8 ms·

IBooks detects jailbroken iphones

44 points by ajaykam 16y ago

ajaykam 16y ago
this ongoing battle is annoying. I just need my iphone to be a hotspot and I need a better notification system. Then i'll be happy.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  >and I need a better notification system Not to sound trollish, but have you looked at Android's notification system? It's absolutely wonderful, and I really don't think I'd change a thing about it. If you aren't too tied to iOS and are willing to switch, I'd say it's worth a look.
  - ajaykam 16y ago
    Yea, androids is much better than iOS. The notification system is by far the worst thing about iOS, but I'm sure that the iOS solution will be good when they do revamp it.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- rimantas 16y ago
  I am running 4.3 beta, so I have got the first I couldn't care less about the second. Why do you need better ways to get interrupted? I honestly cannot understand all this talk about Android having better notification system. I can see missed calls and new messages on the apps badges, that's enough for me.
- jhancock 16y ago
  Perhaps you'd be happy with a Palm Pre: hotspot..check (and free with Verizon)...possibly world's finest notification system...check. I had an iPhone for a year and now have used a Palm Pre for a year. I just bought my son an iPod Touch and yuck!! The celebrated UI of iOS is quite a turn off compared to webOS in my opinion.
tptacek 16y ago
It's hard to muster too much outrage about this. You can't read your "rightfully purchased iBooks" on any other device either; you can't read them on a Kindle, nor, to the best of my knowledge, on an Apple Mac computer of any sort. You can't to my mind reasonably expect to play them on jailbroken phones either. Why are you even buying iBook books? I can't understand the market proposition to them. Kindle books work on Apple and Amazon hardware, and have a wider selection. eBooks are already content-protected (this doesn't bother me, but bothers most geeks); why would you opt into the more protected of the two major options?
- jmillikin 16y ago
  > Kindle books work on Apple and Amazon hardware, and have a wider selection. Kindle's DRM seems to be a sweet spot: effective enough to prevent casual piracy, but generally not annoying, and easy to bypass for anyone who cares about controlling their own media.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Do you have more info on this? If true, the ability to export to ePub would induce me to buy books in kindle format. [edit: looks like there are some python scripts to do this. http://pastebin.com/f696ea728 http://pastebin.com/f696ea728 This one claims to do the job. ]
    - jmillikin 16y ago
      Wired has a short article on removing Kindle DRM at < http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/how-to-strip-drm-from-kindle-e-books-and-others/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/how-to-strip-drm-from... >. You can also use the more technical solution at < http://stackoverflow.org/wiki/Removing_DRM_from_Kindle_books http://stackoverflow.org/wiki/Removing_DRM_from_Kindle_books >, which is more annoying for one-offs but much easier to automate.
    - technomancy 16y ago
      > If true, the ability to export to ePub would induce me to buy books in kindle format. Keep in mind that by doing so you would still be supporting a consumer-hostile ecosystem.
HyprMusic 16y ago
Surely this is just going to encourage people to pirate these books? Seems like another case of DRM punishing the good guys.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
zacharypinter 16y ago
I'm glad that all the technical books I purchase come DRM-free. Articles like this remind me why DRM should be avoided.
farlington 16y ago
I doubt that this was solely intended as a 'screw you' to jailbreakers. More likely, it's because Apple can't guarantee the integrity of DRM on a jailbroken system, and that's one of the terms in their contracts with publishers.
wh-uws 16y ago
After years of this type of thing from Apple I just can't feel sorry for anyone with a problem with this. You know Apple, they are going to do this every time. If you have a problem with that don't buy their products.
- wh-uws 16y ago
  If you downvote please provide me with some feedback. Apple has a very closed ecosystem and they like to exercise tight control over it. That is a fact.
ax0n 16y ago
No, this does not open Apple up to lawsuits. Any corporation has the option of telling you what configurations are supported, and choosing to not support configurations that are the result of extensive tweaking.
CWuestefeld 16y ago
It appears that Apple is throwing caution to the wind and opening themselves up for a slew of lawsuits over… iBooks. Really? Even if a corporation doesn’t like us messing with their perfect OS, they can’t stop us from doing what’s legal. Sigh. Someone else who doesn't understand our rights include the right to enter into a contract that places burdens on both parties. There's no legal or moral reason that Apple can't say "I'll sell you this for $X plus your promise not to do $Y.". You don't have to like it -- in which case you shouldn't make the agreement -- but it's certainly not wrong.
- lukifer 16y ago
  Though I consider the specific situation with iBooks and DRM to be both mild and reasonable, it does invoke a thorny legal and moral question: exactly how much of your rights are you allowed to sign away voluntarily? Extreme ends of the spectrum are very clear: selling yourself into indentured servitude is a violation of basic human rights, while selling your time for eight hours a day is not. Many advocates for digital freedom would argue that allowing customers (particularly the non-tech-savvy who don't know what they're agreeing to) to give up the rights to their devices and content is inherently immoral. I don't agree entirely, but I see their point, and if there was a ballot initiative proposing consumer protections against things like DRM lock-in, I would likely vote for it.
- ig1 16y ago
  Yes there are. There are plenty of rights which the law gives you which you can't surrender, because they occur in asymmetric situations where one party has more power than the other. For example you can't sell yourself into slavery and you can't surrender your right to reverse engineer a technology (in most developed countries). Anti-competitive practices is another area where the law has intervened in these sort of situations in the past. For example in the case of printer ink refills (although the law has chosen not to intervene in the console market).
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    We could have all kinds of debate here. I assume that we can all agree on the slavery part, but I'm not so sure about the reverse engineering one. Your personal feelings may differ, of course, but I'm having trouble constructing an argument against the signing-away of reverse engineering rights, from basic natural law principles. Here's another fun example: clearly the right to free speech is fundamental, at least to those in our society. So how is it that a court can uphold, e.g., an NDA?
linuxhansl 16y ago
Don't buy DRM controlled books (or DRM controlled anything). By doing so you are at the mercy of the content provider/deliverer. That should be the lesson learned.
stcredzero 16y ago
Crippling functionality in response to jailbreaking is a bad move. Basically, you're pissing off exactly the people who have the ability to embarrass you. Just detecting jailbreaking is tremendously powerful in itself, and can be leveraged to great advantage. Crippling functionality isn't one of these ways, though.
Andrewski 16y ago
The lil blogger says "The Library of Congress declared that it is completely legal to jailbreak your devices." Firstly, the Library of Congress hardle makes legal decisions, and additionally, if they did, that does not imply that a company can not lock them down.

