I would like to discuss with some devs about their opinions on piracy and what we can do to fight back. Yes, this has been discussed to death before, but nobody really does anything... After reading the ridiculous rationalization for piracy on the old pirate site, and being shocked at how efficient the new pirate site is, I think it is time to take matters into our own hands. I propose embedding a ddos attack in our free iPhone apps to take out the pirate sites. There, I said it... With these sites offline, it is far more difficult to pirate apps. The ddos would use very little resources on the end user's phone - it is basically just opening a bunch of connections and holding them without doing anything, to keep the server waiting and unable to service new requests (search for "slow loris ddos"). Obviously this action can be disguised so it will be very hard to detect, such as contacting a master control server to get the target, only launching a ddos after a set amount of app activity, only a random chance to attack, etc etc I also suggest devs actively search for pirated versions of their apps on file hosting sites like rapidshare, mediafire etc and serve DMCA notices to get the files taken down. If any site does not comply with these notices in a timely manner, please post the info here. I have had good success with this in the past. Thoughts?
That sounds awesome and I (as much as we all do) want piracy to stop. It scares away the big guys and the small ones too. But in the end, you can NEVER end piracy. You just can't! People still pirate the big platforms but on a smaller scale.
i've tried this.. some sites listen - some don't - the biggest offender? it is also not recommended to post the site names here; i had a post removed for doing so earlier on. if users don't know about them yet - lets keep it that way. we could use the private forum as well. it is a pity that apple doesn't provide us information on uuid's that purchase applications so that we could do our own network validation periodically of our applications against our own servers. i would do this if we could. Kyle - you remember my discussions about anti-piracy back in the palm os days surely
I'm not a dev, but I use torrent sites to grab TV shows and such that I missed, and trust me, even with those sites you mentioned offline, it isn't hard to find pirated apps. I'm tempted to post on pirated app torrents for games I really like saying 'Just go buy it, it's worth it!!' but of course, it won't do any good. I read on the Across Age thread that the game has something to freeze the game at a certain point if it's not a legitimate version. This is great, but it's only a matter of time before a patched version is released. I've seen this happen many times with pirated DS games. Contacting hosting sites and asking them to remove apps is great, but it would seem like it could be a lot of extra work for the devs, and since most of those sites are generally unmonitored, as soon as an app gets taken down, it could just show up again. With torrents sites, I doubt there's much you could do... You could try at least, but I would think that whichever one you contacted wouldn't take responsibility, since they aren't actually hosting anything. As far as DDOSing... Neat idea and probably would work against such sites, but you'd be asking for trouble if this was tried against general hosting sites or torrent sites. I completely understand the intent here, but I'm not sure how people who actually buy apps would feel about being forced into something like that, especially if it wasn't clear up front and they found out later, probably wouldn't be good for the dev's reputation. Not sure how Apple would feel about that either. Sorry to be kind of the devil's advocate here, but this is how I view the piracy problem. It really does suck, developers have to spend more time and money trying to curb piracy, while the pirates usually find workarounds and the people who pay for apps or other software get screwed with having to mess with all the DRM crap. One thing I'm not sure on, so for apps like Pac-Man Championship Edition, where you buy the game at X price and have to buy the rest of the game via in-app purchase, is it possible for pirates to crack those and unlock the full game without paying? I would assume yes unfortunately, but if not, then that would be really cool. Sort of the lite version with full game unlock via in-app purchase model. The downside is I don't think you can really do App Store sales, but it might be worth it if it would in fact help fight piracy.
In short. No. But it's possible. (fake numbers) but say 1 million people are pirates, then probably 10,000 are probably dlc pirates. I think it's possible but very very hard
It isn't necessarily that hard to pirate DLC. I SSH'ed into an app just to see if it was possible for me to get 'points' for free (I wasn't going to actually pirate it, I just wanted to see if someone would be so stupid as to make it possible to pirate them). It was fairly easy to get to, and, if I wanted to, I could have set the number to like, 10 or something (it was at 3).
I'm dev, and I have been since I released Snails for PocketPC back in 2002. I am personally not in favor of any type of backlash towards pirates. It is okay to contact the site directly and ask them to remove it, but at the same time I think the developer should leave it up to the site whether they remove it or not (otherwise, it isn't a REQUEST, it is a DEMAND). If they don't remove it, then just let it go. If they do, then great. Either way, move on. I know I'm in the minority, and I don't really care. I'm as much of a consumer as I am a developer, and I ****ING HATE DRM, and I have a blatant dislike for DLC. In fact, i've deleted every single DLC game I've ever downloaded. This is simply my opinion, and I do not speak for the industry (thank god). If I could do Flickitty all over again, I would release the game it two versions: a full version (paid) in the top 8 countries and a full version (free) in the remaining countries. If someone wants the game for free, they can simply change the country to Russia (or whatever) and download it there.
I actually have a question regarding the cracked apps. Do devs actually disassemble the executable and bypass protection schemes like standard crackers do? Or do they have that sort of access to the executables? (Isn't there DRM on them when downloaded from the App Store?) If they aren't disassembling and bypassing, then wouldn't it be reasonable simply to do something like turn into a lite version while destroying full version files or something? As much as I'd like to see the pirate sites shut down, I can't really condone DDOS attacks, even those that are light on resources. It smacks too much of vigilante justice. I'm not sure about the legality of DDOS attacks either, but carriers don't like it and you'd be putting people at risk. Granted, those at risk would be pirates, but still... Depending on how effective it is I'd rather have the app cripple itself in some fashion.
