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App Auto-Tweets False Piracy Accusations
An anonymous reader writes "Certain iPhone and iPad applications from a Japanese company have broken software piracy detection mechanisms that are sending out tweets on the user's own Twitter account, saying, 'How about we all stop using pirated iOS apps? I promise to stop. I really will. #softwarepirateconfession.' The trouble is, it's sending these out on accounts of users who actually paid up to $50 or more for the software and who are legally using it. The app is asking for access to users' Twitter accounts, but does not give the reason why it is asking, so the author of the article concluded (rightly) that things were being done deliberately. Would you want your legally purchased software to send out messages to all of your contacts on Twitter or on other social networks saying that you were a software pirate? Would you excuse the writers of the software if it was just an error in their piracy detection measures?"
Flamebait much? People pay far more than that for desktop apps. People tend to think that an iOS iPhone or iPad app is going to always be some simple thing, and a lot are. But there are plenty of higher end "desktop quality" apps available on the platform.
Granted I don't personally believe a Dictionary app would be, but hey, an app is worth what people are willing to pay.
Back to the topic of what's triggering these erroneous piracy messages, there could be a couple of things at play. Some people are reporting its happening on Jailbroken devices that also have the "Install0us" app installed, which is to be fair used solely for app pirating. It may be the app sees "Hey, I'm on a hacked device with a pirate store installed" and assuming it itself has been pirated for that reason.
However, other users are reporting the same issue on non-jailbroken devices which leads me to believe that these apps were targeted for iOS 5.1.1 and may be seeing the massive backend library and OS changes Apple made for iOS6 and incorrectly assuming its running on a Jailbroken devices due to unexpected OS differences.
I'm not defending the app maker for obviously going overboard on anti-piracy measures, just trying to figure out the 'why' of it being triggered for paying customers.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
I noticed one of these twitter posts from Teller (the silent half of Penn and Teller) earlier today. I assumed it was a joke that I didn't understand, but it makes sense now.
I'm more than willing to make a statement in court to the effect that I assumed he was admitting to performing illegal acts if it helps in any subsequent lawsuit against the turd-like cretins who abused people's trust in their products by misrepresenting them publicly in this way.
" the "Install0us" app installed, which is to be fair used solely for app pirating."
No it's not.
It's also one of the easiest (and in some cases only) way you can revert to previous versions of apps. I don't pirate apps on iOS, and I rarely have a use for Install0us, but a couple of times it's saved me when a newer version of an app was unusable and Install0us was the only way to get a previous version re-installed and running again.
In the spirit of being fair though, ya, it's mostly for pirating, but I wouldn't jump to the definitive conclusion that someone who has it on their iOS devices is pirating apps.