Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Continuing from my last blog post on how QuickPwn.com was making a quick buck on iPhone jailbreaking software with Google Adsense, we explore how they are exploiting the Microsoft Advertising network and fleecing people on pay-per-click.

Background

QuickPwn is a piece of software developed for the iPhone which jailbreaks (allows a different operating system besides the one Apple installed for more options) and unlocks (allows you to use other phone providers besides ATT on your iPhone like how I use T-Mobile) your device.  It has been developed by a dedicated group of developers known as iPhone Dev Team.  Their website is located at http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

They have released software for the iPhone for some time now and people look to the iPhone Dev Team each time a new version of the iPhone, iTunes or iPhone software is released.  This is because it’s not safe to upgrade your jailbroke iPhone; you will lose access to your custom apps (the reason you first jailbroke your iPhone) and you may not be able to roll back to a previous version once you update (some companies, like Apple, will try to restrict your freedom on how you use their products).

Make Note!

The Real iPhone Development Team Is Located At http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

• Yellowsn0w
• QuickPwn
• Ultrasn0w
• Redsn0w

QuickPwn.com is not run by the REAL jailbreak software development team

• No Software Development
• No Support for Jailbreaking
• Domain Squatters

With the release of the new 3.0 iPhone software last week and the new iPhone 3G S phone, the internet was hopping with excitement to try the latest and greatest stuff.  Visitors over at the iPhone Dev Team blog couldn’t wait for the new jailbreak software to be ready and were very grateful when ultrasn0w was released this week, allowing you to software jailbreak an iPhone 3G (not 3G S).

ibrock   Thank u to the dev team u guys r the bomb diggity ,,,,

 linos  you guys are ******** awesome, i owe you a lot. It worked perfect

 DjSkully  Dj Skully says thank you Dev.Team

Ibkp  I bought an iphone from a friend (iphone-AT&T user) and I was able to unlock it with Ultrasnow (it was very simple and fast!)

richiiie  un grand merci!!!! thanks from France, guys! you did a great job!!

So if everyone was happy, what’s the problem?

The Problem

Someone on the internet decided they wanted to make some money.  They didn’t create anything of value people would pay for but they knew some folks who did, the iPhone Dev Team.  This person registered a domain nameusing the application’s name, QuickPwn.  They also created a Twitter account of the same name.

The worst was yet to come.  Now it’s one thing if they created a site that was based on being an informational site to help others with the software.  Instead they headed out to Google and Microsoft to sign up for revenue based advertising where they inserted code into their site so ads would display and they would get paid for the clicks.

In my previous post, I covered the how and why to Google advertising.  Microsoft, your turn.

Microsoft Advertising

Visiting the site for Microsoft’s ad campaign network, it was very focused on people paying for the ads.  It was difficult to find information on troubleshooting, how to’s and TOS policies.  Overall, Microsoft portrays that your ads will end up on high quality sites with lots of views.  QuickPwn.com is not anywhere near the word “quality” but based on their sleezy actions to steal legitimate traffic away from a development team right before the big launch of both a new iPhone and OS, I would certainly credit QuickPwn.com as being high traffic.

Screenshot of QuickPwn.com

How You Can Help

1. Review the Quickpwn.com and determine if you think you would to pay to have your ads on this site
2. Visit the Microsoft’s FAQ page to review their Terms of Service (TOS)…If you can find them
3. Submit a report to Microsoft Advertising via phone 1-800-518-5689 or email and tell them you don’t think organizations would still pay to be listed on low value sites like QuickPwn.com and that the site itself is exploiting open source developers.

Here are the resource links mentioned in the video