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iBooks 1.2.1 Detects Some Jailbreaks, Disables iBookstore Purchases in Response
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From some of the posts it sounds like this is nothing new for iBooks -- been broken this way for JB users for quite some time. It sounds to me like this may be one of those inconsistencies introduced by jail-breaking rather than an attempt by Apple to thwart jail-breakers.
After all, if I were Apple and wanted to thwart jail-breakers I don't think that iBooks is the position I would take to mount my attack. Maybe iPod, iTunes, AirPlay or something a little more popular.
Then again, for a jail-broken device, seems to me that anything Apple does can be undone and therefore its more evidence that Apple would not bother with doing this on purpose -- it would be a waste of time. After all, jail-breakers can access lots of restricted functions of iOS. So if Apple were to build the "jail-break" check into AirPlay, wouldn't the jail-breakers just remove the check? Just takes flipping a few bits.
I'm sure there will be a mass "Apple is Evil" cry from this as well as "JB >> iBooks". I'm sure Apple knows that jail-breakers by-and-large would consider such a move by them a futile attempt to thwart there efforts. It would not be worth the PR.
The only motivation I can think of is if an exploit was found whereby a JB device could either:
A) allow DRM content to be copied and the publishers made a stink about it
B) Apple wants to ensure that subscription content or purchased content for apps is not circumventing their 30% cut and they can't do that on JB devices
Both seem unlikely since the relatively small number of JB iPhones and of those, the percentage of those folks who are going to try to pirate iBooks. I think most Jail-Breakers are probably in it to violate their agreement with their carrier to turn their iPhone into a free WiFi hotspot.
After all, if I were Apple and wanted to thwart jail-breakers I don't think that iBooks is the position I would take to mount my attack. Maybe iPod, iTunes, AirPlay or something a little more popular.
Then again, for a jail-broken device, seems to me that anything Apple does can be undone and therefore its more evidence that Apple would not bother with doing this on purpose -- it would be a waste of time. After all, jail-breakers can access lots of restricted functions of iOS. So if Apple were to build the "jail-break" check into AirPlay, wouldn't the jail-breakers just remove the check? Just takes flipping a few bits.
I'm sure there will be a mass "Apple is Evil" cry from this as well as "JB >> iBooks". I'm sure Apple knows that jail-breakers by-and-large would consider such a move by them a futile attempt to thwart there efforts. It would not be worth the PR.
The only motivation I can think of is if an exploit was found whereby a JB device could either:
A) allow DRM content to be copied and the publishers made a stink about it
B) Apple wants to ensure that subscription content or purchased content for apps is not circumventing their 30% cut and they can't do that on JB devices
Both seem unlikely since the relatively small number of JB iPhones and of those, the percentage of those folks who are going to try to pirate iBooks. I think most Jail-Breakers are probably in it to violate their agreement with their carrier to turn their iPhone into a free WiFi hotspot.
But they do. You don't think Apple is perfectly aware of the jailbreak community? Remember not to think of Apple as some big, slow, monolithic company, it is composed of employees just like you and me. I bet some of them even have jailbroken devices themselves -- and definitely have friends that do. Any one of whom could easily open up whatever bug tracker program Apple uses and file a report whenever a vulnerability is discovered.
Apple clearly knows about jailbreaking yet the only place they've done anything about it is to disallow you from opening ebooks. You don't think they could easily have put that piece of test code in the power-on event callback? As soon as you turn it on: "Sorry, this device is jailbroken and cannot be used AT ALL. Restore the device to continue." They could have done that easily. Yet they haven't... what does that tell you?
I guess you don't read very well. I used the words "most people" in front of that statement regarding jailbreakers pirating content. So I didn't lump EVERYONE together, just as you're asking me not to do.
Oh, almighty Jobs, Please make more devices I can manipulate, hack and possibly ruin, so I may complain endlessly when you try to stop me.
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Love Adobe Fanboys
The problem is that previous versions of iBooks ran just fine on modified copies of the OS. Then Apple pushes out a new version that breaks that functionality without any warning or notes in the release. If you inform the people that this new version will not allow you to open purchased content on jailbroken devices, there's no problem. If you fail to do that, but inform them of this fact before it allows you to purchase new content, then that's less desirable than the first scenario, but still acceptable. But Apple resorted to a "ha! gotcha!" approach, and that doesn't sit well with me.
