title: Android In-App Purchase Freedom Hack - How does it work?
body: <p>Check out this video: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8sBSQh2kaE" rel="noreferrer">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8sBSQh2kaE</a></p>
  
  <p>Does anyone know how this hack is implemented? </p>
  
  <p>From what I can see, the app is using the <code>PackageManager</code> to query all apps on the device that require <code>android.vending.BILLING</code> permission to list out all the apps that support in-app purchases and then goes ahead and does something before launching the app that somehow displays a FAKE credit card when an in-app purchase is attempted on Play.</p>
  
  <p>Since this hack requires the device to be rooted, I'm guessing it's somehow patching the Play client at runtime (?) to do its thing.</p>
  
  <p>This no longer seem to work with most of the apps I've tried - including the one I just implemented using in-app billing v3.0 (consuming the purchase fails, which is a good thing).</p>
  
  <p>I'm still interested in knowing how this used to work (or if it works at all) purely for academic interest.</p>