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Apple Fails To Block Porn and Gambling 'Enterprise' Apps (techcrunch.com)
Facebook and Google were far from the only developers openly abusing Apple's Enterprise Certificate program meant for companies offering employee-only apps. A TechCrunch investigation uncovered a dozen hardcore pornography apps and a dozen real-money gambling apps that escaped Apple's oversight. From the report: The developers passed Apple's weak Enterprise Certificate screening process or piggybacked on a legitimate approval, allowing them to sidestep the App Store and Cupertino's traditional safeguards designed to keep iOS family friendly. Without proper oversight, they were able to operate these vice apps that blatantly flaunt Apple's content policies. The situation shows further evidence that Apple has been neglecting its responsibility to police the Enterprise Certificate program, leading to its exploitation to circumvent App Store rules and forbidden categories.
Makes perfect sense to have lots of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, violence but have no tolerance for nipples.
...designed to keep iOS family friendly.
Safari come installed by default yes? You can get to porn and gambling really easy on that.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
And the warden knows that not all contraband is the same. But, still, you can't have the image that the rules aren't being enforced at all.
The gambling & porn apps will get a new EAC and move their users over; it's the hassle that they should have been planning for. Two of the apps in the article's table have multiple web presences, suggesting that some have planned for it.
For Facebook & Google, it's a PR issue. Apple may have scored points with the public for putting out this "we're protecting you against the big guys" story. It would look unseemly for Facebook or Google to directly point out the other contraband in Apple's jail -- nobody like a snitch.
But then the articles and commentary will come from people with ties to Facebook or Google, such as someone who "was the Lead Writer of Inside Facebook, ... covering everything about the social network", that "has moderated over 120 on-stage interviews" but lists only three: Edward Snowden, U,S, Senator Cory Booker, and Mark Zuckerberg.
I'm just saying, a little birdie told me...
I don't think it's very practical for Apple to really police enterprise apps, due to the way they are distributed and who can possibly be running them. Lots of companies rely heavily on the aspect where you do not have to keep track of each and every device and people can easily install company apps on personal devices...
I think where Apple could improve things though is in the initial application for enterprise developer programs. At the very least, it seems like it would not take too much more effort to block one issue mentioned in the article - registering for an enterprise dev account with a stolen DUNS number. There should be some way that Apple could ask the main contact info for any given DUNS number to confirm they had indeed asked for such access... That wouldn't stop everyone but it would probably stop the worst cases.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's porn and gambling, there is no crime here.
"Tits and nipples never hurt anyone."
ROFLMFAO
I don't think any of the above should be outlawed or censored in any way but you've got to be kidding with this. Behind every fight, war, ambition, and dispute there is at least one fine pair of tits. If it weren't for competition to get laid we'd all be content masturbating in caves and eating whatever thing we killed that day raw.
Mr Cook, tear down this wall.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I have an app called Safari on my iPhone. There is quite a bit of porn accessible with it.
I've worked for a company that uses an enterprise account for internal testing. Apps signed with enterprise profiles are never seen by Apple.
Real humans like vices that upset me, waaaah!!!!
Just think, email, browser, movie player, picture viewer, document viewer can be used FOR PORN. or TO ARRANGE GAMBLING OPPORTUNITIES. Why does Apple and google allow these perversions?
They're unlikely to have died from seeing a picture of the relevant organ, though. Which is what we're talking about :D
"As a tech guy, I would love my Phone, to be able to install any App I want."
It can. You just have to compile or sign it yourself. Apple used to charge $99 a year for that ability, but it's been free for a while.
It's not "free" to do the legwork and jump through hoops
It takes literally minutes and no effort beyond remembering where you wrote down your EIN; I have one for my business.
I would say I understand where you are coming from, but supporting the technological destruction of the non-technical is really not a concept I can get behind.
Looks like you ignored the advice about your pie-hole. Talk about ignorant monkeys... I guess time to delete your account out of shame and start up another.
I'll let you have the last response since ignorant monkeys like to chatter on and fling shit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually, the problem is even bigger than determining what's "sleazy". When you're talking about a large, publicly-traded corporation that has to worry about shareholder lawsuits if the board does something that causes share prices to (even temporarily) dip, they become UNBELIEVABLY risk-averse and institutionally-allergic to anything that might be even SLIGHTLY controversial unless the government either gives them a clear, unambiguous safe harbor or outright requires that they do something.
Large corporations aren't just sociopathic... they're also blindly puritanical, even when their own customers neither demand nor WANT them to be puritanical, simply because in America, anything that involves sex is guaranteed to be 'controversial' SOMEWHERE, and a large public corporation with legal exposure to every jurisdiction in America simply can't risk getting dragged into an obscenity lawsuit by some bible-thumping sheriff or prosecuting attorney in B.F.E. fly-over country looking to score political points with the local electorate.
Apple painted itself into a corner... it decided that all IOS content must flow through it, but by doing that, it made itself legally liable for that content. In contrast, Google can be as puritanical as it likes (and the norms of American corporate governance demand) with Google Play, while freely allowing the existence of alternate marketplaces like MiKandi Market.
Making things even more complicated, Apple demands that all payment processing be done through Apple as well. In the US, most credit card merchant banks won't approve or allow businesses that are "adult oriented" (being intentionally vague, and have been known to throw their ban hammers at companies selling breast pumps to nursing mothers because... well, in America, breasts are bad, unless you're cutting off the nipple with a rusty knife, in which case the violence adequately cleanses it of any prurient sexual overtones and makes it OK). So if Apple DID allow porn, there's no way someone could have paid content without violating Apple's terms unless Apple went out of its way to find payment processing companies that will handle adult content... and then, Apple would risk having some merchant bank pull a ban-hammer on THEM if the bank determined that the mere existence of adult content tainted EVERYTHING on Apple's store.
Long story short, in America, there's exactly one way for a platform owned & operated by a large corporation to openly allow adult content... allow users to install content from anywhere, and keep them at arm's length from anything officially associated with the large corporation itself.