Major Source of Pirated iPhone Apps Closes Down
Written by enigmax on May 05, 2009A site thought to be the source of up to 60% of cracked iPhone apps added to the Appulous app database has ceased its operations. The site, home to well known cracker ‘kidmoneys’, is believed to have made use of hacked iTunes gift cards to maintain the supply of apps, but now says it will stop its operations.
In a major blow to the iPhone app scene, a site made home by some of the most prolific iPhone app crackers/suppliers has stopped its operations. iTunes Card VN (iPhone Vietnam Groups) turned out dozens of brand new releases every day.
The site was run by a very well known iPhone app cracker called ‘kidmoneys’ and it’s believed the message currently on the site’s homepage is his;
I won’t crack apps/games anymore
People who used the Installous application from Hackulo.us will be familiar with Appulo.us. Functioning a little like a torrent index, Appulo.us carries links to cracked iPhone applications hosted elsewhere, without carrying any of its own content. It’s believed that kidmoneys and other crackers from iTunes Card VN supplied around 60% of everything added to Appulo.us each day.
TorrentFreak spoke with most_uniQue, a cracker from Hackulo.us who explained the significance of the closure. “iTunes Card cracked about $1000-1500 worth of apps each week,” he told us. “About 50 apps a day.”
Of course, all these apps have to be purchased from the Apple App Store before they can be cracked and distributed, but we were told that some crackers use cracked iTunes gift card codes to make their purchases from Apple.
A physical card isn’t needed, the code from a card is enough and these are generated by crackers with the use of keygen-like software. most_uniQue told TorrentFreak that a $1000 worth of credit can be purchased for $50 and a quick search turned up offers even lower than that.
Since all requests for Apple apps were fulfilled on the iTunes Card site (kidmoneys had 23K+ ‘thanks’ from users), the speculation is that they used cracked iTunes gift cards to fund the purchase of the apps. TorrentFreak was told that many of the most expensive apps did in fact originate from the iTunes Card website.
Although it seems to be the end of the road for iTunes Card VN, some of the residents have already moved on to a new home ready to crack another day. Indeed, a brief look at Appulo.us today shows plenty of new apps.
Previously: Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent
Next: IFPI Goes After Torrent Site Hosting Providers
33 Responses
:(
TPB is up for me and tbh who cares about iphones. Only used by posers anyway….
sad….more or less every app i posess is cracked by kidmoneys.
Mac’s famous unhackable tag has been down in the recent days. Now it’s a complete myth after their iphone release.
right, the Iphone is an Iwaste.
I don’t get it, how is this relevant to torrenting?
“Mac’s famous unhackable tag has been down”
yeah, come back when you have a clue. iPhone != Mac. Cracking an application so you can get it for free isn’t “hacking” anyway. It’s Cracking.
Stupid iPhone haters.
@trokka. You dont read this site much do you? It covers all online piracy news these days, there just aint enough torrent only news unless you want 1 post every other day :)
It is impressive how fast and how many ipwn apps come out everyday.. I will never use an apple product though so I don’t really care..
I can’t believe it’s not penguin.
@Al
By Mac i mean the whole Apple tag. People have been claiming for years that Apple’s box are unhackable or u can say uncrackable. Same speculatin was there for iphone ,since as it was another Apple’s product. But ever since iphone was realeases it has caught a good market. And the crackers are no behind to crack the i-phone.
This is a complete non story, Kidmonkey’s simply moved to a different forum and is still cracking the amount of apps he used to. Most_Unique knew this already so I’m not sure why he’s making such a big deal about it.
Ja, das ist meine echte email-adresse! Heute Nacht hatte ich das “Vergnügen” mit einem echten Jünger der mainstream-Presse zu kommunizieren. Das Problem, ich kenne diesen Menschen schon mein halbes Leben… Heute NAcht, wurde mir bewußt, dass Menschen, die für sich selbst denken können, in dieser Gesellschaft unerwünscht sind! Das hier ist kein Gelaber von jemanden der zu viel Zeit hat – nein, das hier ist eine Anfrage an Leute, die die Fähigkeit haben, jemanden zu folgen, der diese Gesellschaft in die Knie zwingen wird. Ich will hier keine grauen Mäuse hören – ich will Menschen, die bereit sind dieses Land, durchwachsen von Korruption, brennen zu sehen. Dieser Text ist kein Scherz, kein Spaß – dies ist die letzte Möglichkeit Freiheit zu erkämpfen! Danke.
