Apple takes steps to block iOS in-app purchase hack - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDW 


Under that logic, we should swiftly and promptly release from jail all thieves who have Jobsian style creative minds.
Theft is a crime no matter how some try to spin it. Therefore if one tries to make excuses for Jobs and Woz, one has an equal moral obligation to make a similar defense for this Russian hacker, simply because an arrestible offense is an arrestible offense.
The point is that we Apple lovers would do well to stop selectively casting that first stone. If you want to stone a thief, then consistently stone them all. We must not allow bribe-taking (e.g., allow love of a computer) to stop justice, otherwise we ourselves would then be guilty of a crime.

But creating something which can be used for theft isn't the same as actually committing the act of theft, now is it?  AFAIK, it's not illegal to create and sell blue boxes -- only the act of using them to obtain free phone calls is illegal.  Obviously they serve no other purpose, though one could make the faint argument that they could be educational to someone who wants to learn about how the telephone system works.

Now, if Jobs and Woz were caught using their blue boxes (which, I'm sure they did, but I doubt that's provable), then they should have faced the same punishment as anyone else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDW 


Such a statement is splitting hairs. Lawyers like to use such statements to get their criminals clients off in court. It's not unlike avoiding a lie by refusing to tell the whole truth. Such is ethically and morally unsound, even if an unscrupulous lawyer is sometimes effective at using that in a court.
But a personal admission helps to clarify matters. Jobs himself said "These were illegal, I have to add... But we built the best one in the world!" He admitted that in more than one interview, but you can hear the man yourself half way through the following interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFURM8O-oYI
I see your not well read on the two Steve's. They were in fact stopped by the police who examined the merchandise they had in the back of their car. But that was in the early days when even the police didn't know what a blue box was, so the police let them go. But it would have turned out very differently had the police known what they built and were profiting from. It's not unlike a drug dealer who says, "hey, I don't smoke the stuff, nor am I liable for what my customers do with the drugs I sell." (An appropriate analogy in light of the fact Steve was a regular drug user in his early days.)
But I am glad you ultimately admitted (albeit very reluctantly) that Jobs and Woz should be placed on the same level as this Rissian hacker when it comes to Crime and Punishment.
I view all this with the eyes of an optimist. Just as there was hope for the two Steve's because they gave up that life of crime (albeit, only because their lives were threatened by a thief at gunpoint), so there is hope for this Russian hacker if he amends his ways (and apparently he has, since he's admitted he doesn't want to go to jail). This frees the rest of us from having to beat up on this hacker so we can instead focus on the app store in general and what Apple can do — not to fight crime, but what Apple can do to make the App store a vastly improved experience over what we have now, for both developers and app buyers alike.

It's not splitting hairs: should a screwdriver manufacturer be liable for their product being used to break into cars (and yes, I realize this is an old scenario)?  Or a chemistry supply company be liable for their products being used to create illegal drugs?

We need to see the act of creating a product which could be used for illegal purposes and actually performing illegal acts with those products as two distinct things otherwise it becomes very risky for a manufacturer to produce any product for fear that someone finds a way to use it for illegal purposes.

In this particular case, because the sole purpose of the product is for committing illegal acts, it becomes a question of whether the product itself should be outlawed (in the same fashion as certain drugs and certain weapons are outlawed).  I honestly don't know whether creating and possessing a blue box is illegal or not (but obviously using it is).  So again, I don't know whether the two Steves would have been guilty of an offence simply by having blue boxes in their car.  If so, then I completely agree that they should have faced the same punishment as anyone else would.

But anyways, we're going in circles here.  The outcome for us as legal users and/or developers is that Apple is taking measures to close this loophole (just as the telephone companies did with the blue box loophole) and hopefully considering ways to ensure people aren't as motivated to try and find and use such loopholes.  Though, through my experience, I don't think it's possible to ever eliminate it completely.

I remember this already being possible with a jailbroken device. Why hasn't Apple patched that problem? Its basically doing the same thing that the Russian made right?