Piracy

Stealing in-app purchases and what it could cost you

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Jul 13, 2012 a 11:12 am

There's a story going around today about a new hack that appears to allow users to bypass iTunes and steal in-app purchases "for free". I put "for free" in quotation marks because, as Ally pointed out in her editorial on app theft, there's no such thing as free. This time, however, the cost could be something more than money. The way I understand it, the hack in question uses a proxy, requires you to install a bogus certificate, and change DNS settings. That allows the transaction to be intercepted before it reaches iTunes, and that's what lets it cheat developers out of payment. It's also what could let the hacker collect all your information instead.

And that's dangerous.

Jailbreak, app piracy, and the true cost of theft

By Allyson Kazmucha, Saturday, May 26, 2012 a 11:23 am

Now that the iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak is available for the iPhone 4S, new iPad, and older devices, the subject of jailbreak in general is getting a lot of attention again, and with it, the dark side of jailbreaking. It seems whenever someone wants to attack the very concept of jailbreak, one of the first salvos unleashed is app piracy. The sad, ugly truth is that those attacks are made possible because some people who jailbreak do so mainly or entirely to get "free" apps. And the sadder, uglier truth is that there's no such thing as "free". Everything has a cost. Even and especially theft.

Angry Birds boss doesn't see app piracy as a problem - it might even help business

By Simon Sage, Tuesday, Jan 31, 2012 a 1:21 pm

In a recent interview, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said that app piracy isn't a huge threat to their signature title, Angry Birds. In fact, it may help increase their popularity. Hed draws a lot of parallels to the music industry, and sees suing your fanbase as fundamentally "futile".

Porting Siri to other iOS devices requires piracy, likely won't be a reality

By Andrew Wray, Thursday, Oct 13, 2011 a 9:41 am

iPhone Dev-Team member MuscleNerd has gone on the record stating a port of Siri to other iOS devices outside of the new iPhone 4S will require piracy, and likely won't ever see the light of day as a consequence.

Anyone hoping for a "port" of Siri from iPhone4S: pending a very low-level A5 exploit, it likely can't be done without piracy

iPhone App Piracy is Out of Control

By Jeremy, Thursday, Jan 14, 2010 a 9:00 am

Piracy exists in many different media platforms - movies, music, books, video games and yes, even iPhone applications. Exactly how big is iPhone application piracy to date? According to 24/7 Wall Street, the App Store has lost over $450 million since it's inception.

Apple Closed Jailbreak Exploit Due to App Piracy?

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Oct 14, 2009 a 11:10 am

Did Apple close the 24kpwn exploit in the latest shipments of the iPhone 3GS due to app piracy? MobileCrunch thinks it's certainly a factor:

While jailbreaking allows for countless wonderful (but otherwise disallowed) apps to run on the iPhone, it also allows cracked versions of paid applications to be installed. As a result, piracy is mind-blowingly, soul-crushingly rampant on the iPhone. Many iPhone developers – such as those behind the popular IM client, Beejive – are reporting that 80 percent of their users are pirates. Yep. For every 10 users on Beejive, 8 of them didn’t pay for it. I’m no saint myself, and all of us here fully understand that a download does not equal a lost sale – but when 80% of the people using your app (and in Beejive’s case, your servers) aren’t paying to keep the lights on, it’s likely seen as a big issue.

Apple Faces Off Against the EFF in Jailbreak Showdown

By Jeremy, Monday, May 4, 2009 a 6:12 am

Back in February we brought to you the story about Apple saying that Jailbreaking your iPhone is illegal. Granted that was in response the (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and their filing an exemption request for Jailbreaking iPhones. (See the AIPLA Quarterly Journal's article on this from last week). Well this past Friday Apple's head of marketing, Greg Joswiak, faced off against Fred von Lohmann, the EFF’s copyright guru and a plethora of Copyright Office officials. The topic? Jailbreaking...

App Store Anarchy - Pirated iPhone Applications

By Jeremy, Wednesday, Apr 1, 2009 a 5:55 pm

$200 iTunes Gift Cards on Sale for $2.60 (Ok, Not Really...)

By Jeremy, Tuesday, Mar 10, 2009 a 2:57 pm

Ok, well Apple is really not selling $200 iTunes gift cards for only $2.60 so keep dreaming. But according to Music Ally Chinese "pirates" have hacked the algorithm that generates the iTunes gift cards and so now fake cards are flooding the market for as low as $2.60 in China. When we say flooding we literally mean flooding the Chinese market:

Apparently six months ago, a $200 card went for around 320 RMB (roughly $47), but the price has since plummeted to around 18 RMB ($2.60) as more sellers pile in.

iPhone Anti-Pirates Strike Back

By Rene Ritchie, Thursday, Feb 12, 2009 a 8:06 am

Crackulous, while surrounded by some initial humor, wasn't funny for developers who work night and day to feed their families only to see their work ripped off. (Come on, how many of us would like it if developers walked off without paying for their ultra-sized combo meals at our work!). Well, now it looks like some of them are fighting back.

Christina Warren over at TUAW talked to the folks behind the new Kali Anti-Piracy service and liked what she saw: