Is shopping site selling pirated iTunes gift cards?
According to Outdustry, iTunes gift cards have been pirated, and China's biggest C2C online shopping site, Taobao, is the platform used to sell the cards.
(Credit:
Taobao)
Chinese hackers have figured out a way to generate iTunes gift card keycode numbers and help themselves to songs from Apple's music store. The hackers have been selling pirated $200 iTunes gift cards on Taobao for as little as 17.9 RMB, or just $2.60--a savings of almost 99 percent!
Taobao's shop owner told Outdustry, "the gift card codes are created using key generators" and that he "paid money to use the hackers' service." All the seller actually sells is the gift voucher code, which is sent to you directly through Taobao's IM software. You can then redeem the card in your iTunes account.
(Credit:
Taobao)
He continues on to say, "Half a year ago, when they started the business, the price was around 320 RMB for $200 card; then more people went into this business and the price went all the way down to 18 RMB per card, but we make more money, as the amount of customers is growing rapidly."
Unfortunately, that means for every illicit iTunes card sold, a legitimate iTunes gift card potentially becomes invalid.
Has anyone scratched off their gift cards recently only to find the codes don't work? Hit me up on the comments below.
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i find this to be quite funny actually!
And a word for Taobao's owner--just 'cause you paid for it, it doesn't make it real and it doesn't make you innocent!
I suggest that you refrain from using Hollywood and Disney to define what constitutes your definition of 'real life'...it's rather pathetic, actually.
Piracy has been glommed onto digital copies of copyrighted material that falls outside of fair use.
Fake goods are counterfit.
Spoofed codes? We can all it an Apple. Since Apple got it's start spoofing the phone companies for long distance access.
Probably.
of course any company worth its salt wouldn't use formula-derived codes for ready-to-use cards (like itunes, wii points, etc), they would instead use a random number generator to make the code, verify it's uniqueness, and then plop it into the database. but apparently itunes in japan suffered some kind of major malfunction in the brain department and created the numbers using a formula.
Even random number generators use a mathematical code, albeit a probably incredibly complex and convoluted code that no one can understand because computers, unlike us cannot just think spontaneously, they require a "push" in the right direction. What the hackers have probably done is found out the number generating code and then used that. Because if you just used random numbers generated by hand you would have to enter each and every number into a database.... by hand. which you can probably tell is an extremely inefficient method of business.
The only thing that Apple could to do rectify this problem is if they use a new formula to generate codes, which would make thousands of already purchased codes invalid, and that would suck for the rest of the law-abiding world.
>[CNET editor's note: Prohibited spam deleted.]
Here's some help for those who don't read chinese: http://taobaofieldguide.com/taobao-in-english
"Better take advantage of this before it's too late..."
lol
You have showed me just how wide the Jobs Reality Distortion Field really is. Now people are getting their moral soundbites from apple. Did he teach you that "famously said" is good English too?
Thankfully, faulty moral logic like that is going out of fashion. The iceman got pissed for awhile about the refrigerator. But about the time he started benefiting from it, his moral convictions went out the window.
http://www.wisebread.com/inside-the-shady-world-of-cheap-itunes-gift-cards
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- by Rozalinbd November 6, 2009 1:34 PM PST
- I found this online store where I have bought several US iTunes cards. They can be used anywhere outside the US. Their service is quick and very efficient.
- Reply to this comment
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(31 Comments)Here is the link. http://itunes-giftcards.com/FAQ.html