back to article Apple fails to block stolen iOS in-app content

Apple has moved to shut down a hack that allows users of iOS devices to download in-app content without paying for it – but the service is still operating and its creator remains defiant. The exploit relies in part on a custom DNS server that intercepts incoming purchase requests from iOS devices. Over the weekend, Apple …

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  1. Law
    WTF?

    He's got balls...

    ... I'll give him that.

    I don't see this ending well for him though.

    1. LarsG
      Trollface

      They won't

      They won't bother trying to sue him or go for the patent attack as he has no money.

      He is in the perfect situation.

      1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge

        Re: They won't

        Oh, maybe they'll hire him instead.

  2. GotThumbs
    Linux

    Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

    Puts a smile on my face.

    Apples current ongoing ecosystem is the most restrictive in existence today. You can't even load their OS on non-Apple hardware, thus preventing Hackintosh's.

    Where's the DOJ on this companies huge anti-competitive MO? Obama must get millions from this company.

    No skin off my nose. I'll never own an Apple product. I wouldn't even accept one as a gift.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

      I don't see you complaining about Apple owning and developing the CUPS printing subsystem used in Linux, or WebKit .

      Maybe you already use Apple products?

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge
        Linux

        Re: Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

        Not used on *this* Linux box as it's a malfunctioning piece of shit that's been ripped out and replaced by lprng.

        1. sueme2

          Re: Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

          and so say I. cups has become the thing I dread whenever I upgrade my systems. It used to work very well before Steve thought it was a good idea. Now I think it is better to take a thumb drive to the local library.

    2. Sean Timarco Baggaley
      FAIL

      Re: Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

      "Apples current ongoing ecosystem is the most restrictive in existence today."

      Can I assume, from your choice of icon, that you believe the GPL v3 to be the epitome of "freedom"? Despite, y'know, the existence of the Public Domain, which places no strings on your gifts to the community whatsoever? I know what I'd use.

      At best, Apple's is a "gated community". To claim that it's "the most restrictive in existence today" is the height of hyperbolic bullshit, you blithering hypocrite and FOSSer.

      "You can't even load their OS on non-Apple hardware, thus preventing Hackintosh's."

      Apple tried licensing their OS in the past. It failed epically and damned near bankrupted the company—killing off that part of the business was one of the first things Jobs did on his return to the company, and rightly so. Apple are a consumer electronics company, not just a glorified developer tools company with a profitable sideline in running-gag operating systems and office productivity applications. Apple's management would have to be suicidally stupid to even consider such an idea again.

      But please, do feel free to regale us with more of your scintillating ideas.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

        Indeed, every company that has made their hardware then tried to make their software offering available to all has withdrawn that idea. It means less hardware sales and more support problems. See OpenSolaris for an example of that.

        Apple tests its OS on all of the supported devices. If you let it run on generic hardware then you can never fully test the OS as there are an almost infinite number of hardware configurations. To try to test an OS on x86 exhaustively is like trying to take a snapshot of the WWW.

        Can you buy a phone and then load any OS onto it you like? nope, why not? the desktop market is the only market where you can do that and this freedom only exists for one reason, to suit businesses.

      3. Ben Tasker

        Re: Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

        Can I assume, from your choice of icon, that you believe the GPL v3 to be the epitome of "freedom"? Despite, y'know, the existence of the Public Domain, which places no strings on your gifts to the community whatsoever? I know what I'd use.

        To be fair, they achieve different ends. GPL is about ensuring user freedoms, not developer freedoms. As an example,

        I release module BENSMOD under GPL V3.

        Every user who uses something containing that module will be given the source (or an offer of) and can develop it further if they desire.

        If I chuck it in the public domain, they can find the source if they know to look for it, but they may well have been given a binary blob and not know what the underlying code is. Makes it a bit hard for them to adapt to their needs, especially if the rest of the blob isn't available in source form.

        Both types of licenses have their place. If my module was something to do with supporting common protocols then Public Domain, BSD etc are probably the best way to go. It helps ensure widespread support across multiple platforms (to some extent anyway), but if my module was for Word processing (or something) then the GPL may be a better fit depending on what my aims are.

        Neither suits software across the board, but that's why we have such a choice in licenses.

        To claim that it's "the most restrictive in existence today" is the height of hyperbolic bullshit, you blithering hypocrite and FOSSer.

        Apple's walled garden is pretty restrictive in some ways, but I'd have to agree with you here. A gated community is a good way to put it actually, the problem is that the gatekeeper doesn't always play fair (but then who in big business does?)

        Apple are a consumer electronics company, not just a glorified developer tools company with a profitable sideline in running-gag operating systems and office productivity applications.

        I think you've understated it here, with the advent of Metro and the Office 2013 interface, I'm not sure running-gag quite covers it anymore. Especially given all the shite MS have spouted in the past about the cost of re-training to use other systems. In fact, tbh, I can't help think the change might be a good example of suicidally stupid.

        I'll be honest, I've kinda lost track of my intention when posting this reply! I did have a point to make, but I appear to have forgotten it, so I'll go make another coffee instead.

      4. Nick De Plume
        Headmaster

        Re: Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

        Correction:

        Apple was not on the verge of bankruptcy because of Mac clones.

        Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy because it had a very outdated (and unreliable) operating system running on very expensive and slow hardware, using proprietary "everything". Simply put, it was not desirable, and was only used by the Apple faithful and people in publishing business.

