macnn
07/24/2008, 12:10am, EDT
Thursday, July 24th
First iPhone app cracked? Super Monkey Ball for all?
A group of hackers say they have cracked Apple's close Fairplay DRM on Sega's Super Monkey Balll for iPhone. A posting on Haklabs points to a download link for the pirated game. A number of users who commented on the site say they were succesfully able to run Super Monkey Ball on a jailbroken version 2.0 iPhone using SSH. Other users, however, said they couldn't get the game to work and questioned whether the hack was legitimate.
If the hack does indeed work, the security breach could have a major impact on the hundreds of applications for sale at the AppStore. Super Monkey Ball sells for $10 and is protected with the same FairPlay DRM Apple has used for years on content from the iTunes store.
The posting on Hacklabs provides step-by-step installation instructions for the game and encourages users to join a forum for sharing other hacked apps. Since the hack has only been available for a few hours, there has been no response yet from Apple or Sega or even confirmation of the hack.
Filed under: hacks, iPhone apps
Other story tags: games, DRM, Sega, FairPlay
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Problems
If the App Store is going to have piracy problems, then that's gonna keep independent developers away who will have their work stolen from them.
All this over $10? Come on people!
Piracy for what?
I agree all over $10. Let's give the developers a fair go here. I am happy to pay a few bucks for these apps lets just leave it at that.
S
Legitimate
I can confirm that the hack is legitimate, basically the main app was patched to exclude the SHA 1 checksum of the game, it works flawlessly, however, Super Monkey Ball is currently the only game that has been cracked, other games are proving a much tougher task (Crash Nitro Kart).
It will only be a matter of time before they are cracked also but it isn't a huge deal for Apple to update the security built into the Apps.
Even if they do, there will be people waiting in line to crack them also!! I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal, at least half of iPhone users wont bother to JailBreak their iPhone which is needed to install them anyways. Everyone said that game piracy would kill the PSP and it hasn't, i don't expect it to affect the App Store on a large scale.
Theft
There's no defending this. There's no legitimate reason why you should be allowed to break the copy protection on a piece of commercial software like this. It's theft, pure and simple. I hope Apple unloads a sixpack of lawyer-whoopass on these guys, I really do.
Thanks
All this will do is elevate the price of applications. Sad really.
Freetards...
...it's the same kind of freetards advocating 'freedom'. Of course, it's easy advocating 'freedom' when living in your mom's basement, and not really having a job, or any real responsibilities in the world.
Considering that a) we're talking about $10 here, and b) Apple is pushing low and reasonable prices on iPhone apps, the usual theft mentality isn't helping the very causes they claim to proclaim...
Bullshit
This is bullshit and these people clearly have nothing better to do with their time. While I can't exactly say that I have both feet planted in the anti-piracy camp I can say that pirating applications that cost anywhere from $.99 to maybe $15 (with some exceptions) is just wrong. There is no reason people can't pay for these applications and nothing someone could say to convince me that piracy would be in any way acceptable in this case. These applications are affordable and easily accessible, and if you have an iPhone you can afford to buy a few applications.
Cue Admiral Akbar!
It's a trap!!
Geez!
Some people just have to be a**holes don't they?
I hope...
They get prosecuted to the fullest extent. And they will. This is a major threat to Apple's revenue stream and they will hammer these people.
I would not be surprised if to thwart this further Apple created software that deliberately bricked an iPhone permanantly when jailbroken.
I don't know why they would be prevented from doing this legally. Especially if they gave a stern warning about it on the device before installing all software.