The eyes on this guy don't roll enough to fully capture my reaction.
He's not obligated to help anyone here. If you don't care just ignore him.
To sell to marketers? Admob etc.?
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Oh, the irony.... App Pirates
- Thread starter lee.anderson
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The eyes on this guy don't roll enough to fully capture my reaction.
He's not obligated to help anyone here. If you don't care just ignore him.
To sell to marketers? Admob etc.?
Which would be illegal within itself ... Well atleast with british laws. The Data Protection Act 1988, which states that personal information cannot be collected or sold without the permission of the person who the information is being held about.
Which arises yet another question, if personal data is sent, how is Apple going to ensure that iPhone users within certain countries are given data privacy to conform with the laws of that country???
For these reasons I am starting to doubt if personal data is really being sent back home.
KrayzieKray 
How quaint, One of the first entries in the freely available host file on the site is google-analytics.
Indeed the ad's were actually added at the users suggestion, not mine and there is only two textual adverts. The site is not there to make money.
So your suggestion, is to make baseless claims without any reference material to back them up?
Are you sure, this isn't "lee.anderson" ? =)
Again, if i am "allowed" to post a hyperlink related to actual factual material.. /sigh
From the Pinchmedia site itself ref(http://www.pinchmedia.com/)
"Full demographic reporting by age and gender
Pinch Analytics has out-of-the-box support for Facebook Connect and other sources of demographic information, so we can provide fully anonymous statistics on the gender and age of your userbase."
"Granular, world-wide geographic reporting
Applications using GPS or other location services can optionally receive worldwide geographic usage reporting down to the state and city level. All applications get detailed country-level reporting, thanks to Pinch Media's proprietary mobile IP database."
"Extensible, scalable event tracking
Pinch Analytics goes beyond simple event counters to thoroughly track any action within your application, providing reports on unique users and total time spent. Our action framework handles thousands of unique actions - use as many as you like."
"Smartphone-application-specific features
Device reports. Operating system reports. Application version reports. Jailbroken and pirated installation numbers. Pinch Analytics provides a full suite of reporting unique to and optimized for the smartphone application environment."
And finally...
"Available for the iPhone & iPod Touch - and used in thousands of popular application"
Again as even users have mentioned in previous posts, this is standard and common practice on the iPhone, touch and has been this way for some time. Pinchmedia is not the only analytics source, there are many different vendors available.
After this I will go back to my so called "Pirate Board" where the users, ironically do not troll. I Only wished to correct the miss-information spread by "lee.anderson".
Regards
0th3lo
From the Pinchmedia site itself ref(http://www.pinchmedia.com/)
"Full demographic reporting by age and gender
Pinch Analytics has out-of-the-box support for Facebook Connect and other sources of demographic information, so we can provide fully anonymous statistics on the gender and age of your userbase."
"Granular, world-wide geographic reporting
Applications using GPS or other location services can optionally receive worldwide geographic usage reporting down to the state and city level. All applications get detailed country-level reporting, thanks to Pinch Media's proprietary mobile IP database."
"Extensible, scalable event tracking
Pinch Analytics goes beyond simple event counters to thoroughly track any action within your application, providing reports on unique users and total time spent. Our action framework handles thousands of unique actions - use as many as you like."
"Smartphone-application-specific features
Device reports. Operating system reports. Application version reports. Jailbroken and pirated installation numbers. Pinch Analytics provides a full suite of reporting unique to and optimized for the smartphone application environment."
And finally...
"Available for the iPhone & iPod Touch - and used in thousands of popular application"
Again as even users have mentioned in previous posts, this is standard and common practice on the iPhone, touch and has been this way for some time. Pinchmedia is not the only analytics source, there are many different vendors available.
After this I will go back to my so called "Pirate Board" where the users, ironically do not troll. I Only wished to correct the miss-information spread by "lee.anderson".
Regards
0th3lo
Doesn't Apple limit what 3rd party Apps have access to?
For example, I have the USA Today App on my phone, but the USA Today App does not have access to my email, my address book, my ESN, or my photos, right? WRONG! I have TwitterFon, and that App does have access to my photos, phonebook, etc, etc, which means that an App that seems innocent could actually access your personal info without you knowing it. Those pirates in South African eBay scammers could be stealing my financial info! As Johnny Cockran would say "I Am Outraged!!!"
APPLE NEEDS TO LIMIT AND MONITOR WHAT 3RD PARTY APPS ARE DOING!
For example, I have the USA Today App on my phone, but the USA Today App does not have access to my email, my address book, my ESN, or my photos, right? WRONG! I have TwitterFon, and that App does have access to my photos, phonebook, etc, etc, which means that an App that seems innocent could actually access your personal info without you knowing it. Those pirates in South African eBay scammers could be stealing my financial info! As Johnny Cockran would say "I Am Outraged!!!"
APPLE NEEDS TO LIMIT AND MONITOR WHAT 3RD PARTY APPS ARE DOING!
Attachments
I dont want developers to lose money to hacked apps, but I dont want Ivan from XXXcountry or Mintimba from XXXCountry creating an app that fools Apple and gets my personal information.
I had to XXXX out country names, don't want to offend
I think it's pretty clear which countries you mean from Ivan and Mintimba, you racist s.o.b
Doesn't Apple limit what 3rd party Apps have access to?