        Yes, I do remember the living-fossil called System 7, the almost-vaporware called Copland, which turned out to be a totally inadequate System 8.

        Anyway. OSX was the best thing that happened to Apple. Still, I wish they had started off with BeOS instead of NeXT. NeXT was OK, but BeOS is/was the most elegant and sleek operating system I have ever used.

        But I do agree with you on one point - Apple is a consumer electronics company first. But unlike Sony, they can get the software right (eventually anyway - first iterations of OSX were not too reliable)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

      Apple has no monopoly unlike Microsoft.

      Microsoft and Intel have both been convicted of anti-competitive practices and abusing their monopoly.

      Just because Apple is successful doesn't mean they have a monopoly. Their market share in mobile phones is around 30%, in desktop computers it is about 5% or less.

      If you want to complain about abuse then look at Intel and how they are trying to get ARM out of the mobile market. Sadly I think they will win too, not based upon technical merit or brilliance but by forcing customers of their desktop chips to use their chips in their mobile devices or they will cut off desktop chip supplies or increase prices.

      Intel and Google are the people to keep an eye on. Especially with Google having bought Motorola.

    4. Paul Bruneau

      Re: Nice to just to know Apple has a thorn in its side at the moment.

      > No skin off my nose. I'll never own an Apple product. I wouldn't even accept one as a gift.

      But by all means, keep on reading and commenting on Apple articles. Please never stop showering the world with your opinion on the topic.

  3. LinkOfHyrule
    Happy

    Terms of service, I love it

    Hahaha! Whatever next? Cracked Photoshops with an EULA from the warez cracking crew - boring legal speak but the text scrolls and plays a funky chiptune!

    "Yo Apple, hit me up and gimme some of dat iPhone 5 shit, bitch"

  4. Mark Simon

    Nothing for Nothing

    If I understand this correctly, he is asking for donations. From people who use his hack to steal something for nothing?

    1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

      Re: Nothing for Nothing

      He is clearly a hypocrite.

      He is certainly looking to earn money for other people's hard work..

      The problem I have with this guy is he isn't really stealing from Apple (OK, he is stealing from them, but losing the money won't bankrupt them), he is stealing from small independent developers. Developers who need to sell possibly hundreds of thousands of in app purchases to make a livable wage. He is enabling users to deprive those developers of the money they need, while asking those same users to give him money.

      This doesn't benefit anyone as all that happens is what is already happening to some extent in the PC gaming world to some extent. There are a lot of developers looking to wind down PC development citing concerns about piracy.

  5. Scott 67
    Holmes

    Am I the only one..

    ..who notices that the hacker's name corresponds to a character's alias in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, specifically the deep cover op?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Am I the only one..

      Very good observation. That is indeed a big coincidence.. Especially since in the game:

      "The name Alexei Borodin might be a reference to the first Call of Duty game, because of the fact that the first playable Russian character's first name is Alexei, and the first person the player meets has the last name "Borodin"."

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anal aperture

    The guy is an anal aperture, because 70% of the damage he is doing is not to Apple, but to mostly struggling developers who are trying to work for a living.

    1. David Ward 1

      Re: Anal aperture

      don't like it? pull the app from ios. no big deal.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Anal aperture

        Still better than Android where similar hacks are prevalent and any app making money makes headline news.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Anal aperture

          "Still better than Android"

          Only really a problem if you install apps from 3rd parties, enable developer settings or root. Stick to the official channels and actually take note of permissions and it's fine.

      2. Droid on Droid
        Facepalm

        Re: Anal aperture

        "don't like it? pull the app from ios. no big deal."

        Yes that is a wonderful idea, spend money developing an App, spend more money to create in App content, have a Russian hacker work out a way to rip off your hard work. Pull the App because that's no big deal. What other bright ideas do you have? Get burgled, no big deal, give away everything you own, problem solved!

        1. Invidious Aardvark
          FAIL

          @Droid on Droid

          There's this thing called "humour", you should try it some time...

          1. Miek
            Trollface

            Re: @Droid on Droid

            @Invidious Aardvark

            The Apple threads are far too serious to have any room for humour.

  7. Gene Cash Silver badge

    "asserted a copyright claim"

    How can they do that when they don't own the video? Are they saying that simply because they're mentioned in the video? Isn't this fair use? I hope they get countersued under the DMCA for a false claim.

    1. Oliver Mayes

      Re: "asserted a copyright claim"

      A video showing someone how to steal copyrighted content for free is a viable target for a takedown request.

  8. Ramazan
    FAIL

    double fail on Apple side

    1. they failed to fix iOS

    2. they failed to convince Russian authorities to put This Alexey Borodin guy in jail (for participation in theft)

    1. chr0m4t1c

      And a double fail for you.

      1. The hack is a man-in-the-middle attack made easier by application developers not following the guidelines to set up their own verification service for in-app purchases. And it's only a week since it went public, how easy do you think a fix is going to be, especially as the attack needs the user to change their own DNS to his service in order to make it work? That's like giving your money to a random person on the street to put in the bank and then blaming the bank when it doesn't get to your account.

      2. Again, it's only a week, how do you know that Apple aren't trying to get this guy put in jail? The main problem will almost certainly be in dealing with the Russian legal system, which (alongside almost every other legal system in the world) does not move particularly quickly.

  9. Ramazan

    just wondering, what if someone creates site/service that helps iOS users to kill people (due to bugs in Apple's iOS/AppStore/etc)?

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