Regardless of how one feels about jailbreaking and those behind it, there is no question that iPhone Dev Team has contributed a lot to the iPhone community. The team has been constantly providing hacks for iPhone updates to help those who want to try cydia applications or do other things get around the limitations Apple has put on iPhones. Unfortunately, Apple is hell bent on stopping the practice altogether. It has tried and failed in its legal efforts, but it may add a kill switch to stop jailbroken iPhones from operating the right way. While iPhone Dev Team has not given up on jailbreaking, it does not intend to play the “cat and mouse” game with Apple no more:

it’s a few weeks later, and Apple has closed the jailbreakme.com hole.  They’re shipping devices with FW 4.0.2/3.2.2, impervious to this particular jailbreak.  So now, people will begin to ask: will there be a jailbreak for devices that shipped with 4.0.2/3.2.2, out of the box? No, there won’t be.  FW 4.0.2/3.2.2 was *only* released to fix the jailbreakme hole.  With FW 4.1 still in its beta stages, it makes no sense to escalate the “cat & mouse” with Apple for FW updates that only fix the jailbreak holes.

Unlike what a few other sources have reported, the team has not given up on the practice altogether. The war against Apple has not ended, but the company is making life more difficult for jailbreakers each day.

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Apple may have failed to convince the government that jailbreaking should be illegal. That does not mean it is ready to give up the fight. Apple has been after jailbreakers for quite some time (even going as far as closing down some hackers’ accounts). The company may have failed to stop jailbreakers for now, but it is planning to go after those jailbroken phones. A patent filed by Apple in 2009 clearly shows the company’s intent to stop iPhone thieves and jailbreakers. In that patent, Apples goes into details of what makes a compromised device and how it intends to deal with such units.

the particular activity comprises one or more of hacking the electronic device, jailbreaking the electronic device, unlocking the electronic device, removing a SIM card from the electronic device, and moving at least a predetermined distance away from a synced device.

Once your device realizes that it’s been compromised, it can start acting in a weird fashion. It could start recording information or even show a notification on its screen. Apple intends to go one step further. Why send a notification to a jailbroken phone when Apple can just disable a few feature here or there. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple does not seem to get any love from the government and its agencies these days. The company has faced some inquiry into its practices in the past couple of months, and it looks destined for an anti-trust investigation in the future. It is not going to be happy with the latest ruling that OKs iPhone jailbreak solutions either. Apple may have wanted to portray jailbreaking as an illegal activity. That plan is clearly out of the window as federal regulators see “no basis for copyright law to assist Apple in protecting its restrictive business model.”

As expected, the EFF was quite satisfied with this ruling:

The Copyright Office recognizes that the primary purpose of the locks on cell phones is to bind customers to their existing networks, rather than to protect copyrights

Apple may have lost this battle, but it is still going to encourage users to think twice before jailbreaking their phones. After all, iPhone’s warranty expires as soon as someone manages to jailbreak it. That will not keep too many people from going ahead with this anyway.

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It was inevitable. Since the day the iPad was released to the market, many iPad owners have been looking for a way to jailbreak their device and take advantage of the apps that they have been on their jailbroken iPhones. “Spirit” is the software solution which has been released to help iPhone and iPad owners set their devices free. The code was released by a member of the Dev Team Group (“comex”) which specializes in jailbreaking iPhones.

The software is available for both Windows and Mac. It can jailbreak iPhone OS 3.1.1, 3.1.2, and 3.2. One the installation is complete, Cydia will be installed on iPhone/iPad. That makes it possible to take advantage of those apps that are not approved by Apple. Running apps in background is a plus too!

Here is what this release is all about according to the team behind it:

Spirit is an untethered jailbreak for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch on the latest firmwares.

Spirit is not a carrier unlock.

If you currently are using a tethered jailbreak, you have to restore to use Spirit. Do not upgrade if you use an unlock on an iPhone 3G or 3GS.

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Credit @munibren

Jailbreaking is more than just freeing yourself from the limitations put forth by AT&T and Apple. It’s about taking control of your phone and installing the software that you want on your phone. Jailbreaking is not for everyone. Not everyone has the patience and technical knowledge to deal with jailbreak solutions out there. And considering that Apple and AT&T are out to punish jailbreakers, you may face some adversity if you do decide to jailbreak your phone. If you have decided to jailbreak your phone, your biggest challenge won’t come from Apple or AT&T. It will be from hackers and crackers that can’t wait to get their hands on your sensitive information.

Jailbreak phones have become a sweet target for hackers around the world. In the past few weeks, we have heard about a few serious attacks on these phones. The latest worm that is attacking jailbroken phones is going after user’s personal data. It installs itself on iPhones and transmits the owners’ personal data to a server in a foreign country. If previous worms have not gotten your attention yet, this should. Here is what Intego had to say about this new worm:

When active on an iPhone, the iBotnet worm changes the root password for the device (from “alpine” to “ohshit”), in order to prevent users from later changing that password themselves. It then connects to a server in Lithuania, from which it downloads new files and data, and to which it sends data recovered from the infected iPhone..

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