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Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#91

Post by swiley »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #35
dkarras wrote: post #24

The article's premise does not make sense. This stuff happens despite the tight control, not because of it. If it was uncurated, it would be a cesspool like the Google play store (or ...shudder... the "competing" stores). Having a paid app that reads QR codes is not necessarily a scam. The article admits that 2/3 of the apps they reported were taken down. The article claims: "If consumers were to have access to alter…

> Play store apps, unless proven otherwise, are generally malware you carry with yourself every day, with potential access to everything in your device because the OS is nowhere near locked down compared to Apple counterpart. I'm sorry but this is complete bullshit. Your data on Android appears to be about a decade old.

Both link to user hostile libraries like Facebook sdk.

Both platforms push users toward app vendors that really don't care about their privacy.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#92

Post by zepto »

rawtxapp wrote: post #9
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have sympathy for the person in this story, but I think shifting the blame to Apple in this case is ludicrous. I'm still somewhat shaking my head that someone went through all of the trouble of using a hardware wallet, and then entered his key words into the first app he downloaded. If anything I think this story is just a prime example of why irreversible crypto transactions are an absolute nightmare for the gener…

They might have think twice if Apple didn't promise to make sure the app store was completely secure. A promise which they realistically can't keep at their scale no matter how hard they try. Also, this is just one example, the article itself has other ones.

> Apple didn't promise to make sure the app store was completely secure. A promise which they realistically can't keep at their scale no matter how hard they try.

They don’t. This is made up.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#93

Post by dumbfounder »

rawtxapp wrote: post #88
______- wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A person thought he was getting a legitimate Bitcoin wallet app, but turns out it was a fake and he lost his life savings I guess I'm victim-shaming here, but using mobile apps for large financial arrangements, no matter how trustworthy the app claims to be is a bad move. For this type of stuff you would use a clean computer with no known malware present, and use a privacy-aware browser like Firefox or Brave prefer…

People use their bank's apps, their investment institutions apps (Robinhood, Fidelity, etc) and a lot of other financial apps all the time.

I can’t send a lot of money around with any of my bank apps. It has relatively low limits.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#94

Post by zepto »

dkarras wrote: post #24

The article's premise does not make sense. This stuff happens despite the tight control, not because of it. If it was uncurated, it would be a cesspool like the Google play store (or ...shudder... the "competing" stores). Having a paid app that reads QR codes is not necessarily a scam. The article admits that 2/3 of the apps they reported were taken down. The article claims: "If consumers were to have access to alter…

> The article's premise does not make sense.

It does if you are Epic, or Jeff Bezos.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#95

Post by SavantIdiot »

rawtxapp wrote: post #2

The worst thing is, people have this belief that Apple is somehow protecting them, so they offload the critical thinking to Apple and lower their own guards. For example, a person thought he was getting a legitimate Bitcoin wallet app, but turns out it was a fake and he lost his life savings [1]. edit: to be clear, I'm not blaming Apple for not stopping these scams, at their scale, it's just practically impossible to…

> For example, a person thought he was getting a legitimate Bitcoin wallet app, but turns out it was a fake and he lost his life savings [1].

There's a lot more wrong in this scenario than just the app store. If someone is going to be so amazingly careless with half a million dollars...

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#96

Post by jollybean »

If you bought a product from Walmart that was not only unsafe, but actively trying to scam you - people would sue Walmart.

The claim that 'every app is reviewed for security' should be a giant liability problem.

The store model is a huge winfall of profits precisely because they don't have to do any of this.

Realistically, if we use brick-and-mortar as a reference ... it might very well be that if you want to do something 'commercial' on a platform, literally using Apple's payment infrastructure, there's probably going to actually have to be more rigorous insight. This will cost Apple a lot, and probably cost sellers a lot as well, I can see it costing $X dollars for the review process then $Y for every upgrade, possibly Z days delay in payments and possibly esceleating % whitheld given market size, until AAA+ confidence rating.

All of the ugly things we see in regular finance exist basically for this reason (i.e. VISA chargebacks, bank freezes, paypal holds) etc. etc..

A lot of profits are raised by ignoring these realities.

Same goes for Amazon.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#97

Post by ______- »

rawtxapp wrote: post #88
______- wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A person thought he was getting a legitimate Bitcoin wallet app, but turns out it was a fake and he lost his life savings I guess I'm victim-shaming here, but using mobile apps for large financial arrangements, no matter how trustworthy the app claims to be is a bad move. For this type of stuff you would use a clean computer with no known malware present, and use a privacy-aware browser like Firefox or Brave prefer…

People use their bank's apps, their investment institutions apps (Robinhood, Fidelity, etc) and a lot of other financial apps all the time.

Which is why I said: "for large financial arrangements"

Large transactions need extra special care. You need a trusted device with a trusted OS and a trusted browser, preferably with `EASE` turned on in HTTPS Everywhere so plaintext secrets can't leak out of your machine. You also need to vet the HTTPS Everywhere extension and ensure it came from the official addons site. You would also harden the OS. Using Linux is preferable over Windows 10 since Windows is targeted heavily by malware gangs.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#98

Post by amaBasics »

granzymes wrote: post #89
amaBasics wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all valid, but do you have a non-recent example that got mainstream attention?

Do you consider the New York Times mainstream? This article is from 2012: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/technology/pressure-on-ap...

I do, and I’m not sure why the snark.

Thanks.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#99

Post by ______- »

dumbfounder wrote: post #93
rawtxapp wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People use their bank's apps, their investment institutions apps (Robinhood, Fidelity, etc) and a lot of other financial apps all the time.

I can’t send a lot of money around with any of my bank apps. It has relatively low limits.

Yes if you are dealing in small amounts that you wouldn't mind losing to fraudulent apps, then do it, but read my previous comment about locked down machines if dealing with very large transactions.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#100

Post by rawtxapp »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #95
rawtxapp wrote: post #2

The worst thing is, people have this belief that Apple is somehow protecting them, so they offload the critical thinking to Apple and lower their own guards. For example, a person thought he was getting a legitimate Bitcoin wallet app, but turns out it was a fake and he lost his life savings [1]. edit: to be clear, I'm not blaming Apple for not stopping these scams, at their scale, it's just practically impossible to…

> For example, a person thought he was getting a legitimate Bitcoin wallet app, but turns out it was a fake and he lost his life savings [1]. There's a lot more wrong in this scenario than just the app store. If someone is going to be so amazingly careless with half a million dollars...

If someone technical enough to have a hardware wallet and "smart" enough to have amassed half a million dollars falls for this scam, I think it tells you more about how much (misplaced) trust they put in Apple rather than how careless they were, but that's just my opinion.
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