Apple Bans iPhone Hackers From App Store?

Ed Sutherland ()

Apple Bans iPhone Hackers From App Store? It appears Apple has stepped-up its battle with hackers, reportedly banning at least two App Store accounts for “security reasons.” The action comes after a long-running tug-of-war between the Cupertino, Calif. company and hackers releasing ways to avoid iPhone security.

Monday, a hacker known as “Sherif” told his Twitter followers Apple had banned his ID. “They must be really angry, he wrote, following the comment by a smiley face emoticon. Another hacker, known as “iH8sn0w,” and the person behind the XEMN tool said to unlock iPhone 3.1.3 baseband for the 3G and 3GS, also reported being banned from the App Store.

Since the iPhone’s release with AT&T as the exclusive carrier, hackers have looked for ways to bypass the handset’s software, “unlocking” the phone and enabling them to be used on other wireless networks. In November of last year, Apple placed an ad seeking an “iPhone Security Manager” with the chief goal to “set the roadmap for the iPhone OS platform security.”

In October of last year, Apple updated the boot-rom for the iPhone 3GS to counteract hacker’s “jailbreak” tools, such as PwnageTool. Aside from hackers, Apple may be acting to prevent further erosion of App Store revenue by piracy. In January, we reported that an estimated $450 million had been lost to piracy. Three times as many paid applications are being pirated than sold, according to a financial publication. Apple receives 30 percent of each App Store title sold.

[Via RedmondPie and 9to5Mac]

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • Jim

    fair enough, pirated software puts the price up for everyone else.

  • Nate

    @jim – No not really. No one has an option of selling an app for less than $.99 so even if everyone paid, the price of many apps couldn’t possibly drop. Maybe if the app store was a truly free market, piracy would more directly affect prices, but as it stands now, piracy likely has little effect.

    Another issue often overlooked when trying to put a dollar value on piracy is that much of the pirated content was only pirated because it was free. It is doubtful that many of the pirated apps actually would have been purchased even if the app store was the only option.

  • lllSCOOPlll

    god damn apple ( -_-*)

  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    @Nate Look for a man called Craig Grannel on here, and ask him to send you the link for an article he or someone he knew did on app store piracy.

    The long and short of it was that most of the figures that arrived at $450 million were plucked from the air, based on opinionated trends, and other such assumptions that led to a massively over inflated figure. I remember the article pointing out that one sum had been blowing to something like 3000%

  • s

    Pirated software? Why would you assume someone with a jailbroken iPhone is a software pirate?

    It is not illegal unlock cell phones. Why should Apple think the iPhone is an exception? You pay out of the AT&T contract, you own the phone, why shouldn’t you be able modify/use is as you wish?

  • bubbakush

    id hate to loose my itunes account.

  • bubsgter

    @ Sherif

    Check yer damn email!

  • Bryan Walls

    @s, Not all Jailbreakers are pirates, but all iPhone software pirates are jailbreakers. At least, no pirate can use ill-gotten software without a jailbroken phone.

    And the reason they know software is being stolen is that some software “phones home” when used, and looking at those logs has shown in some cases many times more unpaid users than paid ones. Which surprises me. Is “free and stolen” really that much more attractive than “.99 cents and really easy to download and install via iTunes”?

  • Jim

    I’d bet that if they pirate iPhone apps, they pirate OSX apps, and they cost a lot more than $0.99.

    I jailbroke my iPhone to download a camcorder app (am on a 3G) so I don’t have a problem jailbraking. But I do have a problem with piracy.

    I have since un-jailbroken since I can now record on the 3G using app store apps.

  • http://www.mathewballard.com Mathew Ballad

    If they were pirating apps from the app store then they deserve it. I have a jailbroken 3G, but I still pay for apps. There is no reason not to give these people a couple bucks for their hard work.

  • Herman

    I’d like it if there were someone to voice the concerns of, indeed, legal jailbreakers.

    Apple dropped the ball on UI customization and API access (really… the jailbroken flashlight increases the brightness for you! ha! :)

    I’m enjoying the best of both worlds (my own UI, cool paid apps from both appstores) – and get a little worried by news like this. Apple, please stop the scare tactics.

    My batterylife is anemic by choice: my iPhone does a lot of things for me.

    Every single fellow iPhone user I show my iPhone wants: A: all the hacks I have running and B: all the (legal) games I’m showing them. And then I go back to playing orbital.. ALL DAY ;)

  • Coca Cola

    I aswell was a target. Thanks apple. I knew I could use you to keep windows away!

  • MMNW

    There’s good reason for Apple to prevent jailbreaking, besides protecting it’s store. The holes used for jailbreaking can also be used by malware. It’s a huge security problem.

    But there’s no good reason in doing this by revoking jailbreakers developer license. This looks like Apple is only interested in safekeeping it’s App store instead of iPhone security.

    What Apple should do is plug all it’s security holes and therefore make it impossible to jailbreak. There are obviously enough secrity problems within the iPhone software to allow jailbreakers a new opportunity after every upgrade. Apple should work on that instead of going after the jailbreakers.

  • Richard DelFranco

    I don’t have a jailbroken iPhone, but everyone I know that did jailbreak their iPhone only did so for the customization options they gained. None pirate any software. Apple should allow more customization of the Iphone in my opinion. People like to personalize the things they own. I’m sure they would sell even more iPhones that way.

  • http://blog.insightvr.com John Harrison

    Well, somebody is pirating software. I have no beef with jailbreaking for customization, but there are games out there with online leaderboards and piracy detection and in many cases the great majority of players have pirated the game. And the conversion rate of pirated copies to paid copies? Zero.

    My personal experience is that the indie game I wrote had more copies pirated in the first hour that it was up on a pirate site than I had ever sold.

    So everybody on this thread claiming that they don’t know anybody that pirates iPhone software can rest assured that they simply don’t know the right people. There is massive piracy of iPhone software.

    I am not claiming that a pirated copy is a lost download, but the kneejerk reaction of some to minimize the scope of iPhone piracy seems misguided.

  • Allen

    I have never and never will steal apps, music or movies; cause it’s the same has walking into a store and shoving it down your pants. When I did Jailbreak my 3GS it was only to make my phone mine with my own icons and wallpapers. But I had to return to the un-jailbroken phone due to many problems.