Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Iphone Apple

Is Apple's App Store Teeming With Scams? (adn.com) 130

Posted by EditorDavid from the insanely-not-so-great dept.
"Apple's tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams," argues a 3,000-word exposé in Sunday's Washington Post

"Among the 1.8 million apps on the App Store, scams are hiding in plain sight. Customers for several VPN apps, which allegedly protect users' data, complained in Apple App Store reviews that the apps told users their devices have been infected by a virus to dupe them into downloading and paying for software they don't need. A QR code reader app that remains on the store tricks customers into paying $4.99 a week for a service that is now included in the camera app of the iPhone. Some apps fraudulently present themselves as being from major brands such as Amazon and Samsung. Of the highest 1,000 grossing apps on the App Store, nearly two percent are scams, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. And those apps have bilked consumers out of an estimated $48 million during the time they've been on the App Store, according to market research firm Appfigures.

The scale of the problem has never before been reported. What's more, Apple profits from these apps because it takes a cut of up to a 30 percent of all revenue generated through the App Store.

Even more common, according to The Post's analysis, are "fleeceware" apps that use inauthentic customer reviews to move up in the App Store rankings and give apps a sense of legitimacy to convince customers to pay higher prices for a service usually offered elsewhere with higher legitimate customer reviews...

Apple has long maintained that its exclusive control of the App Store is essential to protecting customers, and it only lets the best apps on its system. But Apple's monopoly over how consumers access apps on iPhones can actually create an environment that gives customers a false sense of safety, according to experts... Apple isn't the only company that struggles with this issue: They're also on Google's Play Store, which is available on its Android mobile operating system. But unlike Apple, Google doesn't claim that its Play Store is curated. Consumers can download apps from different stores on Android phones, creating competition between app stores...

When it comes to one type of scam, there's evidence that Apple's store is no safer than Google's. Avast analyzed both the Apple and Google app stores in March, looking for fleeceware apps. The company found 134 in the App Store and 70 on the Play Store, with over a billion downloads, about half on Android and half on iOS, and revenue of $365 million on Apple and $38.5 million on Android. Most the victims were in the United States.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Is Apple's App Store Teeming With Scams? More

Is Apple's App Store Teeming With Scams?

Comments Filter:

  • Is two percent really 'teeming?' (Score:4, Interesting)

    by berchca ( 414155 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @07:39AM (#61461940) Homepage

    Not that it's not a problem, but the numbers are actually lower than I would have expected.

    • Re:Is two percent really 'teeming?' (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07, 2021 @07:47AM (#61461952)

      Here is a situation where a percentage is misleading. It doesn't really matter that the percentage may be relatively low because (as on every other market) there is a huge load of "fart apps" which no scams are going to target. 2% may seem slow, but that's similar % to what I expect on average to be the number of "popular enough" apps in the store to be worth of a scam, so it may be high enough to be a issue to almost every user.

      i.e. 2% out of all the apps, but that's maybe 100% out of the apps everyone uses.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It also depends how you define scam. Pay to Win is a scam. Games that use gambling to get kids addicted are scams. Apps with ads for dodgy scam websites are scams. Apps that claim to provide a brighter flashlight mode than others are scams.

      • RTFS (Score:3)

        by pjt33 ( 739471 )

        i.e. 2% out of all the apps, but that's maybe 100% out of the apps everyone uses.

        It is explicitly not "2% out of all the apps". TFS says (my emphasis)

        Of the highest 1,000 grossing apps on the App Store, nearly two percent are scams

        That's not exactly the same as 2% of the most popular apps, because some apps are free and the non-free ones aren't all the same price, but if you want to gloss "highest grossing" as a proxy for anything else it would be "popular paid-for".

      • It doesn't really matter that the percentage may be relatively low because (as on every other market) there is a huge load of "fart apps" which no scams are going to target.

        Is there a particular fart app you would recommend? Asking for a friend.

    • What matters isn't what percentage is scammy, it's what percentage of what's presented to the user is a scam. If they present by popularity then a runaway effect could result in many users being offered scamware.

