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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

#171

Post by votepaunchy »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #166
jpalomaki wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real solution I see would be to charge money for listing apps in the store. And not small money, but significant, non-refundable fees. Enough to actually check and verify the software by competent humans and also just to make scams more expensive (you would need to pay $5-10k upfront, like Google requires for certain Gmail apps). But I don’t like that kind of approach, so therefore I would be careful in demanding…

The real solution is to stop being a gatekeeper. Just let people install and use whatever they want.

How does this stop or in any way slow the proliferation of scam apps?

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

#172

Post by matheusmoreira »

nwienert wrote: post #169
matheusmoreira wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also think it would open a whole can of worms Absolutely. Apple should be afraid of holding the gatekeeper position. Anyone should. When people can install and use whatever they want, safety becomes their responsibility. They should open up their platform and let people do their own due dilligence. If they assume that responsibility and then neglect it, they absolutely can and should be blamed for any problems.

Yes and likewise, car manufacturers should remove seatbelts and airbags. They simply encourage reckless driving, and by giving the false sense of security / assuming the gatekeeper role, they should be liable for any accident.

The Apple review process is not in any way equivalent or even similar to seat belts and airbags. Not even the government can be fully blamed for bad drivers since people don't actually need a driver's license in order to drive.

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

#173

Post by zepto »

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.".

No, nowhere in your summary is a promise to keep users perfectly safe.

If they had said anything like that you’d be be able to quote them.

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

#174

Post by [deleted] »

heavyset_go wrote: post #170
nwienert wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and likewise, car manufacturers should remove seatbelts and airbags. They simply encourage reckless driving, and by giving the false sense of security / assuming the gatekeeper role, they should be liable for any accident.

Weird, I can flash whatever code I want to on my car's ECU. There's even an entire subculture dedicated to modding ECU firmware.

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by simonw »

citizenpaul wrote: post #69
rchaud wrote: post #45

> Simon Willison, a software engineer and a former iOS developer [...] owns a Samsung television and went to the App Store on his phone to install the accompanying Samsung remote control app called “SmartThings.” An app called “Smart Things” popped up, claiming to be a remote for Samsung televisions. Willison paid $19 for the app. It turns out the app was pretending to the be the genuine Samsung product. His mistake,…

I've met quite a number of developers that somehow barely have the skills of my grandma using a PC outside of their daily development tasks. Ive seen multiple help desk tickets back in my help desk days where developers got someone to email saying their PC was broken when it was just turned off. My point being a developer does not necessarily make this person somehow less susceptible to app store scams.

Hello, I'm that developer. I'm pretty savvy! That's why I agreed to be interviewed for this piece - I wanted to help make the case that even highly sophisticated users can be taken in by this stuff.

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

#176

Post by nwienert »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #172
nwienert wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and likewise, car manufacturers should remove seatbelts and airbags. They simply encourage reckless driving, and by giving the false sense of security / assuming the gatekeeper role, they should be liable for any accident.

The Apple review process is not in any way equivalent or even similar to seat belts and airbags. Not even the government can be fully blamed for bad drivers since people don't actually need a driver's license in order to drive.

Punishing companies for adding protections to their products is an insanely backwards incentive. May as well turn off sandboxing, and lock screens. If they ever break, it’d be a liability!

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

#177

Post by simonw »

rchaud wrote: post #85
tedunangst wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? He's clearly blaming Apple for violating his trust. He never trusted Samsung.

Clearly he did, because he spent several hundred dollars buying their smart TV.

I inherited the TV when I moved into a new house.

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

#178

Post by zepto »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #155
kjksf wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.".

Yeah. The man who lost his life savings due to malicious iOS software bearing Apple's signature of approval should directly cite this as evidence that Apple is responsible for his losses. Apple should pay back every last penny, his lawyers and more for good measure.

> malicious iOS software bearing Apple's signature of approval

Approval doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Just because they don’t detect a scam doesn’t mean they approve of what it does - it is still in breach of contract with Apple.

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

#179

Post by heavyset_go »

jpalomaki wrote: post #161
matheusmoreira wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not blaming Apple for not stopping these scams Why not? You should blame them. They have positioned themselves as the gatekeepers. Why? To extract profit from application developers. However, such a powerful position also comes with expectations and responsibilities. They should absolutely not be allowed to get away with gross negligence. We absolutely must blame them every single time they fail to keep malicio…

The real solution I see would be to charge money for listing apps in the store. And not small money, but significant, non-refundable fees. Enough to actually check and verify the software by competent humans and also just to make scams more expensive (you would need to pay $5-10k upfront, like Google requires for certain Gmail apps). But I don’t like that kind of approach, so therefore I would be careful in demanding…

A solution is to make systems secure enough that any user-level code or app either can't do malicious things, or needs to be explicitly granted fine-grained permissions to access a user's resources.

Sandboxing is a step in the right direction, as are various levels of things like code signing and even Windows Defender-esque systems that maintain lists of known malicious apps, authors etc and prevent them from running.

It also helps not to have an easy monetization scheme for malicious actors, either. Making it easy to give them money, and even sign you up for fraudulent subscriptions so you keep giving them money, is a mistake.

An actually user-friendly system would look at the apps that you're making payments with, and ask whether or not you want to keep subscriptions that you don't appear to be using much. This doesn't happen, though, because it is in no one's interests but the users' to help save them money.

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

#180

Post by matheusmoreira »

votepaunchy wrote: post #171
matheusmoreira wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real solution is to stop being a gatekeeper. Just let people install and use whatever they want.

How does this stop or in any way slow the proliferation of scam apps?

It doesn't. It absolves Apple of any responsibility in the matter.
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