“A strange paranoia has struck in Torrent-land. ‘Strange’ because although you can find just about any software title or any music, TV, or movie on various torrent sites the one thing you cannot find is OS X 10.4 Tiger. With the help of a few MUG friends I gathered up a list of torrent sites to see what was there and what was being said about Tiger, if anything,” Cynthia Hughes writes for MacNETv2.
MacDailyNews Note: Hughes is referring to BitTorrent, the free software product that allows for “swarming downloads.’ More info here.
“Every forum I visited not only mentioned Tiger but actively and aggressively talked about how Apple is visiting these sites to make sure Tiger isn’t there. When you think about it, this is paranoia at its best,” Hughes writes. “Apple isn’t out there hunting down torrents of Tiger for the simple reason that they just don’t really care. Yes, I agree that they did in fact sue a registered developer that created a torrent of build 8A393, but not because he allowed a large number of people to obtain the OS. They sued because they are fed up with developers that continue to break their NDA (non-disclosure agreement). But come on, they can’t seriously believe that distributing Tiger via a torrent is going to allow other companies (Microsoft) to discover their secrets.”
Hughes writes, “Every time Apple begins work on a new version of OS X one of the first companies to get a hold of the operating system is Microsoft. They don’t obtain it illegally; they get it straight from Apple because one of Apple’s core applications is made by Microsoft; Office. Distributing a beta of an OS does not jeopardize the security of Apple or its operating system. Apple has other, more believable reasons for keeping betas out of the hands of users.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple settles with man who ‘prereleased’ Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger – March 23, 2005
Apple Computer sues three for posting Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ on Web – December 21, 2004
Apple sues anonymous people over leak of unreleased Apple product info on Web – December 17, 2004
So… he’s surprised that he can’t find a particular piece of NON-FREE software for free in a torrent?
This is news?
Well, yeah, SHE is SUPRISED. Because you CAN just about find everything else on BT. Photoshop? Sure. Window XP Pro? Yep. Office? You betcha. But not OS X 10.4.
“But come on, they can’t seriously believe that distributing Tiger via a torrent is going to allow other companies (Microsoft) to discover their secrets.”
Sophistry. I’m sure RIAA and MPAA are suing because they’re afraid someone will discover the secrets of music and movies.
It is definitely different from what has happened before. Apple have been quite successful in shutting down leakage of Tiger onto Torrents recently.
I believe it is possible to get it on Carracho etc but those P2P networks can’t spread files as quickly as Torrents can. Plus for Torrents you do not need downloading access as you typically do for other P2P networks, which is especially true for “hot” files like Tiger.
love how apple has to visit the sites and comb through non-free software to check if their unreleased OS is on there…
of course, you couldn’t just shut the whole thing down.. damn
actually i could have downloaded an old version of tiger, but i didn’t want to screw up my computer.. plus.. you know.. apple will put stuff in the final version that wasn’t even close in the betas..of course..
btw. Stealing Music is Wrong
Stealing Software is Wrong
Stealing Pixar Films is Wrong
Mike:
You’re missing the point of the article – Cynthia DOES NOT BELIEVE Apple is actively scouring the Torrent sites for illicit copies of Tiger:
“Never mind the fact that these torrent sites regularly distribute illegal software and music, we are supposed to believe that Apple has paid employees hunting for Tiger torrents. How can anyone believe this tripe? Wouldn’t Apple be considered ‘complicit’ if they did indeed hunt down Tiger torrents while ignoring others? “
Her point is that Apple’s prosecution of the guy who broke his Apple Developer’s NDA and distributed the beta (coincidentally via BitTorrent) was solely focusing on somebody who broke his NDA, not how he did it. But it has had a chilling effect on everybody else who might want to upload a copy, whether they have an NDA or not.
Give it another 2 months. It’ll be there
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MW “Face” as in “Face it”
big whoop. Why screw around with a download that’s been corrupted probably by who knows what when you could get the thing legit for less then $200? Besides, this isn’t Microsoft you’re dealing with. Tiger will be compatible with Panther, and vice versa. You won’t have to upgrade unless you really want to.
Yep, as soon as the reatil version hits the shelves, it will be available on torrent. There is no NDA when pirate retail software. At that point, you are now violating the EULA.
So I’m glad they’ve stopped.
Leave BitTorrent to the GOOD uses please.
It’s NOT paranoia.
In Apple’s complaint they used quotes from comments the people made IN THE FORUM OF THE BITTORRENT SITE.
Only one of the people sued actually got Tiger from Apple and put it on bittorrent. The other two downloaded the torrent, and then seeded it to others. They did not actually use their Dev accounts to get Tiger and put it on Bittorrent.
Apple couldn’t have known any of them were Dev members until they started the torrent, collected IP addresses, and then checked those against their records.
Lots of Tiger torrents out there last time I looked – I think the author just doesn’t know how to search the web properly.
Maybe it’s not out there because, um, it hasn’t actually been released yet. No good downloading some flaky beta version.
I’m no developer, but wouldn’t it be possible that Apple may have found the culprit by inserting distinct lines of code into each individual developer seed, so that it, (and any duplicates thereof) can be tracked back to the specific member whom that specific copy was distributed to?
at least, if i were at Apple in charge of that, i’d have implemented that policy years ago. Sure, some people would complain, but it’s not like everyone would read a tiny sentence or two in the licence/NDA which would specify that.
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Magic word = you’re. As in, “Uh oh, you’re in trouble now”