    • This is the Washington Post. They ran out of Hunter Biden laptop outrage material so the dart stuck the Apple logo today.

    • Re:Is two percent really 'teeming?' (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @08:22AM (#61462048)

      2% of a big number, is a big number.
      Real life professionals have to deal with major problems affecting a much smaller percentage than that.

      To put it in context, during a red light on a busy intersection I decided to count the car that passed by be before it was my turn to turn green. I counted 50 cars that went by. If there was a 2% chance of getting in an accident during intersection. We would expect to see an accident every time the light changes it rotation.
      Or being that Percentages is a wonderful way to hide information, and should never be trusted as good metric. Even if we do car accidents in a day has a 2% of it being in that intersection. That would be an accent during that intersection every other month, which is still high.

      We are slowly recovering from a Pandemic that only hit around 1% of the population, and it is a big deal, that required a large effort to help overcome.

      A percent is 1 out of 100, as systems get more complex and deal with much larger numbers 1 out of 100 failures is a major problem.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ranton ( 36917 )

        Your post gives me flashbacks of all the times I have had to convince some business unit that 99.9% uptime is basically just the bare minimum for a high availability system. Or even that 99.99% is not a 100% guarantee. People are so bad at understanding small percentages when applied to very large numbers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ed_1024 ( 744566 )

      Also, it depends on what you define as a scam. A lot of software could be described like that *cough* Adobe *cough* but probably most people are more interested in malware that actively tries to steal from you, rather than something you paid money for of your own volition but does not quite do what you thought it should. Caveat emptor and all that...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jeremyp ( 130771 )

        Personally, I define any app that represents itself as free but then requires in-app purchases to make it properly useful as a scam. On that basis, practically half of everything I download is a scam.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      The proportion of scam apps *in the entire store* is almost certainly much lower than that; the problem is that what you *see* in the app store isn't some kind of representative sample. It's what the store thinks you are likely to buy if you are searching, or what other people are buying if you are browsing.

      This magnifies the impact of a tiny number of scam apps. According to the summary, the 2% figures is the proportion of top grossing apps. If 1/50 of the highly popular apps is a scam, encountering sca

    • Two percent isn't. But 30% (Apple's cut in those scam) definitely is.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by laird ( 2705 )

        30% is the same rate that pretty much every marketplace charges - Apple, Google, Sony, Nintendo, ... - why is it terrible when Apple does the same thing as everyone else? Did you expect them to charge less than everyone else?

        • If Nintendo is selling crap on its store and pocketing 30% as well, then yes they are teeming with scammers.

          • The state of gaming when I was growing up:

            Look how good I am at this game!

            The state of gaming today:

            Look how lucky I am!

            It's... disturbing.

  • Until the law starts to hold online companies responsible for peddling scams, this will continue.

    • Re:This will not end until the law is changed. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07, 2021 @08:06AM (#61461992)

      Won't be long. Apple took pride in making a point of saying that it is a *curated* app store, remember?

      So apple will have vetted and seen *each* of the scam apps, and then published them with the Apple seal of approval.

      Making them responsible.

      • This. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by laird ( 2705 )

        Both Apple and Google review every app in their stores. They both have _much_ lower rates of "scam" apps than the old unmoderated Google store had - it was a cesspool . Yes, no review process will be 100% effective since the definition of scam in the article is quite vague - most of what they called 'scamware' was apps that they felt had inflated reviews in the store or sold for more than the cheapest competitor, not what you'd think of as 'scamware'. And even with that hand-waving definition, it was only 1

    • Apple could potentially already be held liable without any need to change any laws. They claim to review each app, which means that by having it appear on the app store, they've effectively endorsed it. That effectively places them in a position of having downstream liability.

    • Fraud and scams are already illegal. What makes you think the problem is the laws rather than the ability to police said laws?

