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A Chinese website has found a loophole with Apple's enterprise licensing tools which allows pirated apps to be side loaded onto a user's device, skipping the jailbreak process entirely.
The Verge reported Friday that Chinese website 7659.com is taking advantage of Apple's bulk enterprise licensing software to illegally distribute free versions of paid App Store titles.
The process uses a developer provisioning profile, which then allows the device owner to side load a pirated app onto their iOS hardware, completely bypassing the App Store -- along with any payment to the developer and Apple.
While the website blocks IP addresses from outside China, Venture Beat managed to use a proxy server to gain access, where they discovered a host of paid App Store titles available absolutely free.
More shockingly, the company who runs the website actually defends their piracy by claiming 7659 is a better way to "effectively manage" apps than iTunes, and far safer than jailbreaking.
"Our goal has always been about bringing Chinese Apple users with quick, convenient and pleasant IOS experience," the online statement reads. "Since the introduce of Kuaiyong, the proportion of jailbreak in China has declined dramatically from 60 percent to around 30 percent. Kuaiyong will hold on to this goal in the future and we would like to see more support for Apple as well as Kuaiyong."
Good luck with that, guys -- it shouldn't take Apple long to find and shut down the provisioning profile used to make 7659.com possible, but for now the company remains mum on the situation.
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(Image courtesy of Venture Beat)
