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Apple is suing iOS virtualization vendor Corellium for violating DMCA
- FDSGSG 7y ago>So useful, in fact, that Apple tried to buy the company It's not like Apple can't virtualize iOS. Beyond that, I feel like this article could've done a much better job representing Apples claims. The author attempts to paint Corellium as the good guys while completely ignoring that they primarily sell to the likes of Azimuth. Maybe DMCA is bad and Apple is evil, but that doesn't make Corellium the good guys.
- lostgame 7y ago>> Maybe DMCA is bad and Apple is evil, but that doesn't make Corellium the good guys. Not only is this my favourite point in all the comments I’ve read - but I feel like this one sentence says, in one sentence - what it took me like a page and a half to convey. :P
- kwiens 7y agoAuthor here. I don't see how providing a platform to speed up security research is a bad thing. That said, I don't have a huge problem with Apple's 'they copied our bits' complaint. That's true. The problem is that Apple is weaponizing 1201 in a way that would be very damaging if applied in other contexts.
- saagarjha 7y agoBut Corellium isn’t copying their bits; users provide their own iOS files.
- cdumler 7y agoIt's called aquihire: you buy the company to redirect the talent and bury the product.
- kelnos 7y agoI didn't really read it as them saying Corellium is the good guys. Certainly they want people to ignore any bad things Corellium does, but the point here is that this is just another bit of DMCA overreach, and regardless who the defendant is, we don't want further precedent set that legally locks up our devices and software from ourselves.
- ryanlol 7y agoWhy exactly is this overreach? Corellium cracks iOS licensing, it’s no different from pirating Windows.
- kelnos 7y agoPerhaps, but what's the harm? Apple doesn't sell iOS itself, while Microsoft does indeed sell Windows (even though most end-users don't see that cost directly). Proving actual damages is a part of any copyright infringement case.
- tedivm 7y agoHonestly if I was a security vendor who found a major vulnerability in IOS this type of behavior by Apple would make me far more likely to simply release it rather than work with them to get it resolved.
- FDSGSG 7y agoI don't think anyone at Apple would be all that upset over that. A publicly released exploit is better than one privately sold to intelligence agencies. It's specifically the latter market that Corellium seeks to serve.
- saagarjha 7y ago> It's specifically the latter market that Corellium seeks to serve. Hence why Corellium often provides members of the security and jailbreak community with access to their services.
- FDSGSG 7y agoThat's just a free cover to make their sales to IC exploit developers seem more palatable.
- vineyardmike 7y agoLots of companies give lots of things to "the community" for goodwill, but that doesn't mean they don't also sell to governments. Amazon gives AWS away to anyone, but ALSO tried to get the JEDI contract. One doesn't negate the other.
- lostgame 7y agoWell, no, shit - Corellium, from what I can tell from other articles I’ve had to read, (their website is a virtual drought of information about the product) seems to have literally built its own virtualization platform to emulate specific iOS devices - and is likely literally just throwing IPSW files (the actual iOS releases from Apple themselves) onto this emulator and selling it as a service. As much as I believe in the open and free exchange of ideas I can’t actually agree with iFixit here. The excuse of it being sold as a ‘security product’ contradicts the only statement on their website - that its a tool for development. John Deere locking farmers out of repairing their own hardware? Awful, shitty behaviour. But this is literally stealing Apple’s OS, shoving it in an emulator and charging people for it. This article also makes the fallacious argument that Apple ‘gives away’ iOS with the purchase of an iPhone or iPad. That’s silly - the cost of the OS is built into the purchase price. The R&D and development time and money that goes into iOS or MacOS is part of what we are paying for when we purchase a device from Apple. When we purchase a computer from Dell with Windows 10, the cost of the OS is bundled with the purchase - but Microsoft still gets paid from that - unless, of course we might order the specific subset of Dell computers with Linux on them. I expect better from iFixit. This article reads like a sob story from the CEO of the company. You stole their software. What did you expect? How is this any different from a company that would sell you a preconfigured hackintosh? Or selling a DVD player with an unlicensed movie on it? :/ We can bitch about iOS and MacOS being closed platforms all we want - but for myself and many others the hardware/software package-as-a-unit is actually a huge part of the point.
- FDSGSG 7y ago> and is likely literally just throwing IPSW files Actually they go a bit beyond that. From the apple filing: >The Corellium Apple Product makes modifications to iOS that allows it to be installed on, and run from, Corellium-developed or Corellium-operated hardware. Such modifications include disabling loadable firmware validation, disabling self-verification of the FIPS module, adding Corellium software to the “trust cache,” and instructing the restore tool not to contact Apple servers for kernel / device tree / firmware signing. This doesn't seem too different from a cloud hosting provider selling VMs running cracked copies of Windows.
- zamadatix 7y agoArticles that spend more time telling you how to feel about things instead of reporting on them should not be categorized as news.
- Lammy 7y agoIt sounds like Apple are going to release their own iOS device cloud virtualization product at WWDC in exactly six months, so their lawyers are turning up the heat now on their lawsuit from last August that they assumed would be settled—in their favor—by now.
- saagarjha 7y agoApple started a “research device” program shortly before filing this lawsuit.
- Keverw 7y agoBe interesting if Apple released their own cloud product, since many people buy Mac's just because you have to use it for XCode to build and release iOS apps. However there is companies that will rent a remote Mac desktop. So seems like it would hurt Mac sales.
- toyg 7y agoMac is legacy, iOS is what matters. Sad.