      • The problem is that the cunts behind these scams are beyond the reach of the law. In this case, I believe the standard of who is "responsible" should change. Ad on a site gives malware? Go after the ad agency, then the site admin. Scam on your app store from an untouchable person? Go after the publisher. The platforms don't care because they wont be held responsible, so start holding them responsible.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by laird ( 2705 )

          In reality, the platform owners Apple and Google (and Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo) care a great deal about scammers, because if they proliferate they drive away the rest of the users. That's why Google abandoned their initial, unmoderated app store, and adopted the same "review every app" policy that Apple did, and all of the platforms respond to complaints, throw out scam apps, etc. Yes, scammers keep trying so there's always a small number in the app stores, but the solution isn't to go back to unmode

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ranton ( 36917 )

        Fraud and scams are already illegal. What makes you think the problem is the laws rather than the ability to police said laws?

        I believe he is referring to the responsibilities platforms such as the Apple Store and Google Play have over apps in their platforms. There is plenty of unsettled law there, or at least room for new laws to change their legal responsibility.

    • But what about The Economy, Freedom, Speech and a bunch of other overly general platitudes.

      While I agree, companies that profit off of scams should be accountable for their part of the crime infrastructure. It is going to be a tough political battle, one I don't think either side really wants to deal with at the moment, as neither political party is strong enough to push it without major repercussions.

      Many of these Scams businesses, are not really ran by people trying to intentionally hurt people, but hone

      • Hucksterism, legalism over ethics, and a grab what you can mentality are sort of ingrained in American culture. A lot of modern business, even at the nominally respectable level of established corporations, is really about suckering people into paying more than they wanted to pay and getting less than they think they are getting, and of a lower quality.

        Large corporations do it with fine print, incomprehensible contracts and agreements, predatory pricing, and misleading advertising. Smaller businesses do i

    • One could argue it's too late, SV derives too much revenue from "scams" and the cancer has spread to affect all of our financial lives through our portfolios. It's too big to fail.

      For example, consider a market much bigger than app stores: ad fraud. Even if this estimate of 2/3 is way overstated it still represents a massive percentage of gross revenue for the likes of Facebook, Pinterest, Google, etc., as well as the huge number of intermediaries in the real-time ad market like Tradedesk:

      https://www.forb [forbes.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      But how can the law protect dumb people, or greedy people looking for as revenue. There are many scams out there where you pat for a credit report that you are legally entitled to for free once a year. Likewise, I have to use an ad blocker because even legitimate web sites occasionally serve scam ads, like your computer is infected, and there has been cases where if I used a PC ads that would have infected my computer.

  • Huh. Let's see... (Score:3)

    by jdharm ( 1667825 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @08:23AM (#61462050)
    1) Is it open to the public?

    2) Is it on the Internet?

    3) If 1 & 2 are true then it is teeming with scams.
    • But the lie here is that Apple (is thought to) review apps for things like this BEFORE making them open to the public.. Clearly they rubber stamp most things until *someone, or 100, or 1,000,000, or a major investor, complains.

      * Number based on threat level to the Apple PR department.

      • 2% "scam rate" does not whatsoever justify "rubber stamp most things".

        • Apple would tell you whatever suits their purposes, and you will believe it because nobody questions Apple lest they be crucified by the faithful. They tell you the App Store is 100% secure and you believe it. They tell you the iPhone is 100% private and you believe it. They tell you they take 30% of every transaction because they deserve it and you believe it. They tell you the walled garden is for your benefit and you believe it.

          It's all about extracting every last cent from your pocket, that's what it's

    • 1) Is it open to the public?
      2) Is it on the Internet?
      3) If 1 & 2 are true then it is teeming with scams.

      Well 2 is false. It's not open to the public. It's open to a select group of carefully curated people. Very much members of a private club. Except in Apple's case the club's bouncer is out the back getting a blowjob from one of the clients and not paying attention at the front door.

  • More Like the “Crap Store” (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CoolDiscoRex ( 5227177 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @08:32AM (#61462076) Homepage

    Not that it's not a problem, but the numbers are actually lower than I would have expected.

    That’s an undercount, imho.

    Just search the App Store for 10 minutes. Download some of the apps that catch your eye. open them.

    Yes, it’s teeming. I’d say a solid majority are deceptive in some way ... trying to trick you into thinking the app is something else. Pages upon pages of blatantly-ripped off clones trying to dupe people. Scam weekly subscription thing trying to capitalize on kids, the elderly, or the unsophisticated. Two percent is the high-quality app count, imho. The rest is pretty bad.

