Apple: Apple today announced changes impacting iOS apps in Japan to comply with the Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA). These updates create new options for developers to distribute apps on alternative app marketplaces and to process app payments for digital goods and services outside of Apple In-App Purchase. […] The MSCA’s requirements for alternative app […]

Fatbobman: SwiftData provides a batch deletion API that is more modern and type-safe than its Core Data counterpart. […] Note: Unlike the standard single-object deletion modelContext.delete(_ model: T), batch deletion is only applied to the database after save() is executed. Coming from Core Data, this is really strange. With Core Data, NSBatchUpdateRequest and the other […]

Howard Oakley: When first introduced in Mac OS X, no provision was made for xattrs to have type-specific preservation, and that was added later using flags suffixed to the xattr’s name. For example, the com.apple.lastuseddate xattr found commonly on edited files is shown with a full name of com.apple.lastuseddate#PS to assign the two flags P […]

Gift Card Database (GCDB) has a guide to spotting tampered gift cards:

Whilst it may seem unusual, you should tear open this version of Apple gift card before you purchase it so that you can inspect the redemption code. Look for missing or scratched off characters (it may be as subtle as changing an L to look like an I).

If you’re satisfied that the redemption code is legible and undamaged, you can purchase the gift card by scanning the barcode on the other side. If staff question your decision to open it first, calmly explain why you were checking it and refer them to the image above if it helps.

The one major downside of this precaution is that it requires you to basically destroy the gift card packaging so if it’s intended as a present you may just have to give them the smaller inner card instead. Still, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I’m not bashful, but I’d be very uncomfortable opening gift cards before I purchased them. The whole point of this is that gift card scams are on the rise. If I saw someone opening gift cards in-store before purchasing them, I’d think they were shameless scammers. If you need to destroy the retail packaging for a gift card to feel certain it hasn’t been tampered with, the whole systems seems fundamentally broken. (And just eyeballing the redemption code doesn’t prove it hasn’t been tampered with.)

You will recall the Apple Account fiasco of Paris Buttfield-Addison, whose entire iCloud account and library of iTunes and App Store media purchases were lost when his Apple Account was locked, seemingly after he attempted to redeem a tampered $500 Apple Gift Card that he purchased from a major retailer. I wrote about it, as did Michael Tsai, Nick Heer, Malcom Owen at AppleInsider, and Brandon Vigliarolo at The Register. Buttfield-Addison has updated his post a few times, including a note that Executive Relations — Apple’s top-tier support SWAT team — was looking into the matter. To no avail, at least yet, alas.

Adam Engst, writing at TidBITS today:

There is one way the Apple community could exert some leverage over Apple. Since innocently redeeming a compromised Apple Gift Card can have serious negative consequences, we should all avoid buying Apple Gift Cards and spread the word as widely as possible that they could essentially be malware. Sure, most Apple Gift Cards are probably safe, but do you really want to be the person who gives a close friend or beloved grandchild a compromised card that locks their Apple Account? And if someone gives you one, would you risk redeeming it? It’s digital Russian roulette.

I suspect that one part of Buttfield-Addison’s fiasco is the fact that his seemingly problematic gift card was for $500, not a typical amount like $25, but that’s just a suspicion on my part. We don’t know — because key to the Kafka-esque nature of the whole nightmare is that his account cancellation was a black box. Not only has Apple not yet restored his deactivated Apple Account, at no point in the process have they explained why it was deactivated in the first place. We’re left to guess that it was related to the tampered gift card and that the relatively high value of the card in question was related. $500 is a higher value than average for an Apple gift card, but that amount is less than the average price for a single iPhone. Apple itself sets a limit of $2,000 on gift cards in the US, so $500 shouldn’t be considered an inherently suspicious amount.

The whole thing does make me nervous about redeeming, or giving, Apple gift cards. Scams in general seem to be getting more sophisticated. Buttfield-Addison says he bought the card directly from “a major brick-and-mortar retailer (Australians, think Woolworths scale; Americans, think Walmart scale)”. Until we get some clarity on this I feel like I’d only redeem Apple gift cards at an Apple retail store, for purchases not tied to my Apple Accounts. (I’ve still got two — one for iCloud, one for media purchases.)

In addition to the uncertainty this leaves us with regarding the redemption of Apple gift cards, I have to wonder what the hell happens to these Apple Accounts that are deactivated for suspected fraud. You would think that once escalated high enough in Apple’s customer support system, someone at Apple could just flip a switch and re-activate the account. The fact that Buttfield-Addison’s account has not yet been restored, despite the publicity and apparent escalation to Executive Relations, makes me think it can’t be restored. I don’t know how that can be, but it sure seems like that’s the case. Darth Vader’s “And no disintegrations” admonition ought to be in effect for something like this. I have the sinking feeling that the best Apple is able to do is something seemingly ridiculous, like refund Buttfield-Addison for every purchase he ever made on the account and tell him to start over with a new one.

My other question: Were any humans involved in the decision to deactivate (disintegrate?) his account, or was it determined purely by some sort of fraud detection algorithm?

Update: Very shortly after I posted the above, Buttfield-Addison posted an update that his account was successfully restored by the ninja on Apple’s Executive Relations team assigned to his case. That’s great. But that still leaves the question of how safe Apple gift cards are to redeem on one’s Apple Account. It also leaves the question of how this happened in the first place, and why it took the better part of a week to resolve.