Tech talk Digest

Hackulous, the picaresque pirates best known for plundering Apple's DRM and capturing unprotected software for iPhone, iPod and iPad, yesterday unleashed an onslaught of updates, including cracking software for the much-anticipated Mac App Store and a "reverse BitTorrent" for jailbroken devices that aims to increase availability of cracked apps across the Web.

According to TorrentFreak, a community of hackers striving to circumnavigate DRM on Apple mobile devices, Hackulous is most notorious for two products: "Apptrakr," a Web-based index of cracked apps that boasts some 10 million unique users monthly; and "Installous," software that enables installation of software found via Apptrakr, which runs on about 9 million jailbroken Apple devices.

Here's what's new on the high seas. Hackulous admin Dissident announced dueling upgrades to "Clutch," which allows cracking of iOS, and its GUI, "Crackulous." There's also a piece of code called "Overdrive" that grogs up apps to keep them from becoming self-aware. The biggest news, however, is the new "Installous 4" package bundled in flagship Apptrakr.

Despite a bountiful booty of cracked apps, Apptrakr hasn't quite captured all of Apple's mobile apps. In the past, when a user bought an App Store app, they had to crack it, patch it, test it, upload it, and submit it to Apptrakr: the learning curve alone dissuaded use. Enter "Mobile Hunt," or what admin Dissident calls "reverse BitTorrent."

The hacker community's captain explains, "When you're using Installous you'll get a little pop up that says 'Hey, you have an application that Apptrakr doesn't.' We will add the application to a queue in the background (if you say yes) and it will start uploading tiny pieces of it, kind of like a torrent, up to the cloud."

Unlike BitTorrent, where a user uploads a single file that multiplies as others join, the launching point for Mobile Hunt is multifocal: many copies of the same software, evaporated in little drops from many devices into a cloud condensate a single copy that is then made available for download to millions of users via Apptrackr.

Yesterday's updates extend beyond the mobile frontier. Apple will launch the Mac App Store on January 6. A new product from Hackulous called "Kickback" aims to slash DRM from products available in the Mac App Store so that Hackulous can offer the same kind of free download service for the Mac as it currently provides for Apple's mobile devices. Don't expect Kickback right away, however. Dissident explains that Hackulous won't release it until the Mac App Store is up and running and fully stocked, because, "We don't want to devalue applications and frustrate developers." Now that's a courteous pirate.
Via: pcworld.com