    If lost count of the number of times I’ve paid for an app, including pricy “lifetime” upgrade plans, only to have them go subscription a month later, or worse, take my money, kill the app, then re-release it, making me pay again to continue using what I already bought.

    I’ve paid numerous times to remove ads, only to get more ads, or popup boxes begging me to watch a video after every level. Or full-page interstitial ads because “ads for our own stuff don’t count in the ad-removal price” - which they never mentioned.

    Some apps now force you to rate them a minimum number of stars before letting you continue.

    And how about apps you rate, yet continue nagging you every 10 minutes to rate them, times 100 apps. Not that you owe them one. They need ratings to market their app, I get it. I need my car washed. Zero of them have offered to let me install a nag that pops up on their phone whenever I need something from them. That’s just my punishment for being a customer. Paying for the app end your transaction, the rest is spam.

    Reviews are so fake they’re hilarious, yet stay up for years. Complain to Apple and they say “we’re not a party to the transaction, it’s between you and the butthole that sold it to you.”

    It’s become a customer-hostile scammer’s bazaar full of every manor of deception, fraud, and just plain shitty behavior void of integrity. It’s depressing as hell to see what it’s become. People are scum and nowhere is this more obvious than the App Store.

    If that’s ‘curated’, then so is every turd I’ve ever passed.

    • Oh and don’t forget “How many stars would yo give this app?”

      5 stars whisks you to the App Store where you get the real rating prompt, anything else takes you back to the app, or pops upon an email saying “tell us what we’re doing wrong!”

      As if they give a monkey nut what you think they’re doing wrong.

      Apple “mandated” that everyone switch to the new rating-nag API so people could opt-out, but the vast majority didn’t update. Here we are two years la

    • If an app keeps bugging you for a review then post an honest review, including stating that it bugs you for the review. Apple's app development guidelines used to state that an app was allowed to ask for a review once per release (something like that, it might have been per device also) and no more.

      While Apple tests each app before it is released, it is mostly an automated test to ensure that it meets the requirements of that App Store (for examples, resources for all of the platforms the app is to be avail

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by laird ( 2705 )

        I rather like that all subscriptions are at least in one place, so that you can see and manage them. When they are scattered around hidden in apps, web sites, etc., it's nearly impossible to kill them off, particularly when sleazier companies bill through merchant IDs that aren't the name of the company or product. So while I agree that it'd be nice if the subscriptions were easier to find, it's sure nice that they're at least somewhere to be found. This covers the options: https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]

    • While I am not going to defend Appleâ(TM)s App Store, I suspect it is still generally better than Googleâ(TM)s. I say this based the fact that Google has been fairly hands-off when it comes to the PlayStore.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ormy ( 1430821 )

      lost count of the number of times I’ve paid for an app

      I don't mean to be rude, but you seem very keenly aware of the proclivity for apps to mislead users for profit, and the extent to which the app store owner does not care, yet at the same time (unless your entire post is some kind of hypothetical) woefully unable to stop yourself falling prey to such scams time and time again? How can that be? Block the ads, don't pay for apps at all, there will be a FOSS alternative with most of the functionality. If your device doesn't allow you these freedoms, ditch it

  • Apple's "Protection" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @08:42AM (#61462106) Homepage Journal

    And just today Louis Rossmann released a video [youtube.com] about how employees of Apple's Authorized Service published customer's sex video off the iPhone she left for servicing (and to that customer's social media, so it looked like she did it) - and it was second accident of this type so far, Meanwhile Apple's lobbyists try to convince the legislators that only allowing Apple's Authorized repair shops to perform the repairs protects the user's data on the devices, while allowing 3rd party repairs would be a risk to the consumer's security and privacy.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      Apple's own reasoning is sound. If you have control you can address the problem. The fact that they haven't achieved perfection themselves is not actually counter to their argument. Same with the App store. If they have a walled garden they can take steps to address problems.

