Let’s start with a little bit of backstory before we dive in; I (Dennis) have a background in development and cyber security (mostly web-application), I have helped dozens of vendors in the launch scene secure their products and protect launches from hackers etc. I am what the call a white hat hacker, someone that hacks websites/apps in order to find the loopholes that hackers with bad intend can exploit, I report these bugs so that vendors can actively secure their apps/websites/launches.
Personally I have been around in this launch scene for more than 6 years, mostly in the shadows as I am more a developer than I am a marketeer. During those years I have kept close watch on what was launched in our industry, obviously as a developer you want to spot trends, see what’s hot and how other developers are preforming in this market. My findings so far are (as you probably experience as well) that our industry is full of fly-by-night products/vendors. Many have implemented a churn-and-burn method in which they try to outpace everyone else by simply launching new products at ridiculous speeds.
The results of high-frequency launching
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, launching that often (multiple times a month) is not sustainable. You can’t build/test and do study an app that is not even a full month old. Yet somehow sales-pages make you believe that the vendors behind these products have spend tens of thousands and sometimes even hundreds of thousands on these apps. You see income claims and testimonials of people using these apps and most of them are absolutely fabricated. For years I have tried to offer my services ( A very sought after gig that pays over 200$ an hour generally on a freelance basis) for free in order to raise the quality of products in our industry.
Guess what… NO ONE CARES!..
Yesterday I posted the following post on my Facebook group:
If you do a bit of research it won’t be hard to find which of these are hackable (since not all of these launches are actually apps, and pdf/video files aren’t something you can actually hack into)
After I find these coding flaws I reach out to the owners of the app and tell them what I find, what you’d expect (well maybe that’s just the naive me) is a big thank you and some questions as to how to get this fixed as soon as humanly possible right? WRONG!
Most vendors tell me it will be looked at by their team (whom didn’t know how to secure it in the first place), and months later nothing has changed.
So why should I care?
Well for a good couple reasons, here are some examples of the things I found:
- App that I hacked turned out to be a free opensource project with only a new logo (and you as the user are getting charged for it)
- Almost without fail I get access to all emails of all buyers and their passwords (do you use your password in more than 1 place with that same email adres? Yeah so I can get access to that as well because of this breach)
- Ever connected your autoresponder (or other third party app) to the apps of these vendors (yeah they save these API credentials in that same database so I can now get full control over your leads/lists and much more)
- Credit Card credentials (yes I have actually found hundreds if not thousands of full credit card details of buyers on certain products) Maybe I’ll treat myself to something nice on your expense?
- Spam spam spam (yeah this is why you get so many crappy emails from people you don’t know)
- Cookie stuffing (guess what happens if I replace the buy buttons of these vendors with some custom coded ones, I get the sales that you as an affiliate worked so hard for)
- Much much more
Enough with the ethics rant, get me that free stuff.
Well since nobody seems to care about protecting their paid assets and I am able to get most of those on the market for free. Why not share… (deep down I really hope people just start caring about what they release)
WordPress Exploit
Google/Youtube research Exploit
Hope you enjoy the free products!
P.s
Make sure to sign up to my Facebook group to stay posted about shitty products or potentially free products whenever I release them.
P.p.s
I would love to know any suggestions as to how we as a community can eradicate these non-working (low quality) products. I am open to any suggestions and will start reviewing new products on a regular basis. I will give 100% transparent reviews that are not motivated by sales but rather by actual value of the products. If you want a specific product reviewed feel free to send me a message and I will do my best to give an honest review.
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