DailyTech - Apple Kills Jailbreaking in Newest iPhone 3GS Shipments

Submit News

Gadgets Apple Kills Jailbreaking in Newest iPhone 3GS Shipments
Jason Mick (Blog) - October 14, 2009 10:05 AM

73 comment(s) - last by Darrington.. on Oct 21 at 2:38 AM

Apple and its CEO Steve Jobs can gloat -- they've once again foiled iPhone unlockers via a firmware update, this time to the bootrom shipping on new units. (Source: Telegraph UK)

A screenshot of the new bootrom was posted by unlocker Mathieulh. The new bootrom began shipping this week. (Source: iClarified)

Apple's strikes again, sending jailbreakers on their heels

Apple plays what its CEO Steve Jobs once likened to a game of "cat and mouse" with iPhone unlockers and jailbreakers. Jailbreakers, like the iPhone Dev Team, try to release the iPhone from being limited to the official iTunes app store and other firmware restrictions, while unlockers, such as George Hotz, use the jailbreaks and other techniques to unlock the phone, allowing it to run on any hardware-supported network.

Usually the unlockers/jailbreakers seize the day, but occasionally Apple will win a round. Apple has tried many approaches -- everything from "bricking" unlocked iPhones to denying jailbroken iPhones access to the iTunes store -- to halt the spread of unlocking in the U.S. and force people to use AT&T, despite the hardware being capable of working on other carriers such as T-Mobile.

Now, Apple has managed to gain an upper hand over the persistent hackers according to iClarified, thanks to the release of a new bootrom, iBoot-359.3.2. The phone firmware, which shipped on new iPhone 3GSs starting this week, closes previously used doors to exploits.

A user named "Mathieulh" first noticed the new bootrom and took a screenshot. It was subsequently confirmed by Muscle Nerd of the iPhone Dev Team that the loss of the 24kpwn exploit would render the iPhone unjailbreakable for the time being. This means that the unlocking fixes, such as the utility released by George Hotz, also won't work anymore as they rely on jailbreaking as a preliminary step.

For users wishing to jailbreak, iPhone jailbreakers are hard at work trying to find alternative exploits that could be used to unlock the phone. They suggest, in the meantime, that users purchase older stock of iPhones or buy refurbished units.

The iPhone 3GS was unlocked as soon as it was released, thanks to unlockers with iPhone Developer connections. George Hotz used the iPhone Dev Team's exploit, along with his own methods, to publish a route to jailbreaking the phone just weeks later.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

RE: Correction

By Alexstarfire on 10/15/2009 1:57:27 AM , Rating: 1

Very little effort has been put into hacking the PS3 for very obvious reasons. There is little to be gained by hacking the PS3 other than playing pirated games. Problem with that is Blu-Ray is shit expensive so it's cost prohibitive all around, for the media and the drive. No one wants to make a $10 coaster.

I will say that if this iteration of the iPhone turns out to be unhackable that I will officially eat these words. Though there is very little that hasn't been hacked when you look back at things. Usually things that haven't been hacked haven't had a lot of effort put into them and become obsolete before it gets hacked. Some may call things like that unhackable.... but I'm not one to think that. Only way to have something unhackable is to not have human interaction at all, save perhaps the quantum computer. But if there is no human interaction then it's probably going to be useless anyway.

Parent

"A lot of people pay zero for the cellphone ... That's what it's worth." -- Apple Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook