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On 2007-10-17 13:09:31, drlau9 wrote:
You could manually sign it yourself, however it is a long and tedious procedure if you're a fan of many programs.
Please elaborate.
I'm buying a P1i soon and I'm not aware of this "tedious procedure"...
(any pointers?)
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Posted: 2007-10-17 13:25:29
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.. it's not entirely untrue to say that the Symbian signed scheme is designed to lock out some functions from programs that aren't approved, so they won't cause too much harm on the device (which is bull, of course. I've installed commercial signed programs with time- limits that insists on not removing themselves after you're uninstalled them). And it's also probably designed to keep the distribution of programs limited and controlled. Because service providers would like to know their customers aren't ruining their phones and causing them a lot of trouble by not being nice customers who go their portals to pick up pink themes for $10 a piece and be happy with that.
And I mean, getting the program signed, it's not something you'd do for a freeware program unless you're interested in either waiting for ages, or paying a fair amount for testing, etc. And just turning the code over like that, and classifying your program as freeware all of a sudden.. I'm not sure how wise that is. The licence agreement seems endless.
But then again, in practice it means losing some api functions (turning off backlight timeout, switching protected data.. like the homepage on the phone, and other sensitive apis.. *cough*..). And being pretty sure you won't have some program happen to install automatic starts at boot- time for itself, or gain access to the filesystem for writing over the mem- stick, or replacing existing files, etc. Not that you can't do a lot of damage anyway, but at least the core stuff is protected a bit. I'm not sure exactly how it works, though, but I think you can have the functions programmed, and then some of the requests are just ignored, and mem- writes won't happen for a non- signed program.
Anyway - so, you can self- sign a program for testing (just on your phone), it says (without having it approved externally). For testing, your own program. And, that whole process would probably be cumbersome enough to discourage most users, so the phone operators are happy, since everyone else isn't. And if the phone blows up, the phone- operator can say "aha! you did it, customer, not us!". And so they'll have the entire scheme repaid in.. two million years when their own programs are good enough not to f**k up their phones...
But if there are useful programs you need signed, why not.. Symbian Signed still "won't" "allow" the "use" of this sort of thing for ordinary users, though..
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Posted: 2007-10-17 14:12:08
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Great overview of the Symbian security. Thank you.
But from DRLAU9 post, I got the ideia that if you want to evaluate a program you must Symbian sign it yourself. How come?
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Posted: 2007-10-17 14:35:23
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What! No, absolutely not! That's not allowed! Very bad!
You can only request a dev- cert (or a developer- certificate, for free at the symbian signed portal after a short registration) to test any of your applications on a limited set of devices (i.e., your own phone).
...Seriously, though. I really wish they'd manage to issue some beta- certs for a limited user- group or something of that sort soon. As it is now, they're just encouraging developers to avoid symbian signed altogether. Which sort of limits the development of some typical programs (messenger apps, connection based apps, gui enhancements, etc) to only either: people who don't care about where their code goes, or perhaps making money off a good idea without giving their product to another publisher. Or people who have lots of money on beforehand. And with the usual SE transparency on the process.. who can really blame people for not making that much use of the, after all, fairly necessary checks on it all (speaking in terms of what "the market" demands).
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Posted: 2007-10-17 15:01:32
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Yeah self signing programs which are free, I guess it is there to also stop copyright infringement. But I don't see why software vendors for freeware can't spare a few mins to sign the applications.
I would only advise you to use the guide below on legit and freeware programs (you could do so for cracked but that is illegal and can carry a jail sentence as well as a hefty fine).
http://www.noeman.org/gsm/uiq[....]ow-sign-uiq3-applications.html
Btw, I wouldn't let software drive you off this phone as it has terrific features. If you have owned previous P models, the P1i is 10x better on speed and responsiveness alone.
hope this helps,
Dr.
[ This Message was edited by: drlau9 on 2007-10-17 14:20 ]
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Posted: 2007-10-17 15:18:47
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@drlau9
Wow! I was not aware of this procedure!
Do you care to share a list of programs you signed that were worth signing?
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Posted: 2007-10-17 15:36:36
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bought the handy tools package, handy weather is brilliant as is the safe.
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Posted: 2007-10-17 15:45:26
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On 2007-10-17 15:18:47, drlau9 wrote:
Yeah self signing programs which are free, I guess it is there to also stop copyright infringement. But I don't see why software vendors for freeware can't spare a few mins to sign the applications.
Because they'll be published by other companies, with a process that's difficult to understand, under a licence I do not trust. In other words, if you do something genuinely genius, you won't give up that idea and program in this way just in return for a "symbian signed" label.
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Posted: 2007-10-17 16:03:34
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Symbian improved signed processes
http://www.symbian.com/news/pr/2007/pr20079454.html[ This Message was edited by: _LAU_ on 2007-10-17 17:28 ]
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Posted: 2007-10-17 18:27:33
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Biscuits! My rant is out of date.. Thanks alot, Symbian Signed
( *grrr*
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Posted: 2007-10-17 21:08:16
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