Apple Hackers Encounter a Poetic Warning

By MAY WONG, AP Technology Writer
Fri Feb 17, 1:04 AM ET

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Apple Computer Inc. has resorted to a poetic broadside in the inevitable cat-and-mouse game between hackers and high-tech companies.
The maker of Macintosh computers had anticipated that hackers would try to crack its new OS X operating system built to work on Intel Corp.'s chips and run pirated versions on non-Apple computers. So, Apple developers embedded a warning deep in the software � in the form of a poem.
Indeed, a hacker encountered the poem recently, and a copy of it has been circulating on Mac-user Web sites this week.
Apple confirmed Thursday it has included such a warning in its Intel-based computers since it started selling them in January.
The embedded poem reads: 'Your karma check for today: There once was a user that whined/his existing OS was so blind/he'd do better to pirate/an OS that ran great/but found his hardware declined./Please don't steal Mac OS!/Really, that's way uncool./(C) Apple Computer, Inc.'
Apple also put in a separate hidden message, 'Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext,' in another spot for would-be hackers.
'We can confirm that this text is built into our products,' Apple issued in a statement. 'Hopefully it, and many other legal warnings, will remind people that they should not steal Mac OS X.'
[more...]