

iTunes accounts hacked by shady developer? - jeb
http://www.alexbrie.com/archives/205

======
mellis
This headline seems a bit misleading. The blog post is from today, describing
a problem that the developer had brought to his attention yesterday. Perhaps
this should be revised to the title of the post: "iTunes accounts hacked by
shady developer?"?

~~~
jeb
I believe the situation has been like this for more than a week, I observed
this more than a week ago, leading to the editorial slant.

Some proof, take a look here: <http://www.appexplorer.com/a/367996918/>

I actually started on June 14th, so about 3 weeks, without any reaction from
Apple.

------
jeb
To calculate the daily income of this guy:

$5 per app and he has 50 apps in the top 100. Daily sales are about 30 for
each app, so total of 1500 sales per day. At $5, he's making $7500 a day.

In the 3 weeks he has exploited this hack: $157 Thousand dollars. I wonder who
is paying for that.

------
colinplamondon
As another Book developer, this is probably true.

We have Free Books and Free Audiobooks, usually #1 and #2 paid book apps in
the list. There is a bunch of fluctuation (competitors get featured, NYT
plugs, etc), but the Top 20 is consistent. This is Weird with a capital W.

However, this is probably a very limited account breach- below #10 volume in
Books is pretty low, 200-300/day or so. Top 5 is much higher, so it's telling
that the hack didn't get apps into the Top 5.

------
zweben
Yesterday there was an app called "A mirror" at the top of the Top Grossing
list selling for $499.99. The developer, SufPay, has no website listed and has
only released one app. The app displays images of picture frames that are
simply black in the center; that's it. It's by a different developer, but it
definitely seems to be part of a similar scheme.

I checked just now, and the price has changed to 99¢, but it's scary to think
that a completely useless app 'sold' enough copies at $500 a pop to become the
top grossing app on the app store.

~~~
jeb
I think I've heard of this trick. What the developers do is that they make the
app expensive ($500), then they purchase it with promo-codes, leading to it
going into the top-grossing list. Then they switch it to 99cents, but since it
takes some time for it to slide off the top-grossing list, a lot of people buy
the app. This gives it enough sales to break into the top 100 of the category
charts, and it will then use that momentum to rise up.

Devs use such tricks - if you keep in touch with the forum, you'll see some
crazy stuff people are doing to sell.

~~~
zweben
Well that's a bit of a relief. I thought they were actually charging $500 to
unsuspecting account holders.

You're right about people buying the app after it drops in price. When it was
$500 it had two obviously fake 5/5 reviews. Now it has an additional 40
reviews, 1/3 of which are additional fake reviews, 2/3 of which are 1-star
reviews shocked that their iPhone didn't magically turn reflective.

 _sigh_

------
jimfl
If the mechanism speculated in the article is true (app developer hacking
iTunes accounts and buying his own apps), then a crime has been committed, and
It would be irresponsible of Apple to "respond" (in a visible way) until
proper steps had been taken.

~~~
spot
The only proper steps they need to take are to backup the situation before
tossing the fraudster and his impact. That should just take a couple of hours.

------
harshpotatoes
I notice at the end of the article, the author states: "I hope someone at
apple catches wind of this."

Which makes me wonder, have any of us contacted apple yet, or are we all just
hoping they'll notice this on their own?

~~~
jeb
Apple is on the case, if you read the follow-up. Also, the last time something
like this happened, Apple was very pro-active, fixed the issue really quickly.

I think the problem was really just that Apple didn't know about it.

------
c1sc0
If apple would give more legitimate options of marketing apps in the AppStore
devs would not stoop so low. There is no tracking, no in-store ads, nothing
you can do besides playing the popularity game.

~~~
megafotze
you could befriend some hipster a-bloggers that would cover your apps. (though
I hate those bloggers)

~~~
c1sc0
And that's exactly what I _hate_ about the AppStore: it's one big popularity
contest. I've had one of my apps dip into the US Top 100 this weekend thanks
to a random mention in the NY Times. While the attention is nice, I experience
the lack of control over these kinds of media events as truly depressing.

~~~
goatforce5
So why not try and take control of the media events?

This is why people have PR and Marketing staff... They go out and help create
the stories and influence how the media report on product and services.

~~~
c1sc0
While that's nice if you have the cash to spend, for most indie devs that is
just not an option. If you have suggestions on how to do this on the cheap,
check out this thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1485783>

------
megafotze
apple will respond. they just need some time to take action. for mr nugyen it
will end like for the last bunch of chinese guys who got all their apps thrown
out, their licenses revoked and no money paid out.

~~~
xinsight
Sure, take time to gather evidence, work with authorities and document the
crime. But there is no good reason to leave those apps in the top seller lists
once they've discovered the problem.

------
d0m
Please stop with the App store in the first position of HN. There are so much
better article and stuff to know about. Thanks.

