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iPhone Root Password Hacked in Three Days

unPlugged-2.0 writes "An Australian developer blog writes that the iPhone root password has already been cracked. The story outlines the procedure but doesn't give the actual password. According to the story: 'The information came from an an official Apple iPhone restore image. The archive contains two .dmg disk images: a password encrypted system image and an unencrypted user image. By delving into the unencrypted image inquisitive hackers were able to discover that all iPhones ship with predefined passwords to the accounts 'mobile' and 'root', the last of which being the name of the privileged administration account on UNIX based systems.' Though interesting, it doesn't seem as though the password is good for anything. The article theorizes it may be left over from development work, or could have been included to create a 'false trail' for hackers."

3 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. Netinfo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know I'm just an AC - so this will get modded waaaaaay down, but:

    This isn't the password for the running account - you'd have to boot the phone into single-user mode. The running passwords would be stored in Netinfo.

    This is going to turn into a lot of FUD....

  2. Re:Passwords by antiNeo2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You've got it backwards. The root password is "dottie" and the mobile password is "alpine".

  3. Re:hmm... GPL? by Pius+II. · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why don't you post those lines in the context they belong, as an advisory comment in the (free as in free) bzip2 source? Oh yeah, because you prefer to badmouth people instead of checking your facts.
    For the record, here's the source.