What is com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X

Question

com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X is a IOResources provider...

Class Inheritance: Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X : IOService : IORegistryEntry : OSObject

how does it work?

what does it do?

Penzance

Answer 1

http://forums.macnn.com/90/mac-os-x/335611/dont-steal-mac-os-x-kernel/

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.

Grunenwald

truly wicked. I love my original Macbook Air 13inch early 2015 so much!! – Wersh

This answer does not explain what it does, and the link is dead. – Mouth

I've seen this quote all over the place, but never actually found a source for it. Can someone confirm this is actually written into memory? – Malefaction

This text is not (or no longer is) written to system memory. Run strings /System/Library/Extensions/Dont\ Steal\ Mac\ OS\ X.kext/Contents/MacOS/Dont\ Steal\ Mac\ OS\ X and you'll find that this text isn't there. @MaxCoplan – Tympan

Answer 2

In addition to putting the "Your karma check for today: ..." string in memory,

I think it contains the code that decrypts certain other encrypted kexts and the Finder (which is partially encrypted, too).

Some of the hacks to make OS X run on non-Apple hardware distribute the encrypted kexts and the Finder in an unencrypted format, which makes it easy to go after them for DMCA violation (circumventing encryption for the purposes of infringing copyright). Distributing an unencrypted kext, which is copyrighted by Apple is distributing copyrighted works without a license.

(From the same link as Marc's answer)

Carbajal

I don't think that's a real issue, since "Under the reverse engineering safe harbor [of the DMCA], circumvention necessary to achieve interoperability with other software is specifically authorized." [Wikipedia:Digital_rights_management] – Larock

@AndrewDalke So hackintoshes are legal then? – Jovian

I've seen this quote all over the place, but never actually found a source for it. Can someone confirm this is actually written into memory? – Malefaction

Answer 3

It is explained in the extension itself:

cat '/System/Library/Extensions/Dont Steal Mac OSX.kext/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/InfoPlist.strings'

Copyright 2006,2009 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. 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 to use it, please immediately destroy or delete it from your computer._..Don't Steal Mac OS X

Soak