For example, I have the USA Today App on my phone, but the USA Today App does not have access to my email, my address book, my ESN, or my photos, right? WRONG! I have TwitterFon, and that App does have access to my photos, phonebook, etc, etc, which means that an App that seems innocent could actually access your personal info without you knowing it. Those pirates in Nigeria could be stealing my financial info! As Johnny Cockran would say "I Am Outraged!!!"
APPLE NEEDS TO LIMIT AND MONITOR WHAT 3RD PARTY APPS ARE DOING!
Firstly, I loooove your picture =)
Secondly, applications do have limits however these limits are within the boundary of the services that the application provides.
A theoretical example, a currency converter application could, return information on which currencies or what numbers you were converting. It could not however, load say stored account information from another application.
Pinchmedia provides a standard platform for retrieving metrics, other developers use their own in-house team to report different information. Regardless of what the application does, it indeed does have access to at least what is listed above.
I have heard of one application a user reported which did, when detected it was cracked send further details but I have not been able to verify this at this stage.
While there are some limits, I personally feel that the line between metrics & spyware has been crossed.
0th3lo
P.S I'm saving your picture =)
It's yours. Consider it public domain.
If I had the time and cared more, I would put iPhone and App flags and sails on the pirate ship.
Thank you! Also I updated my previous post to actually answer your question. I was actually out on the road with my phone.
Thank you for post#30, above. Good info.
Here, I added some pirate flags from iTunes pirate apps.
Attachments
bwhaha thanks iphones4evry1,
Im going to whack it up on the blog
Kudos!
Well i for one welcome your well written blog on this subject. As a new Iphone user im reading up on various angles around the iphone and its a lot deeper than i first imagined!
Cheers again
Fizz
@fizzbitt thank you, i run a cydia repo too, you're welcome to have access if you like =) It contains only the hosts file and related support utilities.
@tsx just to clarify, the applications come like this, it is not added or has anything to do with piracy. Even if you buy the application (regardless of price) it still may contain the tracking code
I would estimate based on the weekly top25 review I do, that somewhere around 30% of all Apple Appstore applications "phone-home".
Just thought i would clear that up, nothing to do with if the app is cracked or pirated the tracking code is put in intentionally by the original developers.
@tsx just to clarify, the applications come like this, it is not added or has anything to do with piracy. Even if you buy the application (regardless of price) it still may contain the tracking code
I would estimate based on the weekly top25 review I do, that somewhere around 30% of all Apple Appstore applications "phone-home".
Just thought i would clear that up, nothing to do with if the app is cracked or pirated the tracking code is put in intentionally by the original developers.
Oh, so speaking of irony...
I am both a jailbreaker and am anti-piracy. You can read my past post history for my philosophy on jailbreaking if you like.
But anyway...I recently found myself in need of the services of the iPhone app piracy community (which I shall leave unnamed), because I wanted to get back a copy of iPint, a free iBeer-like app that I had at one point in time downloaded from the App Store but then deleted before it was pulled only from the US store (you can still get it with a UK iTunes account). I foolishly thought, hey, it's free; if I want to play with it again, I can always re-download it.
HAH!
*ahem* Anyway, I digress...so I installed and ran their little cracked app installer program, and down at the bottom of the screen, what do I see?
A copyright notice, stating "all rights reserved."
I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that one. So, you guys don't respect other people's "copy-rights," but for some reason you expect us to respect yours.
Riiiight.
-- Nathan
I am both a jailbreaker and am anti-piracy. You can read my past post history for my philosophy on jailbreaking if you like.
But anyway...I recently found myself in need of the services of the iPhone app piracy community (which I shall leave unnamed), because I wanted to get back a copy of iPint, a free iBeer-like app that I had at one point in time downloaded from the App Store but then deleted before it was pulled only from the US store (you can still get it with a UK iTunes account). I foolishly thought, hey, it's free; if I want to play with it again, I can always re-download it.
HAH!
*ahem* Anyway, I digress...so I installed and ran their little cracked app installer program, and down at the bottom of the screen, what do I see?
A copyright notice, stating "all rights reserved."
I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that one. So, you guys don't respect other people's "copy-rights," but for some reason you expect us to respect yours.
Riiiight.
-- Nathan
Well at least that was ironic =)
Oh, so speaking of irony...
I am both a jailbreaker and am anti-piracy. You can read my past post history for my philosophy on jailbreaking if you like.
But anyway...I recently found myself in need of the services of the iPhone app piracy community (which I shall leave unnamed), because I wanted to get back a copy of iPint, a free iBeer-like app that I had at one point in time downloaded from the App Store but then deleted before it was pulled only from the US store (you can still get it with a UK iTunes account). I foolishly thought, hey, it's free; if I want to play with it again, I can always re-download it.
HAH!
*ahem* Anyway, I digress...so I installed and ran their little cracked app installer program, and down at the bottom of the screen, what do I see?
A copyright notice, stating "all rights reserved."
I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that one. So, you guys don't respect other people's "copy-rights," but for some reason you expect us to respect yours.
Riiiight.
-- Nathan
How are they racist? Seems like you are the first to jump on the race issue their post was about nationality.
Hummmmmmmm