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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

#131

Post by MomoXenosaga »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #105
dumbfounder wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not sure that trend holds. Most banking apps let you send tens of thousands in one go. They're very aggressive with the "are you sure?" question in my experience though.

Yes mine let's me put in a limit. I have set it to a low €500 since I rarely do large purchases in webshops.

At the end of the day people are responsible for not doing business with shady stores or people. But the idea that a single QR code can empty my entire account is sobering...

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

#132

Post by bradleykingz »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #113
rawtxapp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The real issue is Bitcoin here.

I'm surprised too... He had his life savings in Bitcoin?

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

#133

Post by rudyfink »

kjksf wrote: post #115
zepto wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They did. This was literally their defense in Epic lawsuit. Summarized Apple lawyers said: "We can't offer alternative stores because they would be full of scams which would be bad for users. Our store is curated and safe for users.".

To add to this, the App Store clearly markets security and trust.

These are the very first words describing the App Store (https://www.apple.com/app-store/):

"The apps you love. From a place you can trust.

For over a decade, the App Store has proved to be a safe and trusted place to discover and download apps....And a big part of those experiences is ensuring that the apps we offer are held to the highest standards for privacy, security, and content."

The page then says this about security:

"Security for every app. At every level.

We ensure that apps come from known sources, are free of known malware, and haven’t been tampered with at the time of installation or launch."

And this about trust:

"Apps must adhere to our guidelines.

When you download an app, it should work as promised. Which is why human App Reviewers ensure that the apps on the App Store adhere to our strict app review standards. Our App Store Review Guidelines require apps to be safe, provide a good user experience, comply with our privacy rules, secure devices from malware and threats, and use approved business models."*

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

#134

Post by Black101 »

egocentric wrote: post #127

Some relevant Apple marketing statements [1]: "The apps you love. From a place you can trust." "For over a decade, the App Store has proved to be a safe and trusted place to discover and download apps." "Every day, moderators review worldwide App Store charts for quality and accuracy.” "Dedicated to trust and safety.” "Apps must adhere to our guidelines.” "From more videos to rankings and reviews, there are loads of…

So does that mean that you can sue Apple if an app fails at any of these?

Of course not, because lying for Apple is common business practice nowadays.

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

#135

Post by slver »

amelius wrote: post #116
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…

The problem is that Apple loves to claim that they need full control over their platform to keep their platform safe.

They do need full control to keep their platform safe.

Are they managing to keep it safe is independent of that claim and we can ask why are those getting through.

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

#136

Post by paulpauper »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #113
rawtxapp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The real issue is Bitcoin here.

Bitcoin makes scamming so much more lucrative . So many pple have been scammed such as fake apps and giveaway scams.

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

#137

Post by SavantIdiot »

Magodo wrote: post #109
SavantIdiot wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

You know I used to think exactly like this when I was younger, but nowadays, I realize that putting the burden of understanding technology on the user is very unfair. Just because someone is worth half a million dollars doesn't mean they should automatically know how to identify scam apps...

If you want to play the grown-up card, ok: the grown-up thing to do with half a mil would have it be in the hands of a registered investment advisor at a reputable and insured institution, who is actively growing that money for you using reasonable investment principles based on your investment horizon, goals, and comfort level; and not pissing it away on the latest hype cycle. But that is only because I lived through the silver boom & bust, the mortgage bond scam, the junk bond scam, the S&L scam, the first commercial online investment platforms, the dot com bubble, the second mortgage collapse... and Bitcoin* is more of the same.

* I said "Bitcoin" and not "cryptocurrency" intentionally. Because the jury is still own on the latter, but the former most certainly will not be the CC of the future IMHO due to its massive privacy shortcomings, among other things.

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

#138

Post by Black101 »

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…

The problem is that Apple is lying about what they are doing... and therefor, they should probably be targeted by dozens of class action lawsuits.

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

#139

Post by rawtxapp »

bradleykingz wrote: post #132
richardwhiuk wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real issue is Bitcoin here.

I'm surprised too... He had his life savings in Bitcoin?

A good friend of mine has ~98% of his savings in BTC since 2015 and know quite a bit of other people with high % of their savings in it. For those that can ignore the short term volatility, who have good incomes as safety nets (say FAANG jobs) to weather any storms, those who don't trust their governments and who are relatively young to recover any large losses, it can be an acceptable tradeoff (needless to say, a very profitable one as well).

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

#140

Post by brianberns »

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…

18 out of 1000 = “teeming with scams”?

It’s a real problem, but the headline is sensationalized.

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