Apple lawyers react on Mac OS X Intel developer kit hacks

Since Apple released a Mac OS X Intel Developer Kit on WWDC 2005, several hackers have obtained a copy of this kit and have been trying to work-around the protections added by Apple, making the system unusable on hardware other than Apple's Intel Developer kit.

It didn't take more than two months for hackers to achieve this. Last week, MacBidouille even posted explanations on how the kit was hacked and videos showing Mac OS X running on an Intel based laptop. One of the videos is even showing the information that Apple System Profiler presents when running on the PC.

Although MacBidouille did not provide precise information on where to find a pirated copy of the Mac OS X Intel Developer kit and the mods to make it work on any PC, Apple lawyers reacted to their reports. The french Mac-centric site has been asked to pull-out the videos they had published through direct links and BitTorrent peer to peer network. The site also claims that it was threatened "aggressively" by Apple's lawyers.

"If Apple was not expecting this to happen and did not measure the consequences, they ought to think about it seriously. They're now dealing with a world (the PC world) that has less respect for Apple than Mac users do. Dealing with this world also implies dealing with hackers that now have Apple in target."* told Lionel from MacBidouille to MacosXrumors. Owners of other sites that provide information on the developer kit and the hacks were not available for comment.

It looks like Apple is starting to worry about this situation and we can expect further actions from its lawyers, especially on people who shared, obtained and provided hacks for the developer kit, which is, by the way, protected by an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) through the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) Premium membership.

On the other hand, Apple is probably in a subtle position, as it would like to avoid initiating a war with the hacker community. The company doesn't want to be the target of hackers like it is the case of its main competitor Microsoft, which struggles to stop thousands of hackers who spread viruses for its leading operating system Windows.

*brought some corrections on Lionel's quote translation