No my job. Doing this violates a United States Federal Law. It is the job of the Justice Department to jail persons who do this.
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Creating Problems For iPhone Hackers
- Thread starter Zippher
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No my job. Doing this violates a United States Federal Law. It is the job of the Justice Department to jail persons who do this.
You wouldn't have a leg to stand on
What are you talking about? By uploading false and misleading information, you are committing Computer Fraud and exceeding your authorization to use to use their server and system. It's actually pretty clear cut.
I'm not sure what was going on. Someone created a User name that was FleshmanO3 . Ohh and not Zero.
I think a mod was going through it though.
That is the full section 4 of 18 USC.
It still makes what you are doing illegal. You are exceeding your authorization and committing fraud.
Section 5 goes more to the point of creating malicious code as you are suggesting:
That raises the punishment. As dictated in Section C subsection 1-3:
I think a mod was going through it though.
That is the full section 4 of 18 USC.
It still makes what you are doing illegal. You are exceeding your authorization and committing fraud.
Section 5 goes more to the point of creating malicious code as you are suggesting:
That raises the punishment. As dictated in Section C subsection 1-3:
Gentlemen. The discussion seems to have gone off topic a bit.
I think the original thought behind the posting is that we have a situation at hand. The largest iPhone hacking website is running unchallenged. Also, it is obvious to anyone that has been in the tech industry for awhile, it is impossible to beat pirates.
So what do we do? If we leave the pirates alone, they will continue to grow and proliferate. As time passes, the non-technical masses will eventually gravitate towards pirated versions because there are no repercussions for downloading [other than ethics] and it will grow exponentially beyond what it is today. On the other hand, it is obvious that the legal system [or Apple] isnt going to work fast enough, have the reach or even care to stop the pirates. Also, if we as a developer community rise up against the pirates, we could have a level of vigilantism that could cross legal or ethical boundaries.
I struggle with this for many reasons. I know that many good people have put in long hours to try and produce some quality applications. Regardless if an application is good or bad, or written by a large company or an individual, I dont think any of us like the thought that other people take it upon themselves to take anothers property and determine the fate of it.
I know that many of us, including me, have begrudgingly accepted the unfair realities of the electronic age. But honestly, I grow weary of seeing honest people getting the short end of the stick every time. Its getting a little old.
Can we try and come up with a constructive solution that doesn't cross ethical bounderies or take years to see results?
I think the original thought behind the posting is that we have a situation at hand. The largest iPhone hacking website is running unchallenged. Also, it is obvious to anyone that has been in the tech industry for awhile, it is impossible to beat pirates.
So what do we do? If we leave the pirates alone, they will continue to grow and proliferate. As time passes, the non-technical masses will eventually gravitate towards pirated versions because there are no repercussions for downloading [other than ethics] and it will grow exponentially beyond what it is today. On the other hand, it is obvious that the legal system [or Apple] isnt going to work fast enough, have the reach or even care to stop the pirates. Also, if we as a developer community rise up against the pirates, we could have a level of vigilantism that could cross legal or ethical boundaries.
I struggle with this for many reasons. I know that many good people have put in long hours to try and produce some quality applications. Regardless if an application is good or bad, or written by a large company or an individual, I dont think any of us like the thought that other people take it upon themselves to take anothers property and determine the fate of it.
I know that many of us, including me, have begrudgingly accepted the unfair realities of the electronic age. But honestly, I grow weary of seeing honest people getting the short end of the stick every time. Its getting a little old.
Can we try and come up with a constructive solution that doesn't cross ethical bounderies or take years to see results?
Actually this will happen either way.
See, despite 20+ years of anti-piracy efforts the "scene" has continued to expand, year after year. As long as computers have IO devices people will pirate software. It's that simple.
You can involve the cops. A few pirates will get busted. The rest will get trickier.
You can play at being a vigilante. A few pirates will get burned by your tricks. The rest will ignore you (and possibly harass you.) Depending on what you do, you might end up in legal trouble.
You can add layer after layer of DRM to your apps. The pirates will crack it. Your legitimate users won't, and they're the ones you'll piss off. The more DRM you add, the better you make the pirated product in comparison.