44 points by ajaykam 16y ago

this ongoing battle is annoying. I just need my iphone to be a hotspot and I need a better notification system. Then i'll be happy.

jokermatt999 16y ago
>and I need a better notification system Not to sound trollish, but have you looked at Android's notification system? It's absolutely wonderful, and I really don't think I'd change a thing about it. If you aren't too tied to iOS and are willing to switch, I'd say it's worth a look.
- ajaykam 16y ago
  Yea, androids is much better than iOS. The notification system is by far the worst thing about iOS, but I'm sure that the iOS solution will be good when they do revamp it.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
rimantas 16y ago
I am running 4.3 beta, so I have got the first I couldn't care less about the second. Why do you need better ways to get interrupted? I honestly cannot understand all this talk about Android having better notification system. I can see missed calls and new messages on the apps badges, that's enough for me.
jhancock 16y ago
Perhaps you'd be happy with a Palm Pre: hotspot..check (and free with Verizon)...possibly world's finest notification system...check. I had an iPhone for a year and now have used a Palm Pre for a year. I just bought my son an iPod Touch and yuck!! The celebrated UI of iOS is quite a turn off compared to webOS in my opinion.

tptacek 16y ago

It's hard to muster too much outrage about this. You can't read your "rightfully purchased iBooks" on any other device either; you can't read them on a Kindle, nor, to the best of my knowledge, on an Apple Mac computer of any sort. You can't to my mind reasonably expect to play them on jailbroken phones either. Why are you even buying iBook books? I can't understand the market proposition to them. Kindle books work on Apple and Amazon hardware, and have a wider selection. eBooks are already content-protected (this doesn't bother me, but bothers most geeks); why would you opt into the more protected of the two major options?

