Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext

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Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext is a file present in Intel-capable versions of the Mac OS X Operating System requesting that users of Mac OS X not "steal" it. Currently the extension is only included with the version of OS X that runs on the Intel Core processor family and is located at /System/Library/Extensions on the volume containing the operating system.[1][2]

The full text of the file reads:[1][2]

<key>_name</key>
<string>Dont Steal Mac OS X</string>

<string>Copyright (c) 2006 Apple Computer, Inc.  All rights reserved.</string>

<string>The purpose of this Apple software is to protect Apple copyrighted 
materials from unauthorized copying and use. You may not copy, modify,
reverse engineer, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense,
transfer or redistribute this file, in whole or in part.  If you have
obtained a copy of this Apple software and do not have a valid license
from Apple Computer to use it, please immediately destroy or delete it
from your computer.</string>

The extension contains a kernel function called page_transform() which performs AES decryption of "apple-protected" programs. A Mac OS X system which is missing this extension, or a system where the extension has determined it's not running on genuine Apple hardware, will be missing this decryption capability, and as a result will not be able to run the apple-protected binaries Dock, Finder, loginwindow, SystemUIServer, mds, ATSServer, translate or translated.[3]

The extension also exports the following message in shared address space at 0xFFFF1600:

Your karma check for today:
There once was was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind,
he'd do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.
Please don't steal Mac OS!
Really, that's way uncool.
  (C) Apple Computer, Inc.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Victor Mihailescu (January 13, 2006). Don't Steal Mac OS X!. Softpedia. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  2. ^ a b Swad (January 13, 2006). Apple's Hidden Message to Hackers: "Dont Steal Mac OS X". InsanelyMac.com Forums. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  3. ^ Amit Singh. Understanding Apple's Binary Protection in Mac OS X.