You can't stop piracy. As the iPhone gains more users so too will it gain more pirates. That's the nature of the software industry. Sorry.
I've been monitoring the iPhone cracking community for quite some time. It is a constant surprise to me how people who call themselves enemies of these sites so often don't even bother to research how they operate. You might enjoy reading these points:
Anyone but the most delusional developers will tell you that you can't "take down" something like this, any more than the RIAA can "take down" music piracy or the MPAA can "take down" movie piracy. Destroy these sites, more will pop up. Destroy those, and the circle continues. The best way around this for developers is to keep abreast of the pirates' newest developments and try to stay ahead of them. Which was a hell of a lot easier before this Haklab idiot started declaring whatever one-man "war" he's on. Seriously, Zippher. If you want to help, stop trying to help.
- Zippher, the OP, is known throughout the community as "Haklab". He's long-attempted to take these sites down, and most of his attempts involve lying to actual iphone developers, trying to get them to do the work for him. In reality, he doesn't even appear to be a developer himself. His actions have progressed to such a pathetic level that he's little more than a joke to the community he's laughably trying to remove from the Internet.
- Appscene has been described as the "backend" to Appulous. Again, research is important here. Appscene.org is only one of many file hosts that do not take down our copyrighted files. Many links to ipauploader.org, getapp.info, and crapscene.org are also on Appulo.us, and while these sites are not as heavily-used, they are, in the end, no different from AppScene. Appulo.us hosts links to any file-sharing site that will keep .ipa files online for a reasonable amount of time. It doesn't have a "backend" file host. All these sites in this community are owned and operated by different people. Unfortunately, Appulo.us in its current form is very legally-grey, especially in The Netherlands where laws like the DMCA do not apply. AppScene, GetApp, et. al., however, are very illegal, very fair targets.
- People here are quoting US law. US law does not apply in The Netherlands, where the majority of these sites are hosted. RESEARCH.
- XSellize.com and Hackulo.us are the two biggest forums in the community, XSellize having about twice the membership of Hackulo.us. They both host their own Cydia repos, but XSellize.com own two (one public, one for members) that both have enormous amounts of actual cracked software on them. Hackulo.us does not distribute cracked software but is more of a community "hub" where most R&D takes place. They have hidden forums where the real development work is apparently done, but even following the public forums gives a fairly good forecast of what's to come.
- This community isn't some secret underground society. In fact, until Haklab (Zippher) made some ridiculous attempts to spam Hackulo.us, registration was free and unlimited so any developer could sign up to see what's going on. Now, thanks to that, it's been closed and much more secretive. Reading the staff postings, though, it appears they're planning on opening back up, hinting at an invite-based registration. XSellize.com appears to have stayed open, though there's not as much information about the group itself there, due to it being more user-based and less developer/cracker-based.
Anyone but the most delusional developers will tell you that you can't "take down" something like this, any more than the RIAA can "take down" music piracy or the MPAA can "take down" movie piracy. Destroy these sites, more will pop up. Destroy those, and the circle continues. The best way around this for developers is to keep abreast of the pirates' newest developments and try to stay ahead of them. Which was a hell of a lot easier before this Haklab idiot started declaring whatever one-man "war" he's on. Seriously, Zippher. If you want to help, stop trying to help.
ppc750fx, this is not meant to sound aggressive, but honestly I don't need another person to tell me that there isn't a solution. Even a temporary solution is better than nothing.
I dont get the OP, Even if you do upload some stupid junk app that does nothing, thats not gonna stop your app from being Pirated. You app still gonna remain there in the same place. Even if you put a virus in the app, that will do nothing. 10-20 downloaders will get the virus, and then word would simply spread thats its a virus, and admins would remove it. This is how it works with all downloading. In torrenting downloading if a few guys find out its getting tracked by the MPAA or RIAA, then they will comment on it, and poeple will just go on to the next Download.
Op, besides Legal Action, you wont do anything.