Understand what I'm saying? All I ask for is that you let me know that you're "breaking" the app, if you will, before I go and install it and lose access to purchases. Put it in the release notes that accompany every App Store release. That's not asking too much, I don't believe.
Here is what the article says: "the new iBooks tries to run unsigned or improperly signed binaries". Every program that you get from the app store has a certificate that says "this program was legally downloaded onto this device". The certificates cannot be forged. But you can get around this by hacking the device so that apps will run even though they don't have correct certificates. Once you have done that, an application that was legally downloaded once will run on any device that has been hacked in this way. iBook tries to run apps that _should not run_ because they have incorrect certificates, and they run.
Any jailbroken device that runs such applications is indeed in violation of the DMCA. It is not in violation of the DMCA if it doesn't run any apps that originally came with certificates, where the certificates are wrong, tampered with, or removed.
A car analogy: If you lost your car keys, it is perfectly legal for you to open the car without keys, even if you damage it. But taking a gun and shooting at the locks may be illegal (I don't know if it is, but it sounds dangerous so it might very well be illegal). If the only tool to open your car is a gun, then it may be illegal for you to open your own car.
Oh I get all of that. But I'm not trying to copy the book. I'm not trying to show the book to other people. I'm trying to...get this...read the book. The fact that I've otherwise modified the device its on shouldn't impinge on my ability to do the thing that I paid for...to read it.
No...but....but they PAID FOR IT. WAHHHH. They paid for it, they get to do whatever the hell they want, because they PAID FOR IT.
It's really sad that this is the mentality of most people. Feel like their entitled to anything they want, because they "paid" for it.
Well guess what, you also broke the terms of your end user agreement. So you're entitled to NOTHING. But you know, Apple isn't even blocking you from your paid content. They are giving you a VERY simple solution. Restore you device, and the. You can access your content. If you don't want to accept their solution, then you don't get to view the content. You guys don't realize that Apple is under a lot of pressure from these publishers to enforce the DRM on their stores, or else the publishers will not give them the content. Quit being so self centered.
Listen, I'm jailbroken as well, but I'm not throwing a fit feeling like I don't deserve this. You want to modify a manufacturers device, you deal with some tradeoffs. Or wait for the hackers to find a way around it. And all you other doomsdayers with your "this is just the beginning" prophecies. Let me just say to you: Lol.
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Yep. As advised by my ortho surgeon (fixed my ACL) I don't snow ski anymore and instead snowboard. Skiing has a much higher likelihood of messing up your knees than snowboarding although neither is really 'safe.' And for the curious I tore my ACL wakeboarding which probably has the highest injury rate of all the board sports (hitting the water at almost 30 mph hurts!). I stopped doing that too because the injuries just were not worth the fun
How would that be "truly awesome"? How does jailbreaking affect you negatively in any way?
Of course Apple knows about jailbreaking and the whole jb community, like someone said some of Apple's own employees probably have jb phones, and I'm sure they have friends that do. Hell, even Steve Wozniak has jailbroken iPhones (2 of them in fact).
If Apple wants to lock out jailbreakers, they could do a lot. Who really cares about iBooks who has a jailbroken phone? Seems this is more about DRM inconsistency rather than thwarting jailbreakers. Not to mention, locking people out of the App store would certainly have a significant impact on App store sales, and locking people out of more features could alienate a significant portion of the iPhone user base. In the end they just want to do what they can to maintain profits, and in this case it's about iBook piracy more than anything else.
If Apple wants to lock out jailbreakers, they could do a lot. Who really cares about iBooks who has a jailbroken phone? Seems this is more about DRM inconsistency rather than thwarting jailbreakers. Not to mention, locking people out of the App store would certainly have a significant impact on App store sales, and locking people out of more features could alienate a significant portion of the iPhone user base. In the end they just want to do what they can to maintain profits, and in this case it's about iBook piracy more than anything else.
You've modified the software that runs said device. No, you cannot expect everything to work fine on it going forward.
After an in depth reading of the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions and the iPhone software agreement, I have come to the conclusion that I have not: "tamper[ed] with any of the security technology related to such Usage Rules for any reason-or to attempt or assist another person to do so." by "jailbreaking" my iPhone.
As a result, I had no warning that, by modifying my iPhone I would lose access to books when I had purchased them.
Had I been given adequate notice that iBooks would only be accessible on a non-modified iPhone, I would have purchased said books from the Kobo or Kindle stores.
