Symbian Signed to the Rescue? An Idea on Piracy and Certification

For the above idea on Symbian Signed to aid the fight against warez to work, either the signing process needs brought back in house and the cost significantly reduced – which means either Symbian takes a hit somewhere, or the process needs to be streamlined. So how about extending the self-signing program to instigate a clear and simple minimal ‘Symbian Signed’ level for authors that identifies them as the actual author (and requiring from them the usual multiple proofs of address and other credentials), but offers no guarantees to the functionality.

This way, when the phones are ‘locked down’ to certificate installs only, the authors can still recieve a certificate and be installed with little hassle, and the admin cost to Symbian is only the processing of a few lines for whoever issues the UID numbers. Symbian Signed as a full service still exists, but a certain legitimacy (and the ability to revoke apps) would now be inherent on everything installed.

Strong third party software appears to be on life support at the moment. Let’s do something about it.

Source: All About Symbian

I don’t think the problem is piracy. I think the problem is getting the word out about third party applications. People find new software usually by way of recommendation or a search. I doubt the typical user will go to Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and type in "Series 60 finance application."