Op, besides Legal Action, you wont do anything.
if you play with fire (hackers) remember you can get burned....
you dont want to piss them off at you... they will most likely always have the upper hand.
you dont want to piss them off at you... they will most likely always have the upper hand.
Someone might want to contact Apple and say that he is using their name without their permission. Reasons like that are why trademark was created.
As a matter of fact, I strongly think Appulous admins should file a DMCA take down notice. He is using your trademark (name of site, ect.) and posting false material about your site. (I'm assuming you're at some way affiliated with the site. (Not his.)
I'd also put forth the idea that everyone here should view Haklab/Zippher as dubious for lying to our community.
I'm not arguing against you in anyway, but I wanted to bring these to your attention.
Their conventions and treaties are pretty much the DMCA gone international. (They were the onus to the DMCA, as a matter of fact.)
It doesn't sound aggressive.
I'm not arguing that a temporary solution isn't worthwhile -- I'd contend that this isn't even a temporary solution.
Here you go with the "someone else". If you want something to be done why not do it yourself? No one is interested in helping you since there is absolutely nothing we can do about those sites.
And the problem with your "nuking" software is that all apps in iPhone run in their own sandbox which makes it impossible for an app to affiliate with any vital files.
Me? I'm an iPhone developer, with two apps in the app store. I stay quiet, I don't challenge the cracking community (I have a chuckle every time I see a developer "daring" the cracking community to try to crack their release. What exactly are they gaining by doing that?), and I generally keep my apps ahead of what's common in their cracking "scene". Ten minutes a day lets you understand their sites and keeps you up with what the pirates are up to, and I've had relatively decent success in staying clear of mass piracy just from that alone.
I'm not sure whether some of these developers are simply inexperienced with any piracy scene in general or if they're just very young, but if they would keep quiet and lurk these forums, then assuming they're competent developers, they wouldn't be having such a hard time with all this. The solution isn't making some big public spectacle because that only gives them more and more publicity. Just program simple protections that are invisible to your legitimate customers, and once the pirates start regularly getting around those types of protections, make different ones and update. I'd argue that any programmer incapable of a little reading on their forums and thinking up their own ways around it aren't real programmers at all.
There will _always_ be places for sharing cracked apps, no matter what sites get taken down. If you're not willing to take a few minutes to keep tabs on their methods and a few more minutes to add some trivial code to your work, then you're not really concerned with piracy in the first place because that's the only way your app is getting protected.
^Very sensiblie
Um....
So, like, has any developer actually taken the time to ASK Hackulo.us to take their apps off of appulous?
The head honchos are usually pretty cool guys and I don't see why they wouldn't delete your files if you just asked nicely.
Oh goodness Hacklab, they banned you at Hackulous and you got so desperate for attention you had to come trolling here? You're so pathetic. And they'll always be steps ahead of you, no matter what "Plan" you hatch. If buying their servers out from under them didn't work, this little stunt is likely to fail as well.
Um....
So, like, has any developer actually taken the time to ASK Hackulo.us to take their apps off of appulous?
The head honchos are usually pretty cool guys and I don't see why they wouldn't delete your files if you just asked nicely.
Oh goodness Hacklab, they banned you at Hackulous and you got so desperate for attention you had to come trolling here? You're so pathetic. And they'll always be steps ahead of you, no matter what "Plan" you hatch. If buying their servers out from under them didn't work, this little stunt is likely to fail as well.
What did he try to do?
I agree, Siffen's soultion seems quite reasonable. As a matter of fact, I'd be interested in buying a few apps of his. Unlike Haklab's. Those will never be bought by me.
You CAN stop piracy easily with an app that requires connecting to a developer's server to work. If only Apple would provide license keys upon the initial download of the app.
Just to add more info.
To set up such a situation with phoning home...
Imagine the bandwidth for popular apps.
Imagine the battery life reductions on the phone.
Imagine having to keep a computer running all the time to accept the phone homes.
Also, are you really going to tell me the hacking community won't create a wrapper to fake this phone home utility?
Right, so like some form of online product activation? You can prevent piracy with that?
No, you can't.
No, really. You can't stop it.
I'm serious. It doesn't work.