iPhone
Apple ships modified iPhone 3GS to stop hacking
By Jim DalrympleOctober 14, 2009, 12:29 pm PT
Apple has taken an usual step in its efforts to stop groups from hacking its iPhone hardware — it changed the iPhone 3GS in mid-production.
The news of the modified iPhone 3GS BootROM was first reported on iClarified on Tuesday. The report noted that the new iPhone is no longer vulnerable to the so-called “24kpwn” exploit.
As AppleInsider notes, it’s this exploit that hackers have used to jailbreak the iPhone. With the most recent update, they will have to find another way to hack the device.
Jailbreaking of the iPhone is nothing new, but it has been an ongoing battle between Apple and the hacking community since the first iPhone was released. It seems whenever a new version of the iPhone OS is released, Apple breaks the most recent hacks.
However, within days or weeks, the hacking community comes out with a “fix” and the cycle starts all over again. There is no word yet on how the community will get around the latest update.
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Apple ships modified iPhone 3GS to stop hacking
By Jim DalrympleOctober 14, 2009, 12:29 pm PT
Apple has taken an usual step in its efforts to stop groups from hacking its iPhone hardware — it changed the iPhone 3GS in mid-production.
The news of the modified iPhone 3GS BootROM was first reported on iClarified on Tuesday. The report noted that the new iPhone is no longer vulnerable to the so-called “24kpwn” exploit.
As AppleInsider notes, it’s this exploit that hackers have used to jailbreak the iPhone. With the most recent update, they will have to find another way to hack the device.
Jailbreaking of the iPhone is nothing new, but it has been an ongoing battle between Apple and the hacking community since the first iPhone was released. It seems whenever a new version of the iPhone OS is released, Apple breaks the most recent hacks.
However, within days or weeks, the hacking community comes out with a “fix” and the cycle starts all over again. There is no word yet on how the community will get around the latest update.
Please take a minute to Tweet, Like, or Share this post with your friends.
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Discussion 16 comments so far
16 Responses to “Apple ships modified iPhone 3GS to stop hacking”
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I know the jailbreaking community will of course, detonate over this, but closing a known exploit vector is in fact, a good thing.
Absolutely. Strange that it happens mid-stream though.
Exactly. My guess is that there must have been some other reason involved. Some blatant, as of yet unexploited, vulnerability.
John Gruber brings up a good point. This used to be called fixing bugs. However, still seems strange to do it mid-stream.
http://daringfireball.net/
Is it really strange that Apple is shipping new iPhones with up-to-date software AND firmware? Doesn’t seem strange to me.
As John C. Welch said – closing a known exploit vector is in fact, a good thing.
Yeah, I agree with Gruber. This was a bug/vulnerability fix, not a “modification to prevent hacking.” The ability to jailbreak an iphone was simply symptom of an exploitable Boot ROM chip. Now do I think Apple probably did this to curb the growing homebrew/jailbreak community that has created software which may adversely effect their hardware and has led to an application pirating ring? More than likely, but updating a piece of exploitable hardware/software is usually called a security update…unless, of course, it affects ‘cool things’ due to the security fix.
You fix sploits as soon as you find them. If you can fix them mid-stream, why wouldn’t you?
It’s a sad day for jailbreaking and unlocking. The US remains one of the few countries in the world where the iPhone is sold by only one carrier. And why a carrier should be able to limit the uses of a phone, especially after a contract has expired (or in the case of no contract), just seems abusive.
A lamentable situation indeed, but what precisely does that have to do with Apple patching a known exploitable vulnerability in the iPhone BootROM?
Jailbreaking was still possible until this update but unlocking has been blocked for quite a while now.
This is anything but a sad day for iPhone application developers as it starts to close the door on the illegal downloading of iPhone/iPod Touch applications. Piracy is a problem for small developers trying to make a living writing $0.99 and $1.99 software.
There is so much hysteria around the iPhone! The idea that a firmware update could be controversial is amazing. Apple fixing a bug *that has already been exploited* in the iPhone firmware is somehow cast as nefarious? With all due respect I think the author has been psychologically pwned by jailbreak propaganda. Jailbreakers are less than 1% of all iPhone users! We’re supposed to leave bugs in there like exploitable bugs are an ad hoc 3rd party API?
You know how you *hack the iPhone*? You buy one and you use it. You don’t have to be a computer scientist or even a nerd of any kind. Anyone can run 2 completely different kinds of apps (proprietary rubber-bumpers App Store and open Wild West HTML5) even though they are not a CS grad. You can play music, movies, podcasts, send texts, emails, IM, and so many more things even though you are not a CS grad. You can go 2 years without viruses, malware, or even having to do much that could be called “I-T work” and I know this from experience. It’s the single most approachable computer platform every created.
The other way to *hack the iPhone* is you can make open HTML5 Web apps running on your own server that can even use accelerated 3D graphics and which gain sophistication with every new release of iPhone OS and which can run on any other device that supports HTML5. You can make movies or music or podcasts in open ISO MPEG-4. The iPhone is by far the best phone for this kind of hacking. Most phones do not even have a video player yet.
If you want to tinker, not only are there other devices for that, that is basically what all other devices DEMAND that you do. I think it is much, much, much more important for there to be a device that works for EVERYONE than for the iPhone to be turned into yet another breadboard for tinkerers.
Finally, I have to point out, when you jailbreak an iPhone, you have access to the whole cell radio, which no other phone gives access to. Even in the OpenMoko open source phone which was designed for tinkerers, you do not have access to the cell radio, it’s like a peripheral attached to a Linux box, not part of the Linux box itself. If somebody comes up with a hack that opens an Android phone’s cell radio, expect that bug to be crushed post haste by Google also. Same for Palm and other phones. If Richard Stallman himself designs a boutique phone and the cell radio is cracked he has to fix that bug.
Let go of the hysteria! Today I saw an app developer complaining their App Store approval is taking too long and the commentary was “evil Apple! why don’t you make an Android version instead?” and the reason is the Android version requires the developer to write in Java not C and will NOT run on all Android phones and will sell less than 1% of the copies of the iPhone version. So Apple is doing something right. There are 85,000 native CocoaTouch apps for iPhone and at least as many open HTML5 Web apps as well. There is no gun to the head of any iPhone user or any developer. Apple holds no monopolies. If you want the “other” kind of mobile development it is out there for you from Google, Blackberry (also Java), Palm (Web apps only, no native apps at all), and of course Windows Mobile (cough cough).
@Hamranhansenhansen – I think you’re a bit confused about the word “hack”.
They are just trying to fix bugs IMO. The ”hackers” will find a way to ”hack” again.
Iphone is very easy to hack.
You can crack exactly everything.
/M
Hackers are the best people out there… everyone should jailbreak their iphone/ipod touch because of features it adds to it… i could change my background so can other people in other phones and apple really sucks for making the background black and not letting people change it yeah APPLE SUKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Iphone is very easy to hack.
You can crack exactly everything.
/M