August 25th, 2010 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Platforms: AndroidOS | No Comments »
Yesterday evening, the news reached us that Android Market’s new licensing service turned out to be easy to hack. Today, Google responds to the publicized hack.
The hack is very simple. Hackers replace a file called LicenseValidator.smali so the app will always receive confirmation that a license is granted.
Google takes the defense, stating the licensing service is still young and the hacker claimed it is at least better than what Google used to have. Google also announced that the licensing sample code was too easy as it was a simple explanation of what you can do to use the service, not an example of the best possible protection. Developers who exactly implemented the example are easy victims. The hacks are all based on this example and Google will soon publish information on how to make more advanced protection possible. Finally, no product is 100% piracy proof.
