby Ditto Murder" which appears in exactly three news sources - Times Record News, KAUZ, and KFDX.

Sure their apples and oranges, but my point is that this lawsuit isn't exactly floating under the radar. And several media sources are already spinning it as an "attack by Apple."

Ask your grandpa if he knows about this. Ask your sister. Ask your car mechanic. Ask your uber driver. The checkout person at the supermarket.

Nobody has heard of this lawsuit and nobody cares.

 

[kingfish78]

Ask your grandpa if he knows about this. Ask your sister. Ask your car mechanic. Ask your uber driver. The checkout person at the supermarket.

Nobody has heard of this lawsuit and nobody cares.

Give it time. It’s still fresh.

 

[Gasu E.]

Where is that damned cat? It was in the bag just a minute ago!

But was it/was it not dead?

 

[StuKatz1]

Apple has more lawyers than designers

 

[palmerc]

I suspect Corellium didn't copy one line of code and wrote it themselves from scratch. The only thing copied were icons and graphics.

Actually my understanding of their offering is hardware virtualization. They are booting actual iOS by replicating the hardware and boot chain in software. So it should not be surprising they are going to lose this court case.

 

[redheeler]

Corellium is not only distributing virtualized copies of iOS, but actively selling them and profiting monetarily from doing so. I have to side with Apple regarding this one. Not going to end well for Corellium.