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US Teen Trades Hacked iPhone for Nissan 350Z
PieGuy107 writes to mention that seventeen-year-old George Hotz of Glen Rock, NJ has made the trade of the summer. Hotz traded his hacked iPhone for a new set of wheels (Nissan 350Z to be exact) and 3 more 8GB iPhones. "[Terry] Daidone, who's the co-founder of Louisville, Kentucky-based CertiCell, has apparently also offered the young man a paid consulting job, but stresses the company doesn't have 'any plans on the table right now to commercialize Mr. Hotz' discovery'."
Yuppie kid just barely in college who was groomed into the industry follows a paint-by-numbers and unlocks the iPhone, receives a new car for it, receives eight more iPhones, and is offered a paid consulting job.
Not that I'm specifically downplaying the accomplishment of being the first to open an iPhone but doesn't anyone else feel that it's rather likely that he had some inside information, or maybe insider access to some specs, or access to a rather priveleged social group or knowledgebase which gave him a serious silver spoon in this whole event?
Even if not--is a single hardware hack good defining criteria for a paid consulting job? Does one hardware hack give him qualifications that graduating CS majors don't have? My guess is there's more affiliation between Hotz and Daidone behind the scenes than the story talks about. Maybe they met several years ago in a NAMBLA chatroom or something.
b) If that's the dorkiest guy you've ever seen? Man, you haven't met many real dorks, have you?
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Well, first by selling this knowledge, but not actually selling the service of unlocking phones, the kid is sidestepping legal issues. I can imagine that when the kid sold it for much much more, he would have apple's lawyers on him much quicker. Also, how long do you think he can hold out before someone else makes the same breakthrough. I don't know if you ever noticed, but breakthroughs always seem to happen at the same time. So, why not get a free car. Plus, if you read about it you would know that he was not hired as a consultant just for the iPhone, but rather to teach his techs to unlock all manner of cells. This is of course worth more money to that company then unlocking the extremely limited number of iphones.
He was given the car by a guy who owns a mid-sized cell phone repair shop in the midwest. This guy (Certicell)'s getting massive publicity out of the hoopla surrounding the unlock. The unlocked iPhone isn't worth a 350Z. Getting mentioned on every news-outlet and riding the coattails of Hotz's fifteen minutes of fame is worth a 350z.
1.) DVD Jon was actualy a pretty knowledgeable hardcore geek way before he did the CSS crack.
2.) He actually DID get sued. By big companies. On several occasions.
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Do people under 18 pat taxes?
Yes.
Old enough to pay taxes.
Not old enough to vote what they are use for.
One of the many injustices in the system.
He's going to need to take that job just to earn enough by the end of the year to pay the taxes.
Have you seen this guy? Hello? Mom's basement? Holy Cow!
:-)
When a 17 year old receives a 350Z they are no longer spending much time in Mom's basement. Hopefully not all of that time outside the basement is spent earning money for gas, insurance, and taxes. That prize/gift is taxable, many a game show winner has been screwed by that. Fortunately, or sadly, I've never won anything over $1,000.
To go to a darker topic, I hope he doesn't move from Mom's basement to the basement at the morgue. Giving a high performance car to a 17 year old can be a dangerous thing to do. My Dad and his friends had muscle cars at a young age, he was wise enough to make sure I only had underpowered 4-cylinder Toyota when I was under his roof. By the time I graduated college, got a job, and could afford that 5.7L Trans Am(*) I had enough experience behind the wheel and enough common sense to do little damage. I swear I saw a half dozen cars like mine in the paper, all wrapped around telephone poles by teenage drivers.
(*) That first job didn't pay well enough for a Corvette, and by now I've turned into a cheap bastard.
Uh the point is to make the iphone work on another network. the jersey kid did this by pulling apart the iphone soldering something, doing some magic, then putting the phone back together without damaging it, and it will work with a t-mobile SIM. What the australians did was buy a programable sim ($10 on ebay), then use a Telstra SIM, the AT&T SIM, a SIM programmer ($50), and make the programable SIM work on the iPhone, and the Telstra Network. The results are the same (the phone works on a network other than AT&T), just one is much easier and less likely to mess up your iPhone, and likely will not effect your warranty, the other got a load of press.
It should be the other way around. An internship which is done remotely is IMHO a waste of everybody's time and energy. And a normal job should definitely have a mixture of on site and remote (at home) elements. Of course all depending on the type of job.
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Not old enough to vote, but certainly old enough to take advantage of many of the services and infrastructure that taxes pay/paid for.