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discourse: why do corporations allow "jailbreaking" and "flashing" at all?
cowonoid:
What is the philosophy/intention behind this?
I came to this question during a conversation in the Cowon D2 developers thread.
For example:
Cowon obviously doesn't give away the shematics and datasheets for their players. I don't know if someone ever asked them but somehow I doubt, they would just send it per email.
Anyways, what would happen if someone finds the datasheets and even the shematics (or gets the shematics by analyzing the device) and developes a superb "OS" for that player: it has the features of rockbox and the smooth design of the iPod OS and is obviously *much* better than the original one. Besides there is much promotion so that even the last audiophile housewife will use that software!
At this point the Corporation (Cowon) lost part of control over its product. Okay, now they could say: "We don't care, as long as there is no loss in profit". But then someone starts selling his OS somehow.. "It's a general DAP software, enhancing the DAP of your choise!".. Or someone gets much donations.
Even without money making, Cowons headline "digital pride" would become stinky if everyone knows, they just can do half of the product (i.e. the hardware) well.
Another example:
Apple. People hacked their iPhone to put inofficial apps on it.
For both examples the questions: why don't they simply prevent people from putting custom software on their devices? So that the two parts of their products: hard- and software can't be seperated?
Is it so hard to prevent the hacking or is there simply no necessity to do so?
Or do they even like it, when people are hacking their devices? If so: why?
torne:
Lots of people (most MP3 player manufacturers) simply don't bother because they don't care. Such a tiny number of people will ever do it that it literally is not worth them even thinking about for a second.
When people try and secure devices, if it's an interesting enough device, people will break it anyway; absolute security is extremely hard to implement. The iPhone series has been cracked with over a dozen different exploits over its lifetime, even though Apple have tried very hard to prevent people doing so...
soap:
--- Quote ---why do corporations allow "jailbreaking" and "flashing" at all?
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http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/26
cowonoid:
--- Quote from: soap on August 13, 2010, 05:51:39 PM ---
--- Quote ---why do corporations allow "jailbreaking" and "flashing" at all?
--- End quote ---
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/26
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: EFF ---[...] the Copyright Office rejected Apple's claim that copyright law prevents people from installing unapproved programs on iPhones [...]
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Strange ways law is going here. If Apple wants his product being used with their own software only, then this should be their good right! If I develop a product, I self-evidently also define it's area of application. Software, hardware; there is no difference. I design the *whole* product and sell it under whatever circumstances I can think of. No one is forced to buy it. Imagine, I would complain about my non-jailbreakable Casio calculator and charge the corporation for that boldness!
On the other hand the whole product (iPhone) was also delivered with the vulnerabilities. From a weird (but not wrong) point of view, it had the built-in feature "jailbreakable", which was just used by the consumer. As well as every heavy steel pan implicitly has the feature to kill attacking dogs - even if it was not foreseen by the pan producer.
Software obviously adds possibilities to a piece of hardware. Like ammunition adds "the possibility of shooting" to a pistol. And as a weapon manufacturer I am responsible for *what* ammunition fits into the pistol. If I drill a big enough hole to hold ammunition, which can kill attacking dogs, I should not wonder if my pistol soon becomes "the dog killer" and people want to deprive me of the right to sell it as a normal pistol.
To get even more rough: Einstein "produced" an insight, which lead to the atom bomb. The great mass found a hidden feature and made use of it. Surely Einstein didn't appreciate that but he couldn't change that anymore. His product was not foolproof enough; in this case it lead to a simple and bad idea.
Like the idea (and possibility) to use the iPhone as playground for jailbreaking and custom apps. The mass wants it, so it's made legal.
So is everything about foolprofness?
--- Quote from: torne on August 13, 2010, 12:49:32 PM ---When people try and secure devices, if it's an interesting enough device, people will break it anyway; absolute security is extremely hard to implement. The iPhone series has been cracked with over a dozen different exploits over its lifetime, even though Apple have tried very hard to prevent people doing so...
--- End quote ---
I am not the computer scientist but:
is it so hard to realize an internal memory (containing all the running code), which just can be altered by the vendor? The whole system is running from a memory, which can only be written if a hardware-implemented security check is passed?
yapper:
--- Quote from: cowonoid on August 14, 2010, 01:03:57 AM ---I am not the computer scientist but:
is it so hard to realize an internal memory (containing all the running code), which just can be altered by the vendor? The whole system is running from a memory, which can only be written if a hardware-implemented security check is passed?
--- End quote ---
They strive to achieve that, but flaws in the design allow exploits
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