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Comment by Skroob | Hacker News Reader

Most indie Mac developers will tell you they don't really concern themselves with app piracy. This is the same thing; someone still has to upload the dmg to some shady website, the pirate has to find it and remove the DRM files, and then do it all over again when there's an update and hope it keeps working. Or, just pay $3 and never worry about it again.

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> Most indie Mac developers will tell you they don't really concern themselves with app piracy.

As someone who makes a hobby of cracking apps (I don't release anything, it's just for fun), I can corroborate this. I've never been able to find a trace of DRM in any Objective-C-based app. As far as I can tell, the state of the art for indie Mac developers is to have a method "-(bool)isAppLicenceValid" and another "-(bool)isAppLicenceOnBlacklist". Just hardwire YES and NO to those, and you're good.

That's basically the extent of the copy protection we use. The idea is that pirates probably aren't going to buy your app anyway, and any significant time you spend trying in vain to beat them is time taken away from fixing bugs, writing new features, sales or support of actual customers. Since most of us are one person shops, the tradeoff is pretty obvious.

Have you had a look at Textmate? It uses PGP in an interesting way, http://sigpipe.macromates.com/2004/09/05/using-openssl-for-l...

Don't really see how you can say they don't concern themselves with piracy if they are maintaining a black list of app licenses.

I posted this yesterday, but if this link is true, it'll be a whole lot easier to pirate apps than you suggest.

It'll be as easy as using the normal AppStore, except for spending money part.

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-apple-app-store-innovates-wit...

"Hackulous admin Dissident "

Oh god, they do think so highly of themselves, don't they.

YEAH! I'M A DISSIDENT! I'M A REVOLUTIONARY! I'M MANDELA! I'M PIRATING $.99 APPS! FUCK YEAH! STICKING IT TO THE MAN! OR AT LEAST A GUY WRITING SOFTWARE AND TRYING TO FEED HIS KIDS! YEAH! DISSIDENT, MOTHERFUCKER! I'M BADASS! DON'T YOU FORGET IT!

Pathetic spoiled dweeb with a galaxy-sized sense of entitlement, more like it.

My feelings exactly. Sure there was always Serial Box or whatever it was called, and [k]racks back in the System 6-9 days, but this new breed and their methods have really taken things to an extreme... I mean a pirate App Store FFS??

I believe the name "dissident" comes from a desire for anonymity (probably a good idea, with what he does). He used to go by "TDDebug", fwiw.

(Insert argument how none of the kids who use Hackulous would ever buy an app anyway, due to lack of funds (or lakc of funds in credit card or iTunes format), or because they are just pirates.)

"I believe the name "dissident" comes from a desire for anonymity"

I'm sure. But it's an absurdly self-flattering and grandiose name. He's not a dissident. He's helping people copy inexpensive apps, that are in no way necessities, that generally cost less than a can of Red Bull, and are mostly from small independent developers.

A more appropriate pseudonym would be Veruca Salt. At least that would capture the pettiness and sense of entitlement.

> I posted this yesterday, but if this link is true, it'll be a whole lot easier to pirate apps than you suggest.

That's always easy on OSX: there is a regularly updated one-stop-shop app for serials, and the vast majority of apps only have a license/serial key.

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