If the responsibility is too impossible (and I'm fine saying that it is), then their paternalism shouldn't be called out and their reputation knocked down a rung or two. Instead, they get to keep a reputation which is far better than the other megacorps'.

I think this is what having strong marketing gets you. You can see from the defence on HN/Twitter where most people would be fine with Apple having a control over all their devices and aren't afraid of the growing dominance of a single company.

Totally off topic: that phrasing made my brain skip a beat. I've always seen "called out" used to convey confrontation, especially in a public manner like "He called out Apple on Twitter for their paternalism." Turns out a similarly common use is the more general "to bring attention to" in a positive way.

If it was an open market (no review process), and they just took enough to cover operations and processing fees, I can see them being blameless, but if you are going to review apps, you need to actually review them.

That’s exacerbated when products are counterfeits and legit brands get pissed off, but it would got the same for unsafe products as well I’d guess.

Amazon getting their provisions corrected could make a positive precedent for digital goods as well.

The problem is that if you are associated with a crime committed in the United States in any way (besides being a very distant third-person witness with no associations whatsoever to the individual), and you are not a crime victim or an individual reporting the crime, you are almost always considered to be an _accessory to the crime_ which is a misdemeanor (go to jail for up to 365 days) or felony (go to prison for over 365 days) state level (has parole for prisoners) or federal level (effectively has no parole for prisoners) criminal offense, which the police will arrest you for and charge you with, while the person committing the misdemeanor/felony gets charged with whatever crime they perpetrated.

For example, if your "acquaintance" shoplifts at a store and gets caught, and you don't stop or report them: you will get charged as being an accessory to a crime and you're going to jail.

Also, if you are involved in an altercation in any way, the cop can put everyone involved in handcuffs and charge them, even if you never got physically or verbally violent.

There are also catch-all laws in the US that one can go to prison for, basically for acting in "bad faith" but never actually doing anything else criminally wrong.

This is why you never talk to the police, ever. They will twist your statements in the wildest ways imaginable. If you get pulled over by the police, you should practice, every single time, saying as little as possible to the officer.

This has never happened to me personally, but, everyone needs to know this: If the police in America start questioning you and it gets into a detailed discussion, you stop right there and say: "No comment: I need to talk to my lawyer first."

As someone who used to be a criminal prosecutor in the US, I would be very interested in seeing citations to whatever statute you are referencing.

As far as being charged as an accessory, you generally need to have known that a crime was or would be occurring, and to have provided some form of assistance. That doesn't need to be direct actions in the act, it could be financial or emotional assistance.

And no one is going to prison over shoplifting unless we're talking about repeat offenders or large amounts of cash. Let alone just happening to know someone who shoplifted and failing to report them.

Having said that, definitely don't talk to the police without a lawyer present.

Not just facilitating. They get 30% for it.

Arguing about the $99/year developer fee is a pointless rabbit hole. You might as well also accuse Apple of selling the developers an iPhone and a Mac for developing the scam app. And then don't forget to accuse the electrical grid operator of selling electricity to the scammers.

    Arguing about the $99/year developer fee is a pointless rabbit hole.

Do you seriously think that Apple values the promise of a scammer’s $99 fee recurring next year more then they would value having fewer scams in their store?

I genuinely believe you’re being unserious here.

Also, this is just one example, the article itself has other ones.

They don’t. This is made up.

Summarized Apple lawyers said: "We can't offer alternative stores because they would be full of scams which would be bad for users. Our store is curated and safe for users.".

These are the very first words describing the App Store (https://www.apple.com/app-store/):

"The apps you love. From a place you can trust.

For over a decade, the App Store has proved to be a safe and trusted place to discover and download apps....And a big part of those experiences is ensuring that the apps we offer are held to the highest standards for privacy, security, and content."

The page then says this about security:

"Security for every app. At every level.

We ensure that apps come from known sources, are free of known malware, and haven’t been tampered with at the time of installation or launch."

And this about trust:

"Apps must adhere to our guidelines.

When you download an app, it should work as promised. Which is why human App Reviewers ensure that the apps on the App Store adhere to our strict app review standards. Our App Store Review Guidelines require apps to be safe, provide a good user experience, comply with our privacy rules, secure devices from malware and threats, and use approved business models."*

Approval doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Just because they don’t detect a scam doesn’t mean they approve of what it does - it is still in breach of contract with Apple.

If they had said anything like that you’d be be able to quote them.

No system is perfect, and when you get the realm of people submitting privileged information to third parties, all bets are always off. There is absolutely no way Apple could make guarantees about that. And they don't. Anywhere.

And no, saying that they review apps isn't a promise that it is "completely secure". That is absurd.

Trying for some security and confidence is a world removed from absolute security. The latter is effectively impossible.

This thread is farce. Anything if it gives people an opportunity to ply their rhetoric. It is a reminder that while HN has some good discussions, it has a lot of people who just want to make stupid arguments based on lies.

"But I thought you said TLS was completely secure? How could someripoffsite.com steal my cash?"

From apple.com/privacy:

"Every one of the more than 1.8 million apps on the App Store is required to follow strict privacy guidelines and report how it uses your data. And every app is rigorously reviewed by a team of experts at Apple."

Your private key is used to sign a transaction transfering your bitcoin to our account. We do not share your private key with anyone and it does not leave your phone.

I think it's a given that no one expects any QA or security process to perform perfectly. But there's some fuzzy line past which Apple's process fails to be "rigorous", and whatever that line is (or should be), courts will inevitably contrast the high expectations set by Apple's marketing with these real-world results when considering claims of negligence, liability, false advertising, anti-competitive behavior, etc.

Or in the alternative, Perhaps Apple should create a different tier of app review for any apps which claim to facilitate financial transactions (other than purchases, game currencies and microtransactions). This would encompass all apps for banking, investment and crypto. This tier should require a much higher verification of the developer's identity. The iOS sandbox should be further locked down to limit communication only to whitelisted IPs/domains which must all be under the control of the verified developer. And hey, you know what, let's even require the developer to submit the app in source code form.

> There's no practical way for Apple to prove that any app won't betray the user.

This is honestly a fundamental problem with both the App Review model, and the very concept of cryptocurrency (which for the record, I'm positively inclined towards, both technologically and ideologically):

- The Review model because the developer doesn't actually submit code, and static analysis tools can only go so far. Even if Apple started requiring source (opening many thorny IP liability issues), no reviewer can realistically audit every line. Even then, the mere fact WebViews are trivially common means a developer (or a malicious hacker) can always swap out the web backend with phishing attacks, credit card scams, etc.

- The cryptocurrency model because while it tells a story of "trustless" interaction and autonomy, in practice even the most knowledgable techies end up having to outsource trust to developers, firms, and communities. While it tends to be a safe bet to trust a highly-trafficked community GitHub over a random .ru site, (a) it still requires making a trust decision on imperfect information, and (b) non-technical users suffer an agent-principal dilemma when it comes time to make those decisions, which is a prerequisite to actually use crypto-currency. There are many, many shortcomings to the central-banking state currency model; but at least it has a pretty well-defined UX to the average "holder", and some hope of recourse in the event of a scam.

FWIW, browser-based wallets (with or without client-side storage) do exist, and would probably be used more heavily on iOS if Apple were to forbid native wallets. In which case, it's possible the guy who lost his life savings would have gotten scammed by a "trusted" web app instead.

Perhaps if Apple was held responsible for these kinds of expensive mishaps they would be more honest in their marketing. Maybe. And that's kind of the point of this article. :-P

[0]: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/554790-cook-says-apple...