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Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

washingtonpost.com

101–110 of 261 posts

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

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're welcome, and I apologize for the snark.

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

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is arguing that the veneer of safety implied by Apple (above and beyond other stores) might make users more susceptible to fraud because they are more likely to believe the apps are all safe. They might be more cautious with other stores that don't offer that protection. Whether this leads to more actual cases of fraud would require a real study to be done.

The reason I disagree with this argument is that it boils down to "tons of scams are better than a few sophisticated scams because users are more wary." Users themselves have various levels of sophistication, and unsophisticated scams have plenty of victims.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for Apple to know who is publishing apps and making money off them in order to facilitate law and order in cases of flagrant illegal activity such as this, and for users to assume there is accountability that deters the behavior.

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

#103
post #10

I got scammed too. I got an app for $14/week for some LG / Samsung screen sharing. We were in hotel and I wanted to stream something to TV in the hotel room so I quickly downloaded it. Wine did not help :( The app was charging me for one month. But then it disappeared from the store. One problem is this weekly schedule: people do not check cc statements on weekly schedule. Also they should sent an iMessage a couple o…

I get an email receipt each time I get charged by an app, and I believe I even get a “trial expiring soon” email before something starts charging me.

The few times I’ve accidentally left a subscription running I’ve been able to go to reportaproblem.apple.com and ask for a refund and each time it’s worked without any drama.

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

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I disagree with this argument is that it boils down to "tons of scams are better than a few sophisticated scams because users are more wary." Users themselves have various levels of sophistication, and unsophisticated scams have plenty of victims.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for Apple to know who is publishing apps and making money off them in order to facilitate law and order in cases of flagrant illegal activity such as this, and for users to assume there is accountability that deters the behavior.

100% agreed.

https://developer.apple.com/support/identity-verification/

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

#105

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.

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.

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

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of scams and fakes on the Google Play store is off the charts.

Do you have any numbers to back up that claim?

Nope, I don't even think such number exists, it's just my impression of the amount of "why the fuck would anyone even publish this" apps out there.

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

#107
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…

> it would be a cesspool like the Google play store

I would suggest you use an Android smartphone from the last 5 years before making a comment like this.

I use both iOS and Android devices on a regular basis and both the App Store and Play Store are cesspools. I would go even further and say that the App Store is more obnoxious in that it serves me a half page ad whenever I search for an app.

At least on Android, I have the choice to not use the Play Store. That is not even possible when I use iOS.

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

#108
post #97

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.

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…

Btw, recent versions of Firefox include an "HTTPS only" mode[1], so HTTPS Everywhere is actually unnecessary for this use case nowadays.

1: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/https-only-prefs

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

#109
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...

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...

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

#110
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…

> Apple model is broken, but it is the least broken out there. This would almost be true if users weren't forced to use the App Store to install native apps in the first place. If I had a choice to use a store like F-Droid on my iPhone, I wouldn't be complaining. However, being forced to use a broken system is still a complaint, even if it's marginally more secure than it's competitors.

You're forced to use the least broken system... if you choose to do so. Apple is only making you use it to the extent that you decided to pay money to Apple instead of an Android manufacturer with that alternative option.
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