

Ask HN: Someone stole my iOS app, what can I do? - aerovistae

I have no idea how, but I&#x27;ve just seen my app on the iOS store before I&#x27;ve released it, made by a developer in China. It&#x27;s not like a clone....it&#x27;s the exact same game, pixel for pixel. Someone got my repository and just uploaded it as their own app. I can&#x27;t even begin to fathom how.<p>What can I do? The app is already approved in &quot;My Apps&quot; on iTunes connect and I had it up before they published it, but I just didn&#x27;t put it up for sale yet because I wasn&#x27;t ready. Anyone cursorily glancing at the promotional images can see the game is 100% identical, unchanged.<p>I doubt I would have even made money off the game anyway but nonetheless this is really frustrating. I learned iOS just to make this. Do I have any recourse? Has this happened to anyone else?
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walterbell
Where is your source code hosted? It may be worth asking a security person to
take a look at your laptop or development environment, for signs of persistent
malware. As bad as this is, you will want to make sure it does not happen
again.

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coryl
You can do a C&D through Apple, they will usually forward an email to the
developer, but not sure how partial they are to enforcing a case.

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aerovistae
How can I do this?

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speedyapoc
[http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-
services/itunes/appstore...](http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-
services/itunes/appstorenotices/)

~~~
aerovistae
Thank you very much. I submitted one. I had looked for this or something like
it and was unable to find it.

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retali8
This is why we never host closed-source code online. ....Can you really trust
the third party sys-admins managing your servers? It's easy to simply blame
everything on malicious hackers. Also, check your computer for malware.

There isn't much else you can do besides get a lawyer and prove you built it
first.

&& check your pc for malware / rootkits

I guess take it as a hard lesson, since you mentioned repo -- stop trusting
"the cloud" for all your secret stuff. Somebody has to manage all that and
there is definitely somebody besides you who can see all that. If you're going
to backup online, encrypt everything before you upload. Never leave your
source code hanging out naked on the internet...and yes, naked also means
placing them unobfuscated, unencrypted on "private clouds"

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coffeebro
Sorry to hear that. If you have any time-stamped material in a repository or
on ITunes Connect, put up a blog post with what happened. Launch your app as
soon as possible. I don't think there is anything tangible you can do unless
you think there was some foul legal play.

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alain94040
If it's yours, you own the copyright to the source code and game assets, so
you are in good shape.

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lepy
How is that even possible? The link?

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cekanoni
Did you check if you are not targeted by some one, having RAT in your pc maybe
?

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ratfacemcgee
i hope it goes well for you, I would be gutted if that happened to me.

