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So if someone buys the app legitimately from the App Store with a jailbroken phone, they'll still get this popup? That's pretty ridiculous. This isn't about sto

So if someone buys the app legitimately from the App Store with a jailbroken phone, they'll still get this popup? That's pretty ridiculous. This isn't about stopping piracy or shaming pirates, it's a blanket accusation that all iPhone owners who jailbreak their phones are thieves.

mikeash 13y ago
Yeah, that's terrible. I'm all for anti-piracy measures that mess with the app when it's pirated, but to assume that "jailbroken" means "pirated" is dumb. I've jailbroken several iOS devices and never pirated any iOS software. You can pirate iOS software without jailbreaking.
- gcr 13y ago
  How? Wouldn't that require an Apple developer account?
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Yes, but each account can put apps on a hundred devices. You can buy signing keys for a single iOS device for a few bucks from shady people with developer accounts who are selling their device slots off one by one.
    - conradev 13y ago
      And even worse is when these pirates get their hands on enterprise certificates - where they are not limited to 100 devices… http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/01/01/low-down-dirty-iphone-app-pirates/ http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/01/01/low-down-dirty-iphone...
- Amadou 13y ago
  This is the problem with "detecting" piracy - it is super-easy to get it wrong and start punishing legit customers. Any developer who makes the decision to punish pirates risks losing paying customers. How many lost paying customers is it worth it to punish people who have never and very likely will never give you a dollar?
  - mikeash 13y ago
    I love the approach that showed up recently where the developer uploads their own torrent to pirate sites. The torrent has the game, but it's a slightly-modified "pirate version" rather than the regular version. You can beat any pirate group's release time, and if the modifications are subtle, people won't notice until the torrent is already entrenched. This has pretty much zero risk of punishing legit customers unless you cock up your build process and accidentally ship the "pirate version" to them somehow. Stuff that tries to detect piracy by looking at its runtime environment or whatever is bound to go wrong, of course.
kayoone 13y ago
true, however i am sure a large percentage of jailbreak users are indeed doing it for pirating. Probably not you and me, but its a huge thing in certain regions and age groups, sadly. For example ive seen articles on game sale stats stating piracy rates of >90% for china for example. http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WeiCiaoJheng/20130124/185392/Bonnies_Brunch_2_iOS_Game_SalesPiracy_Statistics_Analyzed.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WeiCiaoJheng/20130124/185392/...
- qq66 13y ago
  All it takes is doing this on one person's legitimately bought copy to open yourself to a nasty lawsuit.
  - chid 13y ago
    A lawsuit over the rational approach of contacting Apple for a refund?
- jljljl 13y ago
  This is kind of like saying desktop programs should refuse to work properly if BitTorrent is installed. A high number of pirates may use BitTorrent to pirate software, but that doesn't mean your program was pirated using BitTorrent. If there are better methods of copy protection, you should use those.
  - baddox 13y ago
    If I remember correctly, it used to be common for disc-based PC games to refuse to run if they detected certain software often used for piracy, like optical drive emulation software.
    - glogla 13y ago
      This of course leads to the user throwing the disc away and pirating the game he legally bought. I'm not much of a gamer myself, but I also heard stories about people buying games on Steam only finding out that there is some terrible cloud service (like uPlay) that they need to register to, before they can play the game, and this is advertised nowhere. I think making people pirate your product so they can enjoy it, even if they bought it just means they will pirate it in the first place next time.
hahainternet 13y ago
Counter argument: You can't legitimately buy from the App Store with a jailbroken phone. Either you or the developer is violating the agreement you have with Apple and in fact if you are in any way touching copyrighted code then you can be charged with a crime. Fun times.
- ihuman 13y ago
  Wrong. People who have a jailbroken phone CAN use the app store. Also, jailbreaking (phones currently) is a DMCA exception.
  - hahainternet 13y ago
    Wrong. Jailbreaking phones may be a DMCA exception but if you copy any memory of any sort then it becomes copyright infringement offences. See WOW Botnet case.
    - ihuman 13y ago
      I don't know what you're talking about. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/jailbreaking-now-legal-under-dmca-for-smartphones-but-not-tablets/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/jailbreaking-now-...
- kalleboo 13y ago
  > Counter argument: You can't legitimately buy from the App Store with a jailbroken phone Citation? I just skimmed the iOS agreement and couldn't see any clauses that would imply that, but maybe I missed something or missed a separate App Store agreement somewhere.
- skinnymuch 13y ago
  Are you doing a hypothetical or just assumed wrongly that you can't legitimately buy from the app store?
- Gormo 13y ago
  Whether you're in breach of contract with Apple has no relation to whether you're pirating some third party's iPhone app.
gcb0 13y ago
Not only that but Apple will probably also have a list ofpeople asking for refunds after that was probably saved on their game center accomplishments wink wink. This is as dumb as blocking users on windows that know the administrator password. On the up side, jailbeakers will take that as a challenge, so i expect community mods for this game in two weeks tops.
- britta 13y ago
  Jailbreakers didn't have to wait for a mod to fix this; there's an existing free tool that bypasses common types of jailbreak checks (xCon), and it worked for this.

