Mac OS X 10.4.3 for Intel cracked

Did you hear that cracking noise? No, you didn't leave your iPod in your back pocket again. That was the sound of diligent hacker "l33tdawg" making his (or her?) way into Mac OS 10.4.3 for Intel machines. He claims that Quartz Extreme and Core Image are running beautifully on a Radeon 9800 Pro.

Apple has equipped developer Mactels with what it calls a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), which is a tiny microprocessor which (to get technical on you here), holds a bit of information that the OS looks for during installation. While l33tdawg didn't crack the TPM, he did convince the OS that it doesn't need TPM authentication for installation.

How Apple is going to keep this under control once a final, shrink-wrapped release is issued is beyond me. Or perhaps that's part of the master plan? After fighting a slew of "nasty hackers," perhaps Apple will succumb to popular demand (wink, wink) and launch a full on OS war in earnest.

[Via Macworld UK]