      I fully support this. It means we have a single point of accountability we can sue them into oblivion for not doing their work. Pass right to repair laws! Then throw the biggest fucking book at them we can find. Maybe that will stop com

      • That's illusory. They employ thousands of people at their repair shops. It's impossible to assure not a single of them will be a creep. They host millions of apps, and they can't prevent the scam ones from getting through. And even if they could, they won't - because the wall on that walled garden that is fully tight is way too costly. And they put themselves in a separate walled garden, walled by EULA - "not their liability", and by an army of lawyers. Don't hope you can successfully sue them.

        • That's illusory. They employ thousands of people at their repair shops. It's impossible to assure not a single of them will be a creep.

          Indeed its illusory. That was my point. They want to pretend to be in control then they need to assume liability. If they don't want to assume liability then they should STFU and stop pretending they are better than everyone else.

  • FTC.

    Until they step in and lower the hammer hard on Apple, nothing will stop the continuation of this fraudulent activity, or Apple profiting from it, making them a party to it.

    • Bahahahahaha what about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau too? Sorry, these so-called "watchdogs" do nothing but shakedown companies raking in huge fines that never see their way back to the consumer. Shit, they're really racketeers but because they're embedded in the federal bureaucracy they're allowed to do it. The Apple App Store is nothing more than a shakedown racket allowing Apple to rake in money and control a market.

  • Sort by Popularity is a terrible, useless metric that practically begs to be gamed. Even in the hypothetical case where it's not being gamed, the end result is still pretty useless - if we sorted something on worldwide popularity, the results probably wouldn't be very useful to anyone who didn't speak Chinese or Hindi.

    Even when limited to English-speakers or my fellow countrymen, I reflexively distrust the notion of "other people like this, so you'll like it too!". Without any further partitioning (even old

  • To be fair to the QR apps... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @08:45AM (#61462126)
    I just took a quick look, and while I couldn't find the one mentioned in the article I did notice that there were a ton of them and most were at least four years old. So, they've been around longer than the built-in functionality and thus it really can't be fair to call them scams. Can't really blame them for not giving up and deleting their work just because Apple decided to pull the rug out from under them.

    That said, the first one that did pop up had as the first comment, "I installed it and deleted it without thinking twice, and a month later was charged $30." (okay, paraphrase, but close enough). If that isn't a scam it's damn close.

  • Auto-detecting the scams? (Score:3)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @08:49AM (#61462130) Homepage Journal

    Beyond people reporting the apps as scams, are there any suggest how Apple could automate the detection of scamware?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DeanonymizedCoward ( 7230266 )

      Beyond people reporting the apps as scams, are there any suggest how Apple could automate the detection of scamware?

      Well, let's start with the stipulation that a $4.99 app that does the same thing as the free app next to it, or the app built into the phone, isn't a scam, it's Western Business Practices, and it's fine. If you want to ban THAT, you also have to ban $2.79 a bottle water that's "Bottled at the Source," i.e. the NYC municipal water system.

      I'd think that some simple automated testing would probably involve a big Corellium farm (or I suppose Apple could use their own dev tools), auto-install the app in a clean

      • Addendum: I'm an Android user. I use Apple stuff occasionally for testing, and know a lot of Apple users. I have Apple friends! Really! I get the appeal of a simple platform that Just Works. I get that a lot of people don't care about having full control of their device (which is getting rare and difficult with a lot of Android stuff, too.) I even get that for many people, the iWhatever is a fashion statement as much as a practical tool, hence the phone cases with a giant hole in the back so the logo

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by laird ( 2705 )

          It's important to keep in mind that the reality of human nature has forced Google to adopt almost identical policies to Apple in this regard - they both review all apps before allowing them into their 'store', they have similar policies for throwing abusive apps out, similar definitions of abuse, and these days fairly comparable low levels of abuse in their app stores.

          Contrast with the early Play Store, which was a cesspool. Uncontrolled is an interesting theory, but in practice it means that bad people are

      • Would certainly prefer Apple put more energy into detecting scamware, than deciding whether Discord is allowed to have adult oriented servers.