I'm not a developer, so I may be completely off, but I heard that some PC developers use to put something like this in their games. There was something embedded in the code that corrupted the game, or so I heard. Not sure how easy or hard that would be, but a failsafe for when DRM is broken could be an excellent way to battle this (if it is possible).
as a seasoned experience anti-piracy advocate - don't bother! iphone applications are cracked using scripts - you will find that most crackers dont even have to disassemble/modify the code base. we used a myraid of options when tackling our protection on palm os - in fact, we even wrote a paper about it. the success we had was to force users to register via a website; and then download a binary file that contained code encrypted against personal information we embed. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/23890544/Palm-OS_r_-Platform-Software-Protection if we ever found someone distributing it; we could track it back to a specific user; which - typically linked back ot a credit card (and address). i remember calling a guy once and he literally tore an ear of his child for buying a game and then distributing it through warez channels. it was funny - but, i moved on from that practice these days.
Again though, as a consumer who actually pays for software, having to jump through extra hoops when I've paid good money for something is never welcome, and the pirates always end up finding some way to get around it anyway. Like if you buy a Steam game, which essentially is its own DRM tool, but it comes with SecuROM or Punkbuster that always run in the background or isn't removed from your computer when you uninstall the game. Annoying and unnecessary. The real trick is finding a way to stop piracy without this sort of hassle for those who pay for the product, and that's why it's such a difficult problem to solve. So far I think Steam has done the best job as far as anti-piracy goes (it's not perfect, but I don't consider it invasive, I actually like it), but it would be kind of hard to replicate that system on the iPod Touch. It'd be cool if you had to verify with the App Store via phone network or WiFi through your iTunes account that you bought an app before you could launch it, as long as it was quick. I'd think it would be pretty easy for iPhone users, but probably not so easily with iPod users. As far as how technically possible something like this would be, I have no idea.
They can't merely use a script if you're using a custom crippling method though, surely? I can name a couple of App store apps which successfully implemented crippling techniques that slipped past crackers. I'd like to ask, What are the common techniques crackers use to find and remove DRM code from an App? Does anyone know?
An app doesn't necessarily have to make the user jump through hoops. It can do its thing silently in the background. But I seem to recall that even when using scripts it's possible to detect if protection has been bypassed using some sort of script, and then act accordingly. But is it possible for crackers to disassemble app code to do a proper hack job on it?
yes. it is. they strip the signatures; disassemble the binary - then modify it; and resign it using a generic developer signature (loop hole in apple's side)
Doing a DDOS attack against any server that you don't control without permission from the owner is a felony in the United States under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Probably not a good idea, and it could probably get your Apple Developer account revoked for breaking their terms of service too. I'm with Flickitty, DRM sucks. Just don't worry about piracy. It's probably not hurting sales as much as you think. And there really isn't anything that can be done about it. The whole "information wants to be free" thing. If you shutdown a website that's serving pirated iPhone apps (through legal means or DDOS), they will be available on other websites. This is whole reason the BitTorrent protocol was invented after Napster and Kazaa, it's decentralized. It's impossible to DDOS a torrent because the "servers" hosting the files are millions of home computers, and you can have redundant BitTorrent trackers, and torrents that can dynamically update their trackers (I believe), so even if you shut down the tracker you still won't shut down the torrent. DRM, likewise, is a waste of time. The pirate has a copy of your game binary, and so they can edit it to remove DRM. The only way you can prevent that is to do things that annoy your users, like require that they have an active internet connection at all times to use your app so you can constantly be authenticating stuff with a server. And you have to be bulletproof in your approach to this or it can be cracked too. I heard that bypassing the DRM in Adobe CS4 is as simple as editing the host file in your operating system to make the domain activate.adobe.com point to 127.0.0.1. You can spend a lot of time and money trying to battle piracy, but in the end it will be a waste of time and money.
More developers should disable part of their game when a cracked version is detected. "Originally Posted by Whats_a_name i try entering the lapincot forest to find sage bushami it just keeps saying loading and its been sitting like this for 10 mins Originally Posted by Future777 Congratulations, you ran into our copy protection. Purchasing a legal copy of the game on the App Store will do the trick."
As a paying customer, I don't mind going through a hoop or two to prevent piracy. However, I wouldn't appreciate it if these hoops limited the functionality for me, weren't a one time thing, or if they don't really stop piracy. In any case, my gut feeling is that piracy isn't as big of a deal as you'd think.
Developer should not have to do anything against piracy, I said Apple should secure their phone from the 30% cut they are taking, it's their hardware and software for god sake.... this platform is the most unsecured platform available, the message here is clear "jealbreak with a click of a mouse", it is too easy, and have all the appstore for free (and probably same for the coming iPad as the OS is the same). When will really Apple take some action and rewrite the "sensible" part of their iphone OS in order to protect developer's IPs ? I dont care if it means DRM, secure chip or whatsoever. I simply feel really unfair that some pay for app because they follow the rules while others dont pay a cent because they dont, and believe me, they will pay for app too if they had no other choice.
Really? Because I've read that the average teenager has over 800 pirated songs on their iPod. Are you telling me that the teenagers would have paid $0.99 per song if they had no other choice? No, no they wouldn't. Remember, we are only talking about MUSIC here, this doesn't even touch on the apps or other software that they may download to their computers. One last statement: Apps go FREE on a daily basis, where exactly do these fall into place, in regard to being 'unfair and not following the rules'. Free is free, except when it is pirated?
