[LINK] Jailbreaking (was: Inaccessible web sites)

[Ivan Trundle]

On 17/02/2010, at 12:36 PM, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:

> what does Jailbroken mean

iPhone OS is a locked-down ecosystem out of the box, and 'jailbreaking' is the (illegal) process of hacking the OS to allow code not authorised by Apple to run on the device. It's also the main way of allowing people to load stolen apps on their phone or iPod, or to install applications which have not been vetted by Apple's control process. And in places where phones are locked to a carrier, it's a way of unlocking them and freeing them from being tied to a carrier.

Apple have, over the years, found ways to inhibit jailbreaking, but in general, the hackers are one small half step ahead. AS with most phone OS'es, the general path has been via privilege escalation.

Apple is disputing the exemptions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which make the legality of jailbreaking unclear, suggesting that their copyright is being infringed: no decision is likely until later this year.

Apple have also found ways to block particular hackers from using the Apple Apps store, and are also seeking to employ experts in the field to prevent further jailbreaking with future OS revisions. One such (recently introduced) method is to prevent older copies of the OS to be stored on your computer (so there is no turning back once an update is applied) and to bundle firmware updates so as to fix existing loopholes, but which inhibit the use of jailbreaking routines.

The numbers of jailbroken phones is incredibly small (estimated to be less than 5%). However, people in the jailbroken community often quote (unsubstantiated) figures of non-Apple community app downloads (i.e. jailbroken apps) in half-million units. I am unable to verify these numbers, yet I have a personal interest as an app developer.

The reasons for people to jailbreak their OS are varied, but it is now mostly to run stolen (er, 'pirated') apps. Initially, it was to work around some of the limitations of the OS generally, and to use APIs that Apple won't permit to be used (for various reasons, mostly altruistic), or to run apps which Apple would not allow. These days, though, Apple have loosened their hold on the system generally, and released more public APIs, allowing more app developers to 'come into the fold'. However, the afore-mentioned carrier unlock is likely to become more important, especially as some carriers charge ridiculous fees to unlock the phone for use by another carrier.

With each OS update, there is less and less of a reason for people to jailbreak their phone or iPod, and I predict that the pool of jailbreakers will diminish, since we will be able to do with our OS what we originally wanted to do without encumbrance.

Incidentally, with the latest phones running recent firmware, it is not possible for jailbreaks to 'stick', meaning that a host computer is needed to re-jailbreak after every reboot (not that iPhones are rebooted that often: many are never rebooted) or after battery expiration.

iT


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Ivan Trundle
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