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by kbg ( 241421 )

      Yes Apple just hires a couple if interns with all the billions of money they have from the Apple store. The interns then simply follow these simple steps as laid out by Eleftheriou. https://www.theverge.com/2021/... [theverge.com]

      "You simply look at the apps that are making the most money. Then, you find ones where the user reviews are suspicious and look for ridiculously high subscription prices. That’s it. There’s no step four."

    • If normal users can detect the scam, apple needs normal employees, not some automated a.i. to scan the apps.

  • I have an I-phone and an Android (one for personal, one for work). Neither have very many apps (I'd say less than 10 - 12 each) and they're only verified apps from known companies. No VPNs. No "anti-virus". No video games.

    In the past I had been much more leery of the Play store. A search for "Google Voice" would pull up a plethora of similarly named deceptive apps. And there were way too many Chinese companies falling over themselves to give away "free" flashlight apps. That same problem, while still

  • The company found 134 in the App Store and 70 on the Play Store, with over a billion downloads, about half on Android and half on iOS, and revenue of $365 million on Apple and $38.5 million on Android. Most the victims were in the United States.

    Does it mean USA is full of dumb naive people? Or these noble minded upright citizens are thieved up on by cruel and nasty people from shithole countries?

    Actually Game Theory sort of predicts this would happen. (Assuming readers are familiar with Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma and strategies, nasty strategies, nice strategies, tit-for-tat and its modifications),

    Very simple strategy, tit-for-tat works well. Start out as nice, be nice to nice people and be nasty to nasty people, consistently. Forgive immediately, do not hold grudges, no matter how many times someone has been nasty, all past sins are forgiven as soon as they do a nice turn. Do not be jealous, no matter how far ahead the other player is, be nice as long as he/she is nice. This concordance between scientific method, and common wisdom from most religions, works well. One can argue only the societies that found it survived and thrived driving out nasty tribes and societies out and their code of conduct evolved into religions.

    Trouble in Paradise.

    The tit-for-tat strategy is not stable. One of the worst strategies is "always cooperate, be nice". Such rubes are taken to the cleaners almost immediately and die out. Once tit-for-tat succeeds well, and the nice people reach a certain critical threshold, this is no different from "always cooperate". People keep encountering nice players, they forget to be nasty to nasty players. So a mutation that introduces a nasty player into a population the benefits of being nasty is so high, they gain a decent non zero percentage.

    What happened in this day of internet age is, the US population used to strict law enforcement, and strong punishments to tricksters are suddenly exposed to the worst elements from other countries. Nigerians and Indians don't fall for these scammers easily in their own country. USA had its share of rubber check artists, scoundrels and scallywags and we learned their ways and trained to spot them. Just a matter of time before we become wise to the ways of international tricksters.

  • Google has a lot of scam apps. Mostly of the kind that trick people into watch ads for the promise of cash rewards.

    That said, I bet both stores basically work on the "cream rises to the top" to insulate most users from scams. i.e. even if there were a scam app, it would have to be extraordinarily popular to cause much damage. And most of them aren't that popular and will be weeded out through manual reporting or automatic behaviour testing.

  • It's against Betteridge's law about headlines with a question mark.

    When will this click-bait stop?

  • Problem is automation. (Score:3)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @10:43AM (#61462466) Homepage

    They hate to hire people. So they automate everything. Not bad for the majority of stuff. But they should have people look over the top 1,000 apps. It is reasonable to do, and gives them experts to help improve the automation.

    Same for complaints. There should always be a way to move a complaint to a person. Doesn't have to be easy, but the availability of someone to fix something that the algorythm fails to fix is key.

  • Nearly zero incentive to scam with your software. Package management by professionals. Dimwits/Muggles run screeming when they see the CLI. We're among ourselves. Isn't that pure bliss?

    Just seeing what my M$ Azure colleges have to go through to get a relational database running on their application setup has me bite my tongue in the dailies thinking "Shut up, don't say a word, don't rub it in, don't be the pretentious Linux douchebag.". The poor bastards. Just today we had debate how to get MariaDB. I had to hold back to stop myself from blurting "apt install mariadb".

    The appstores are a mess, have been for quite a while now. Wouldn't trust them in general. And I'll take a not-so-feature-complete GIMP over Adobe PS anytime. Don't trust them either, and for good reasons.

