There are people who get undeniably excited by the release of a new or updated operating system for their computer. Most of these people are nerds. Others are hackers.

Most recently, Apple Computers Inc. released Mac OS X for its computer systems. This OS was the first to incorporate Mac software with Intel chips. Apple was aware of the threat of people attempting to pirate its OS for non-Mac computers due to this hybrid technology.

Herein lies the joke of the situation: Apple has included a poem inside its program for people attempting to pirate the software. This poem, with such nice lines as “Please don’t steal Mac OS!” is certainly polite, but lacks in the protective properties one would expect.

If I, a hacker or someone interested in performing illegal activities discovered an operating system had a poem secretly inside only accessible by hacking, I would be all over it. It would be like discovering a secret song when you robbed a bank or rainbows that came out when you cut off peoples’ heads.

Why this was thought a good idea by the programmers of Mac OS X is beyond me. Why they would rather waste the three minutes it took to come up with the rather disappointing seven-line poem than say… I don’t know… make it more difficult to hack their software?

I suppose it was a creative little congratulations for the person who actually gets far in the process of hacking the new Mac OS, but I certainly wouldn’t call it a deterrent.

However, even if it is a failed attempt to stop hackers, it’s nice to see even nerdy computer programers still have had the good upbringing to say “please.”

The poem:

“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.”