Yes, that is my real email-address! Tonight, i had the “fortune” to meet a real believer of the mainstream-press. The problem, i knew this men half my life… Tonight, i realized, that people, who think for themselfes, are no longer accepted in this society. This is no chatter of someone with to much time on his hands – no, this is an outcry to people, who have the ability, to follow a movement, that will bring down this system to it’s knees. I don’t want to hear them grey mice complaining – i wan’t people, who whant this land, rotten with corruption, to burn. This text is no joke, no scam – this is the last opportunity to fight for freedom! Thanks.
I am sorry for my bad english – please, correct that text and copy it. Thank you!
1/ They’ve already moved in another safe place FYI. Game is not over :D
2/ Check out all Appulous releases today for instance, easy since they’re directly linked to Hackulo.us where this P.O.S of “most_uniQue ” belongs.
The worst in this article is this “most of my …” dares to speak on something which he really takes profit of it with his friends and unable to patch a simple app ! How weird…
@ enigmax: I’m surprised you taking credits to this jealous guy, and furthermore grabbing these “news” only from this frustrated script kiddy !
Other inputs from other real crackers would have bring more informative news, believe me.
And I mean it.
Regards,
A REAL kidmoneys Friend ;)
@8
Stupid iPhone eaters.
M4A’s SUUUUUUUUUCK
iTunes SUUUUUUUUUUUCKS
itunes does suck and so does mack but i do like the iphone, it reminds me of my psp days when i use to mod it and stuff thats the reason i got my iphone, i have done so much much too it only thing left is to mod the actual case itself wich is my next stuff. i suck at using regular cellphones wich is the reason i got the iphone plus the idea to pirate all the apple apps.
L2 open source smartphone
/thread
@2 “posers”
wat.
@2 – Bang on.
@17 – Yes, he’s right, only used by people who want a fancy logo on their ‘Phone’.
One of my family went and bought one (without asking me about it) and I had to lol, you can’t even bluetooth files to other phones. Not sure if ya can do this on a Jailbroke/whatever iphone, but having a $$$ piece of kit thats locked down more than a nun’s crotch seems rather silly to me.
well that doesnt really matter, iPhone is still an overrated piece of shit
That’s not my post at #14.
Grow up.
By the way, iPhone = Mac, they both run Mac OS X. Same codebase, just bootstrapped to a different platform.
well #14 is mu post
@11
Apple claim to have no viruses and to have a system that can’t be hacked into (as in someone getting into your computer).
iPhones can’t be hacked into with the latest firmwares and have no viruses either.
You can crack software on anything, and anyway it’s the responsibility of the developer to prevent his app from being cracked.
Blaming Apple for iPhone apps being cracked is like Adobe blaming Micro$oft for cracked versions of Photoshop.
@23 Apple provides the only DRM on iPhone apps and insists on this being so. Therefore, it IS Apple’s fault if the apps are being cracked left and right.
Does this mean we cant download from the site or the site just wont update its selection?
Recently I found a hot club — SeekingTall.com — just for hot tall gals and guys to find their cupid. Come on, tall singles. Don’t miss your lover.
I don’t know why people go to the trouble to download and crack apps from the App Store, they’re cheap enough to buy.
*waits to be called a troll*
How about you STFU and quit posting about us and keep us out of the news!
Recently I found a hot club
— SeekingTall.com —
just for HOT tall gals and guys to find their cupid. Come on, tall singles. Don’t miss your lover.
But I though Apple took over Appulous? See http://www.hackulous.org and http://www.installous.com. :(
@29: If that was directed towards me, how about YOU STFU and get some tolerence? I’m a pirate too, I just fail to see the point in pirating a 60p (here in the UK) app.
I have a cracked app from tapulous, and I read an announcement on it, and it sayed please don’t pirate our apps. It sayed using the location feature on ipod touches and iphones they can give the info to cops, they also said they can use phone numbers and email addresses is this true? or are they just bluffing?
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