On Wednesday, Apple (finally) released firmware 4.0.2, which patches the very large security holes exploited by @comex in the 2nd incarnation of jailbreakme.com. The only problem is they outright abandoned iPhone2G and iPod Touch 1G users! Even though Apple acknowledges in their security update the severity of these holes, they left iPhone2G and ipt1G owners high and dry — completely vulnerable to truly malicious variants of jailbreakme (these variants aren’t out yet, but they’re sure to come!).
Luckily for Apple, the Jailbreak community isn’t so callous. @saurik has been burning the midnight oil coding a Cydia package that will fix the holes for all devices and all firmware versions (even going back to version 2.x!). It will be released very soon, after some more testing is done. (Update: it’s available now…see update #2 below).
Since the only reason for 4.0.2 was to fix the security holes, and since the upcoming Cydia package will fix them too (and then some!), everybody should sit tight on 4.0.1 (or lower) and install the Cydia package as soon as it’s out. Jailbreakers can have their cake and eat it too.
P.S. Dear Apple: you’re welcome!
Update #1: For those who know their way around the bash shell and dpkg, please try out this fix and send any pertinent feedback to @saurik.
Update #2: The fix is installable via Cydia itself now (search for “PDF Patch”). To test that it’s working properly, visit jailbreakme.com again. After you slide to jailbreak, you should no longer see a dialog box pop up (you’ll just see the star background). That means you’re no longer vulnerable!
We’re happy to tell you that our ultrasn0w carrier unlock now supports the iPhone4!
Version 1.0-1 of ultrasn0w works for:
- iPhone4 baseband 01.59
- 3G/3GS basebands 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01 and 05.13.04
(If ultrasn0w doesn’t show when you search Cydia, add the repo: repo666.ultrasn0w.com)
Here is a nice how-to video from @AdamFromYT that shows the installation process on the iPhone 4.
For comments or questions, please use the comments section below.
Enjoy!
Fantastic news today from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). After a lot of hard work and mountains of paperwork, jailbreaking your iPhone is now explicitly a permitted fair use under the DMCA!
The first of EFF’s three successful requests clarifies the legality of cell phone “jailbreaking” — software modifications that liberate iPhones and other handsets to run applications from sources other than those approved by the phone maker. More than a million iPhone owners are said to have “jailbroken” their handsets in order to change wireless providers or use applications obtained from sources other than Apple’s own iTunes “App Store,” and many more have expressed a desire to do so. But the threat of DMCA liability had previously endangered these customers and alternate applications stores.
In its reasoning in favor of EFF’s jailbreaking exemption, the Copyright Office rejected Apple’s claim that copyright law prevents people from installing unapproved programs on iPhones: “When one jailbreaks a smartphone in order to make the operating system on that phone interoperable with an independently created application that has not been approved by the maker of the smartphone or the maker of its operating system, the modifications that are made purely for the purpose of such interoperability are fair uses.”
The EFF also successfully renewed the existing DMCA exception for carrier unlocking. More on the ruling by the Library of Congress is here and here (and many other places, since this is huge news!). The full ruling is here, and EFF’s history with this case is here (EFF’s servers are understandably getting hammered today!).
This doesn’t mean that Apple will stop their technical attempts to thwart jailbreaking, but it does mean that our iPhone jailbreaks and unlocks are now unambiguously legal under the DMCA.
Great job, EFF!
He did it! Paul, Germany's suddenly world-famous soothsaying octopus managed to correctly predict the results of both World Cup games this weekend, leaving him with a perfect record of 8-0.
Say you have two things: a perfectly good hand, and a brilliant inventor for a grandfather. One day you stumble across a blueprint for an amazing-as-hell robot hand meant to replace an arm-stump. Wait, you have three things: the hand, the grandfather, and a saw.
No one can say Germany's World Cup loss to Spain last night was unexpected. Paul the octopus, after all, predicted as much on Tuesday. Now, football fans are calling for Paul's head.
Quick: Name someone whose body of work is a testament to the indomitability of the human spirit; whose strength and moral guidance informs your every decision; and who starred in one of the Police Academy movies.
Everyone loves remote control toys. But the problem with most of them is, unless you manage to remote control one directly down someone's throat, they're pretty useless as weapons. But what if we were to tell you that we fixed that obvious design flaw?
Those of you who spent the weekend Tokyo drift-racing your way to a rap battle—or whatever it is people do when they go outside on the weekend—probably feel pretty good about yourselves right now. At the end of the day, though, what do you have to show for it? Vague memories of changing lanes. Twenty-five of the people who wisely chose to stay home and craft items, on the other hand, now have
shiny new ultra-rare golden wrenches that they can keep. For a weekend? No. For a
lifetime. Eat it, drift-racers. Eat
all of it.
Whoa, this came out of left-field. Amazon just announced that its Video on demand service will be serving up $.99 ABC and Fox rentals just like Apple wait, no, these are $.99 per episode — like you actually own the content rather than just having a short window to watch. Plus, it’s not just limited to one platform as Amazon Video on demand is widely available a bunch of products. This could be huge and might take some sales away from the new Apple TV.
