Slashdot Mirror
iTunes Gift Card Key System Cracked, Exploited
moonbender writes "Fake but working iTunes gift cards are being sold on Chinese auction sites for a fraction of their value: 'The owner of the Taobao shop told us frankly that the gift card codes are created using key-generators. He also said that he paid money to use the hackers' service. Half a year ago, when they started the business, the price was around 320 RMB [about $47] for [a] $200 card, then more people went into this business and the price went all the way down to 18 RMB [about $2.60] per card, "but we make more money as the amount of customers is growing rapidly."' The people at Chinese market researcher Outdustry have apparently confirmed this by buying a coupon and transferring it into an iTunes account. Oops."
use safari on your iPhone to buy the fake iTunes card.
It's like curb stomping apple after you kick them in the nuts.
More seriously, there's a good chance that if Apple does decide to change their key system that a lot of legitimate iTunes cards are gonna be rendered worthless.
And that would suck.
Sent from your iPad.
No, kicking Apple in the nuts would be buying a fake iTunes card using MyFox on a jailbroken, unlocked iPhone 3G using a different carrier than the one the phone was sold from/for.
heh
http://xkcd.com/538/
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
The real comedy will happen when someone in China actually comes up with some IP that they want to make a buck off of. Hopefully an entire cottage industry will pop up in the rest of the world that's devoted to doing nothing but cranking out copies of whatever it is that China suddenly values, and even more hopefully that cottage industry will be named "Fuck You Chinaman, Inc.!"
No, even more is on bittorrent and the like ...
Where can I buy them?
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
... I once received a gift certificate in a Christmas card that was delivered accidentally to my address, and I was able to go ahead and use it. ...
I think that is a crime. If not, it certainly makes you a jerk.
don't worry . . .they're buying fake Apple products.
Everyone Chinese wins!
Random thought: Reminds me of the old days when you could create credit card "numbers" that weren't actually valid but passed the checksum test and use them to create AOL accounts. Kind of surprised that Apple wouldn't know better.
But the vendor said it was foolproof!
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
ANyone translate for me? I need about 20 of these cards.
I heard a legal person at Apple once threatened someone just for snoring too loud.
I believe itunes is DRM free as of Jan 6/09
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1840225
Yes but surely with Apple's patented Time Machine technology they can overcome this minor hurdle.
Well,
Thanks very much for those links, they're really, really useful! Full of technical detail on the algorithm used.
For instance, check out these facts in the article Lars T linked to:
* The following letters and numbers can look very similar:
The letter A and the letter H
The letter B and the number 8
* Apple Gift Cards can be purchased from the Apple Online Store in any amount between $25-$2500
* To report a lost or stolen Apple Gift Card, please contact Apple at any Apple Retail Store location or by telephone at 1-800-MY-APPLE.
It's exciting technical comments like yours (without even a whiff of smug self-congratulatory superiority) that make slashdot what it is. Thanks for educating all of us on slashdot!
I once received a gift certificate in a Christmas card that was delivered accidentally to my address, and I was able to go ahead and use it.
Well that explains where my sister's gift card to Victoria's Secret went?
[End Of Line]
Your job?
Mail fraud? Pssh. That's small potatoes. Back in my wilder days, I once kept the NYPD busy with various bomb threats, including a real bomb set off in a subway station near the NY Fed.
While the police were on a wild goose chase, my team of vaguely Germanic-sounding villains drove a dozen stolen dump trucks into the basement of the bullion repository in the basement of the Federal Reserve, loaded them up, and drove away with over $100 Billion worth of gold. How's that for admitting a felony online?
http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search
...alright but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, roads, the freshwater system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?