A self-proclaimed white hat hacker on Wednesday revealed a proof-of-concept crack for the copy protection on Windows Phone 7 apps.
A self-proclaimed white hat hacker on Wednesday revealed a proof-of-concept crack for the copy protection on Windows Phone 7 apps. The custom app downloads the trial version of an app from Windows Phone Marketplace and strips the DRM from the app, letting the full version run. Resulting bootlegs can be pushed to any device, WPCentral understood, and could make possible relatively easy piracy without having to sync to the desktop.
As the crack is intended to help clamp down on piracy rather than help it, the code should stay private. It was extremely easy to develop, however, and took just six hours to create, according to its maker. Microsoft's developer experience lead Brandon Watson has already been contacted about the susceptibility of WP7 apps to the hack and could lead to closing the hole soon as a result.
App piracy has been a mounting problem on smartphones, even with copy protection in place. WP7 is relatively untested, but Android has been affected so badly by piracy that developers have argued that it's impossible to sell paid apps on Google's OS due both to a lack of effective protection and the ease of developing cracks.
