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Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 apps get hacked
SOFTWARE THAT STRIPS the digital restrictions management (DRM) locks from Windows Phone 7 (WP7) applications has been developed.
According to Ars Technica, Freemarketplace removes Microsoft's encryption protection, enabling the applications to be used without charge.
The software exploits a flaw in raw installation packages or "XAP" files, which means they can be freely downloaded. This works because the Zune client software downloads XML files with all the package locations to enable application browsing and installation, and both the XML and XAP files are served without restriction.
This did not mean that the apps could be illegally downloaded until the XDA-developers forum showed how to take one of these XAP files and modify it to allow it to deploy and run.
Forum administrators deleted the post, but the cat was already out of the bag.
Now an unnamed developer claims to have come up with a proof-of-concept method that modifies the XAP files in such a way as to allow them to be deployed.
In short, this means that any application in the Windows Phone 7 apps store can be nicked.
The developer has not distributed Freemarketplace or described how it works in any detail, as his intention is to demonstrate the problem to get the Vole to fix the security problems it has with its apps store.
However he warned that it took him only six hours to figure it out, so he is fairly sure that illegal downloaders will be able to work it out too.
The WP7 Marketplace is growing and has 5,000 applications. That's not many compared to Apple's Itunes apps store for Iphones and Google's Android Market, but even this many is surprising since there are unlikely to be more than a few people actually using the Vole's WP7 phone apps store. µ
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On another forum I'm on, someone had been keeping track of the windows 7 phone activations on facebook:
"The default Facebook for Windows Phone 7 shows a 5,600 per day user growth over the xmas period. Android added 185,000 user per day, and iPhone grew by 260,000 per day. WP7 has 1% share of new activations for facebook clients for smart phones."
Marketplace got hacked? I don't care. Millions of users don't care either. Smartphones are not PCs, they aren't tied to Windows and people smart enough to buy smartphones won't get a windows phone. Windows mobile have been around for much longer than our comrade think. It's in its 7th version (no, the 7 isn't just a nick to make people relate it with Windows 7). All other versions and sub-versions (included the 6.5) were just stupid and never really took off. M$ will not be able to make this version float either.
"if you were a more competent and less biased publication, you would know that there were 1.5 million WP7 devices sold in just the first 6 weeks after launch"
And if you were a more competent respondent you'd know that the figure you quote is actually sales into the channel, not to the end user.
Microsoft are being extremely coy about revealing how many WP7 phones have actually been sold to end users, rather than sitting on shelves or in warehouses, which can only suggest one thing: not many.
Whooda thunk anyone could penetrate the secure apps that Microsucks delivers? I'm stunned.
Classy last paragraph, Inquirer, very classy: "there are unlikely to be more than a few people actually using the Vole's WP7 phone apps store".
Oh yeah, except for the fact that if you were a more competent and less biased publication, you would know that there were 1.5 million WP7 devices sold in just the first 6 weeks after launch - much more than the "few" that you mention and an impressive figure considering that Android took 6 months to get anywhere near that figure, reaching 1 million sold in half a year.
Classy last paragraph, Inquirer, very classy: "there are unlikely to be more than a few people actually using the Vole's WP7 phone apps store".
Oh yeah, except for the fact that if you were a more competent and less biased publication, you would know that there were 1.5 million WP7 devices sold in just the first 6 weeks after launch - much more than the "few" that you mention and an impressive figure considering that Android took 6 months to get anywhere near that figure, reaching 1 million sold in half a year.