[LINK] Apple's Not 'Bricking' Hacked IPhones for Revenge

[Kim Holburn]

Interesting article.  Who was it who said that the cause of many  
things in this world is not deliberate actions but incompetence.

<http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2007/10/ 
cultofmac_1003>

> The same is true of the iPhone, according to Jobs. "You don't want  
> your phone to be like a PC," Jobs told The New York Times in  
> January. "The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on  
> your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn't work  
> anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers."
>
> The iPhone bricking problem has been a PR disaster for Apple,  
> making the company look punitive and obsessed with control. But  
> Erica Sadun, a technical writer and blogger at TUAW.com who  
> contributed to an iPhone unlocking application, said Apple's update  
> wasn't designed to disable hacked devices. Just the opposite: Sadun  
> thinks Apple worked hard not to brick iPhones -- even hacked ones.
>
> "It wasn't intentional at all," she said. "If they wanted to brick  
> hacked iPhones, they could have done a much better job of it."
>
> Sadun said the software update disabled some hacked phones because  
> it was a "troublesome update" -- it even caused problems with  
> iPhones that hadn't been touched. "They messed up," she said.
>
> The new iPhone software appears to be a ground-up rewrite,  
> unrecognizable under the hood to the older version, which Sadun  
> said was "very unfinished" and, in some places, "a complete hack."


--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961