Apple's poetic warning Limerick inside Intel machines asks that system b

[WhiteTara]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/18/BUGFTHAPAD1.DTL

Call it hackneyed versus hackers.

High-tech companies spend millions on sophisticated security measures to thwart hackers. Now Apple Computer Inc. has dug deep into its bag of tricks for a new deterrent: a few lines of doggerel warning off would-be software pirates.

The verse is embedded inside the latest version of Apple's operating system, Mac OS X, included on the new "Intel Inside" Macs that started shipping in January. It came to light this week after a hacker found it and posted it on the Internet.

"It's not Wordsworth, but it's pretty funny," said an Apple spokeswoman. She confirmed that the verse does, indeed, reside deep within the operating system, albeit somewhere "you'd have to get deep and dirty" to find it.

snip

"It's like a little doily-rimmed note on perfumed stationery saying, 'Hi, guys, please don't steal our software' with the I's dotted with little hearts," said Andy Ihnatko, author of "The Mac OS X Tiger Book." "It does have the deterring effect: If you were going to pirate, you'd look at this and say, 'That's just sad. I'd feel bad (stealing from) these people.' "

okay

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. I predict

Hackers won't be detered, but will leave their own poetry.

[WhiteTara]

3. I think you may be quite right!

Locks only keep honest people out. A thief is a thief

[Greyhound]

4. I would point out that most hacker are not thieves. In fact, almost

every useful software innovation you currently enjoy is the direct result of a hacker's work. Hackers tend to point out the weaknesses in a system that have been overlooked or ignored by the developers. Also, please don't confuse hackers with script-kiddies and other talentless disruptors, whom BTW, are only able to do what they do because MicroShit's OS is such a POS. :freak:

[WhiteTara]

8. oh, I thought they were trying to steal

the operating system itself.

[Greyhound]

9. Probably not steal it per se, more like break into it to see how it works.

The real Hackers are, in general, just like the kid that has to take everything apart to see how it works and to try to put it back together, and later becomes an engineer. Dan Farmer wrote a program in the late 80's called SATAN (can't remember what it stands for if anything) that went into a network to find and exploit weaknesses in the defense. He found that the decision makers were not interested in finding out about weaknesses because then they'd have to pay to fix them. Anyway, that is technically a hack and it was used by some people to that end and they were able to compromise just about every system they came across because in those days the main form of data security was a foolish attempt to simply hide it. Farmer's program showed them it is impossible to hide from a computer program that, like the terminator, never sleeps, never stops, can't be distracted or reasoned with, it just keeps coming until it's job is fulfilled.
GoToMyPC owes it's existence to 'hacker' programs called Back Orifice and Sub7, that found and exploited fundamental weaknesses in the world-wide virus called Windows (BTW those weaknesses are still there and have been expanded fro M$ own nefarious purposes). Real hackers are the elite of programmers and what they do is, in the end, a real service.

[WhiteTara]

10. thanks for the primary

Greyhound1966 :hi:

[MrPrax]

6. Oh Yeah...

ALL! the pirates will just put their CrEw TaGs, their ShOuTs and PrOpZ to replace it...

BTW not HIGHLY recommended to use a 'hacked' freebie Windows or MAC O/S 'burn' anyway--there are other deterrents to using 'unofficial' software them like {R00T|<itZ}--DuDZ

[niyad]

2. when I was in college, our HP would swear back at you if you swore at

it in your commands (which tended to happen when one was frustrated with programming that wasn't working, etc, or when the computer decided to take its afternoon tea break) I always thought that was a rather interesting move on the part of its programmers, who were clearly blessed with a wicked sense of humour.

[I Have A Dream]

5. I've seen stuff like this with Linux.

One example is with FTP. When you issue the 'ascii' command, it says 'ASCII tastes bad, dude' or something like that. There are lots of things like this in Linux.

[acmejack]

7. That's funny, cause a hacker named maxxus broke it yesterday

To run on a PC. Quite an accomplishment.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=160