jmillikin 16y ago
> Kindle books work on Apple and Amazon hardware, and have a wider selection. Kindle's DRM seems to be a sweet spot: effective enough to prevent casual piracy, but generally not annoying, and easy to bypass for anyone who cares about controlling their own media.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Do you have more info on this? If true, the ability to export to ePub would induce me to buy books in kindle format. [edit: looks like there are some python scripts to do this. http://pastebin.com/f696ea728 http://pastebin.com/f696ea728 This one claims to do the job. ]
  - jmillikin 16y ago
    Wired has a short article on removing Kindle DRM at < http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/how-to-strip-drm-from-kindle-e-books-and-others/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/how-to-strip-drm-from... >. You can also use the more technical solution at < http://stackoverflow.org/wiki/Removing_DRM_from_Kindle_books http://stackoverflow.org/wiki/Removing_DRM_from_Kindle_books >, which is more annoying for one-offs but much easier to automate.
  - technomancy 16y ago
    > If true, the ability to export to ePub would induce me to buy books in kindle format. Keep in mind that by doing so you would still be supporting a consumer-hostile ecosystem.

HyprMusic 16y ago

Surely this is just going to encourage people to pirate these books? Seems like another case of DRM punishing the good guys.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

zacharypinter 16y ago

I'm glad that all the technical books I purchase come DRM-free. Articles like this remind me why DRM should be avoided.

farlington 16y ago

I doubt that this was solely intended as a 'screw you' to jailbreakers. More likely, it's because Apple can't guarantee the integrity of DRM on a jailbroken system, and that's one of the terms in their contracts with publishers.

wh-uws 16y ago

After years of this type of thing from Apple I just can't feel sorry for anyone with a problem with this. You know Apple, they are going to do this every time. If you have a problem with that don't buy their products.

wh-uws 16y ago
If you downvote please provide me with some feedback. Apple has a very closed ecosystem and they like to exercise tight control over it. That is a fact.

ax0n 16y ago

No, this does not open Apple up to lawsuits. Any corporation has the option of telling you what configurations are supported, and choosing to not support configurations that are the result of extensive tweaking.

CWuestefeld 16y ago

It appears that Apple is throwing caution to the wind and opening themselves up for a slew of lawsuits over… iBooks. Really? Even if a corporation doesn’t like us messing with their perfect OS, they can’t stop us from doing what’s legal. Sigh. Someone else who doesn't understand our rights include the right to enter into a contract that places burdens on both parties. There's no legal or moral reason that Apple can't say "I'll sell you this for $X plus your promise not to do $Y.". You don't have to like it -- in which case you shouldn't make the agreement -- but it's certainly not wrong.

lukifer 16y ago
Though I consider the specific situation with iBooks and DRM to be both mild and reasonable, it does invoke a thorny legal and moral question: exactly how much of your rights are you allowed to sign away voluntarily? Extreme ends of the spectrum are very clear: selling yourself into indentured servitude is a violation of basic human rights, while selling your time for eight hours a day is not. Many advocates for digital freedom would argue that allowing customers (particularly the non-tech-savvy who don't know what they're agreeing to) to give up the rights to their devices and content is inherently immoral. I don't agree entirely, but I see their point, and if there was a ballot initiative proposing consumer protections against things like DRM lock-in, I would likely vote for it.
ig1 16y ago
Yes there are. There are plenty of rights which the law gives you which you can't surrender, because they occur in asymmetric situations where one party has more power than the other. For example you can't sell yourself into slavery and you can't surrender your right to reverse engineer a technology (in most developed countries). Anti-competitive practices is another area where the law has intervened in these sort of situations in the past. For example in the case of printer ink refills (although the law has chosen not to intervene in the console market).
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  We could have all kinds of debate here. I assume that we can all agree on the slavery part, but I'm not so sure about the reverse engineering one. Your personal feelings may differ, of course, but I'm having trouble constructing an argument against the signing-away of reverse engineering rights, from basic natural law principles. Here's another fun example: clearly the right to free speech is fundamental, at least to those in our society. So how is it that a court can uphold, e.g., an NDA?

linuxhansl 16y ago

Don't buy DRM controlled books (or DRM controlled anything). By doing so you are at the mercy of the content provider/deliverer. That should be the lesson learned.

stcredzero 16y ago

Crippling functionality in response to jailbreaking is a bad move. Basically, you're pissing off exactly the people who have the ability to embarrass you. Just detecting jailbreaking is tremendously powerful in itself, and can be leveraged to great advantage. Crippling functionality isn't one of these ways, though.

Andrewski 16y ago

The lil blogger says "The Library of Congress declared that it is completely legal to jailbreak your devices." Firstly, the Library of Congress hardle makes legal decisions, and additionally, if they did, that does not imply that a company can not lock them down.