mikeash 13y ago

Yeah, that's terrible. I'm all for anti-piracy measures that mess with the app when it's pirated, but to assume that "jailbroken" means "pirated" is dumb. I've jailbroken several iOS devices and never pirated any iOS software. You can pirate iOS software without jailbreaking.

gcr 13y ago
How? Wouldn't that require an Apple developer account?
- mikeash 13y ago
  Yes, but each account can put apps on a hundred devices. You can buy signing keys for a single iOS device for a few bucks from shady people with developer accounts who are selling their device slots off one by one.
  - conradev 13y ago
    And even worse is when these pirates get their hands on enterprise certificates - where they are not limited to 100 devices… http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/01/01/low-down-dirty-iphone-app-pirates/ http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/01/01/low-down-dirty-iphone...
Amadou 13y ago
This is the problem with "detecting" piracy - it is super-easy to get it wrong and start punishing legit customers. Any developer who makes the decision to punish pirates risks losing paying customers. How many lost paying customers is it worth it to punish people who have never and very likely will never give you a dollar?
- mikeash 13y ago
  I love the approach that showed up recently where the developer uploads their own torrent to pirate sites. The torrent has the game, but it's a slightly-modified "pirate version" rather than the regular version. You can beat any pirate group's release time, and if the modifications are subtle, people won't notice until the torrent is already entrenched. This has pretty much zero risk of punishing legit customers unless you cock up your build process and accidentally ship the "pirate version" to them somehow. Stuff that tries to detect piracy by looking at its runtime environment or whatever is bound to go wrong, of course.

kayoone 13y ago

true, however i am sure a large percentage of jailbreak users are indeed doing it for pirating. Probably not you and me, but its a huge thing in certain regions and age groups, sadly. For example ive seen articles on game sale stats stating piracy rates of >90% for china for example. http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WeiCiaoJheng/20130124/185392/Bonnies_Brunch_2_iOS_Game_SalesPiracy_Statistics_Analyzed.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WeiCiaoJheng/20130124/185392/...

qq66 13y ago
All it takes is doing this on one person's legitimately bought copy to open yourself to a nasty lawsuit.
- chid 13y ago
  A lawsuit over the rational approach of contacting Apple for a refund?
jljljl 13y ago
This is kind of like saying desktop programs should refuse to work properly if BitTorrent is installed. A high number of pirates may use BitTorrent to pirate software, but that doesn't mean your program was pirated using BitTorrent. If there are better methods of copy protection, you should use those.
- baddox 13y ago
  If I remember correctly, it used to be common for disc-based PC games to refuse to run if they detected certain software often used for piracy, like optical drive emulation software.
  - glogla 13y ago
    This of course leads to the user throwing the disc away and pirating the game he legally bought. I'm not much of a gamer myself, but I also heard stories about people buying games on Steam only finding out that there is some terrible cloud service (like uPlay) that they need to register to, before they can play the game, and this is advertised nowhere. I think making people pirate your product so they can enjoy it, even if they bought it just means they will pirate it in the first place next time.

hahainternet 13y ago

Counter argument: You can't legitimately buy from the App Store with a jailbroken phone. Either you or the developer is violating the agreement you have with Apple and in fact if you are in any way touching copyrighted code then you can be charged with a crime. Fun times.

ihuman 13y ago
Wrong. People who have a jailbroken phone CAN use the app store. Also, jailbreaking (phones currently) is a DMCA exception.
- hahainternet 13y ago
  Wrong. Jailbreaking phones may be a DMCA exception but if you copy any memory of any sort then it becomes copyright infringement offences. See WOW Botnet case.
  - ihuman 13y ago
    I don't know what you're talking about. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/jailbreaking-now-legal-under-dmca-for-smartphones-but-not-tablets/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/jailbreaking-now-...
kalleboo 13y ago
> Counter argument: You can't legitimately buy from the App Store with a jailbroken phone Citation? I just skimmed the iOS agreement and couldn't see any clauses that would imply that, but maybe I missed something or missed a separate App Store agreement somewhere.
skinnymuch 13y ago
Are you doing a hypothetical or just assumed wrongly that you can't legitimately buy from the app store?
Gormo 13y ago
Whether you're in breach of contract with Apple has no relation to whether you're pirating some third party's iPhone app.

gcb0 13y ago

Not only that but Apple will probably also have a list ofpeople asking for refunds after that was probably saved on their game center accomplishments wink wink. This is as dumb as blocking users on windows that know the administrator password. On the up side, jailbeakers will take that as a challenge, so i expect community mods for this game in two weeks tops.

britta 13y ago
Jailbreakers didn't have to wait for a mod to fix this; there's an existing free tool that bypasses common types of jailbreak checks (xCon), and it worked for this.