  • There seem to be several types of scams:

    1. 1. The love scams that get guys to pay to meet hot women. Do they really think all of a sudden there are all these hot women who want to get it on waiting for them to join?

    2. 2. The physic charlatans. The best take on that was when Carla learns Madame Lazoura was a fraud, complains about all the money she spent over the years, and then realizes the opportunity it presents to take over for her...

    3. 3. Sleazy subscription apps that scam you into paying for an ongoing subscription.

    4. 4. Fake apps that are similar to existing ones or outright ripoffs.

    5. 5. Outright scams such as fake viruses.

    6. 6. Fake reviews to pump up an apps position

    Items 1 and 2 are hard to fix because you're trying to fix stupid, which never works.

    Item 3 can be addressed by making apps give you a monthly and annual cost up front so you know what the ongoing price is.

    Items 4 and 5 harder unless apps are individually verified by a human, but having a good way to flag them by users

    Item 6 seems like a good candidate for AI and pattern recognition to flag strange or unexpected review results.

    In addition, Apple could hold developer payment for new apps for 90 days to allow for refunds as well as to flag scams. Apple has been good at refunding me for the couple of apps but hitting scammers in the pocket book is one of the best solutions.

  • The Apple apps store is filled to the brim with sketchy kid app scams. There are a ton of coloring apps that try to make you pay 10-20 per month, yet advertise as free. There's a ton of "get free robux (in game currency) if you install this" apps as well. My autistic 8yo is constantly trying to install them and figure out ways to bypass security. We can't leave him alone with an iPad because if he doesn't do that, he'll find some Russian train app that lets him play one level & the rest for $14.99/month. You google these apps and discover they're bitcoin mining apps or probable viruses, etc.

    Most of this is technically legal but I would consider offering a service and 15x it's value is a scam. It really fucking sucks. Your 6yo sees some coloring app in the app store that has the copyright-infringing disney character combo she loves and then has a meltdown when you tell her "No, I won't install this. This is a scam."

    There are Roblox costumes that cost $1000...why?...cause someone is a dick and created an item and said I want $1000 hoping some obsessive autistic kiddo will steal his parent's credit card and buy it. There's no basis for that cost. It's not sanctioned by anyone official, giving it some rational explanation or algorithm as to why someone is charging so much. Someone can just upload a PNG of some pixels and set whatever cost they like. They just hope someone is stupid enough to buy it and Roblox is targeted at kids that are too young to make these decisions...and worst of all, there's no way to downvote or filter the scams. You just hope your kid doesn't search for the most expensive costume and start a huge fight with you because they don't understand why you won't pay $100 for super-cool-beast-mode face. There's another Roblox "scam" where they make a game with some copyright infringing character combo where they give you a prompt to buy something every 2 seconds. You move, a window pops up...you move another pops up every 2 seconds...hoping you'll accidentally hit "yes" and suddenly, you've lost a large amount of in-game currency....for some item you didn't want. As an adult, I can see it from a mile away and say "fuck that." My 6yo just sees "WOW...Elsa, Batman, AND Elmo obby...I want to play!...I want to play!"

    And before any of you childless folks get tempted to get judgmental about parents who allow their kids to have devices, it's actually mandatory now. They need a device for Zoom school and they need devices for various types of homework...also, all their friends have them. If you wanted to be a mega-dick, technically the school has to provide a device (chromebook usually) for class usage and you can leave it in the building, then just fight with your kid constantly how they cannot have the device that literally all other kids have.

    So yeah, it's VERY frustrating to be a parent now, especially to special needs kids who are very vulnerable to scams. The world would be a better place if each of those scam operators were shut down or at the very least, forced to be VERY explicit about EVERY cost and charge and Apple and Google would then allow you to filter them out. Right now, it's the wild west. They can get by with a lot of illegal things as well as many more that "SHOULD" be illegal and that if they're not a brazen identity stealing scam or a "let's be as sneaky as we can to overbill you and hope you don't notice in time to dispute the charge" type scam.

Slashdot Top Deals

Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, In kernel as it is in user!

Close