Apple has severely edited my ability to utilize my purchase without my consent or prior warning.
Ideas?
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Further, I have not violated any of these usage rules.
As a result, I had no warning that, by modifying my iPhone I would lose access to books when I had purchased them.
Had I been given adequate notice that iBooks would only be accessible on a non-modified iPhone, I would have purchased said books from the Kobo or Kindle stores.
Apple has severely edited my ability to utilize my purchase without my consent or prior warning.
Ideas?
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Further, I have not violated any of these usage rules.
Again... funny... as soon as something like this happens, Apple is greedy, manipulative, bullies, fools, etc... just after more profits!
Sorry guys... this one does not foot that bill. In fact, it's anti-profits if Jailbreak devices can't view iBooks... why would you ever buy more? So, my guess is... like a couple pointed out... the publishers made them do this to secure their content, or it's something else... like code that was not taken out before release and a bug.
The "i want everything free" and "Apple conspiracy" crowd is really getting old and annoying.
Sorry guys... this one does not foot that bill. In fact, it's anti-profits if Jailbreak devices can't view iBooks... why would you ever buy more? So, my guess is... like a couple pointed out... the publishers made them do this to secure their content, or it's something else... like code that was not taken out before release and a bug.
The "i want everything free" and "Apple conspiracy" crowd is really getting old and annoying.
But the only way to open the book to read it (properly) is to go through whatever DRM scheme is baked into the software. And if the software is aware that it might be compromised, then is it not reasonable for it to refuse to work?
Imagine you're trying to do some online banking and your browser comes back and says "Sorry, there's a problem with the SSL certificate authentication, I can't guarantee that this link is secure, so for your own safety, I refuse to let you log into your bank account."
Except in this case Apple is concerned for its own safety (or that of its digital publishers).
The people clambering about legal issues have no clue what they're talking about. The jailbreaking decision only concluded that jailbreaking itself is not a DMCA violation. It means little as Apple wasn't suing people for it anyway. It does NOT mean that jailbreaking cannot void your warranty as warranty terms are handled separately from the DMCA, and it does NOT mean that Apple can't restrict content usage on jailbroken phones.
Not to say that this isn't a dick move, but Apple is not legally in the wrong here. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's due to pressure from big publishers who might not otherwise sell their content as iBooks.
Not to say that this isn't a dick move, but Apple is not legally in the wrong here. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's due to pressure from big publishers who might not otherwise sell their content as iBooks.
I don't think that I'm entitled to anything I want. But I do think that if I paid for an iBook, I should be entitled to read it in iBooks.
This really doesn't seem like a big issue to me.
For one thing, I don't necessarily believe this is something Apple did on purpose to screw the jailbreakers. Maybe it is... but just as likely, the jailbreak happens to be triggering code designed to stop people from opening hacked books -- something that Apple is surely obligated to do.
Apple is like all other software developers in that it has its hands full testing that its software works as intended in valid environments -- they probably spend somewhere between zero to no time checking how the software works on devices that have been jailbroken in various ways.
If Apple was really trying to screw the jailbreakers, it wouldn't just be iBooks that breaks.
For one thing, I don't necessarily believe this is something Apple did on purpose to screw the jailbreakers. Maybe it is... but just as likely, the jailbreak happens to be triggering code designed to stop people from opening hacked books -- something that Apple is surely obligated to do.
Apple is like all other software developers in that it has its hands full testing that its software works as intended in valid environments -- they probably spend somewhere between zero to no time checking how the software works on devices that have been jailbroken in various ways.
If Apple was really trying to screw the jailbreakers, it wouldn't just be iBooks that breaks.
I use it from time to time to read PDFs, it's a pretty nice app for that. I can't tell for sure if they would be affected, assuming the user did a jailbreak.
Of all the arguments, I think this truth should be abundantly clear. DRM generally has the greatest impact inconveniencing people that aren't pirates. A pirate will find ways around this problem.
I still don't understand what "jailbreakers did to apple" here. I don't think the act of jailbreaking necessarily harms Apple. What a lot of people might do as a result is pirate, but it's also an open question of whether those pirates would have paid anything for media if they had to. I think the answer is generally no, but I'm not sure if the jury is out on that research.
Is the DRM for the firmware the same as the DRM for the books?
It seems like a weird way to go about it though.
That is pretty odd, but I think most vehicular analogies are weak when discussing how electronics operate.