Yeah, his socks really smell so hard. He wouldn't break his reputation with the ladies for a mere $5000.
He has Smelly Sock Syndrome. It's a rare psychological condition in which the patient over many years develops such a fear of people realizing how much his socks smell that the fear overrides all higher cognitive processes, making it absolutely impossible for the sufferer to remove his shoes or otherwise risk people smelling his socks. He couldn't take off his shoes for a billion dollars or if his life depended on it. It also commonly manifests as an irrational fear of people getting close to your shoes or even looking at them for an extended period of time from a distance.
Of course, if the sufferer is given plenty of advance notice, then he can do special preparations on his feet and socks (too expensive and irritating to the skin to do always) so that he is able to remove his shoes on some particular occasion.
I don't need hard evidence, but if you are going to make accusations, at least try to provide a plausible and verifiable explanation on the technique and methods you think are used. It is not enough to just say: "you can use your toes to send signals to the motion detector in the phone. Little wiggles will do it".
I'm not sure what you think is implausible about the method given in the article - maybe clarify? It seems pretty plausible to me. As for verifiable, they told Ivanov to remove his shoes, and he refused point blank to do so, even in the face of a forfeit - I'm not aware of any other realistic reasons as to why he would do so, unless he was afraid of what they would find.
I just don't see how you can accurately send moves with your toes while there is a smartphone in your shoe. I think the phone is to tight to your foot to operate well enough. I can imagine all kinds of thing to improve on the simple "phone in shoe idea" but none of that is in the article.
By verifiable I meant, reproduce the theory in real life, try it out.