Software pirates use Apple tech to put hacked apps on iPhones | Hacker News Reader

Software pirates use Apple tech to put hacked apps on iPhones

reuters.com

18 pointsxbmcuser18 comments

The problem with this article is that it seems to be shaming Apple for letting people have some way of doing what Android users can do; sideloading apps of their choice onto devices they own.

And this isn't the only article like this I've seen recently. I'm sure that now Apple will lock down their platform even more now, because gasp people are looking at porn and using pirated software.

Why do these journalists care? Are they next going to attack the fact that you can use a $99 personal developer license to side load your own apps on your iPhone that you write yourself?

I worked on a project that only got off the ground when we abandoned Test Flight and used enterprise certificates. It seemed like a refreshingly sensible compromise on Apple's part.

Two words: “outrage journalism”

Apple was quick to ban facebook and google certificates because of so called customer privacy but is not that interested in the same privacy for these app. Its all just marketing.

I don't see any outcome that doesn't involve Apple clamping down more on who can sideload apps. It took the non-profit that I worked for weeks to get the correct DUNS numbers that Apple would accept.

As long as nobody is charging money or misleading people in deploying these apps, I don't see a problem.

I think the problem with Facebook is that they were simply using their certificate to bypass the app store, and letting apps be deployed outside of their organization.

Why can't Apple just have this exemption? It costs $300 and isn't trivial to get.

This reminds me of journalists who "exposed" pot dispensaries or pornography stores for not complying with the absolute letter of the law. Was anyone calling for this?

This is like "News at 11, those 'tobacco pipes' that they sell can be used for the marihjuana. Also your kids can get the porn on the internet. Should you be worried?"

Apple removed Facebook's "spyware in VPN's clothing" from the App Store over user privacy last year.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/22/apple-facebook-onavo/

They yanked Facebook's enterprise signing certificate for using it to continue distributing that spyware to end users even after it had been banned from the App Store.

Enterprise signing certificates are Apple's method for allowing companies to sideload whatever apps they like, but it is made very clear that you may not use your "get out of walled garden free" card to distribute apps to anyone outside of your company.

>Why do these journalists care?

They don't. They only care about the clicks.

It reminds me of this article:

https://external-brain.redwolf.com.au/2002/06/26/cd-pirates-...

Published in a mainstream Australian Newspaper (But they've since deleted it). These journalists are outraged that it will soon be legal to copy your own compact discs.

And they just assume that anyone doing so much be a pirate.

There is similar language in this article. If someone just wants to watch a movie they own without DRM, they must be a pirate.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, "This is why we can't have nice things."

A person is courteous, responsible, intelligent, and even reasonable most of the time. Working with a person can be a downright pleasurable experience.

Problem is, people suck. You get more than one person together and analyze their behavior as a group and invariably there will be people doing things that, in the long run, make the whole group suffer.

I think it's something like what they used to call the "Tragedy of the Commons".

I really don't get the recent hype around this topic. Sideloading pirated apps on android is a click on a button and a checkbox. Solving it seems close to impossible, without seriously compromising the users freedom to install apks and privacy.

Apple on the other end has a finite list of issued developer certificates and an even smaller list of enterprise certificates. If some are abused, it's as easy as revoking them, given iOS regularly checks the OCSP.

I guess they just spy less on their users, which for example means iOS might not phone home telemetry data of every app an user installs, which makes it harder to catch abuse immediatly. Also since taking down a small number of pirated apps might not directly translate into an equivalent revenue in legit app purchases (as the industry might claim), I guess there isn't too much of an economic incentive for Apple to enforce their TOS immediatly.

This is Apple's war on drugs. Apple claims to be protecting users from themselves, and that's true to a degree, but the cost is a significant loss of freedom and eliminating a check on Apple policies.

Just as a US resident could move to a country (or state) with legal drugs, an iPhone user could switch to Android. But the availability of this "choice" shouldn't be used to justify a bad policy, in either situation imo.

Apple has been playing wack-a-mole with enterprise developer certificates for a while now, especially when the currently most reliable jailbreak method requires special entitlements that require an enterprise or developer certificate.

Isn’t this called jailbreaking? Not everyone who circumvents Apple’s walled garden is a pirate.

Nor is anyone that copies digital information.

I assume everything you work on is open source? What software have you written lately that I can copy indiscriminately?

Why do I always get downvotes for challenging the idea that every piece of media should be free, but no one ever explains why?

Do you consider copying software equivalent to hijacking boats by deadly force? I was only arguing against the sensational term, not for the act or any particular licensing.

Ok, that's totally fair. No parrots were harmed in the making of BitTorrent.

Whats the name of that service?

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