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iPhone Dev Team to Open Source Free Unlock
An anonymous reader writes "In an effort to keep up with changes from Apple at a faster speed, the iPhone Dev Team is considering open sourcing AnySIM, the free unlocking solution for the iPhone. In a chat with Gizmodo, iPhone Dev Team member Sam said that this move could 'open a lot of possibilities for the future,' mainly in terms of the speed of the updates and avoiding sloppy and possibly dangerous binary patches. They are now looking for community input to get the project started."
Which should help them in breaking any workarounds used, until a true valid unlock is achieved.
I could be completely wrong about this but I though that the unlocking programs utilized exploits, buffer overruns, etc to unlock the iPhone. If thats the case, how is releasing the source going to help this project? Won't Apple just read the code and release updates keeping the program from working?
Wouldn't this make it easier for Apple to break AnySim?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
this move could 'open a lot of possibilities for the future,' mainly in terms of the speed of the updates and avoiding sloppy and possibly dangerous binary patches.
Ugh. This is just another version of "open source code is more secure because you can review it and compile it yourself." Open source code can be more secure, because a qualified individual can conduct a lengthy security audit, and maybe catch some malicious or insecure code."
Please help metamoderate.
Yikes, I posted the comment on the wrong thread. this is sooooo embarrassing....
Either the supply is low, or the demand is high. I would say that the supply of the 80GB Zunes has been limited so that the "news" articles can hype "it's sold out".
I completely fail to see how this is newsworthy. I mean we get automatically noticed of Firefox updates, so why oh why post about a minor update on the front page of Slashdot?
You just got troll'd!
I am not understanding title article what
The iPhone dev community is largely open source already and the closed nature of some of the hack projects has always bothered me. I've released all of my code from my iApp-a-day project which took place last month, and a lot of people are learning from it and building better things now. I know I'd be interested to see how something like AnySim actually works under the hood. It's one thing to have an academic knowledge of how these things work, but quite another to see and experiment with it first hand.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Enough with the "closed source is inherently superior" propaganda. Whether you like it or not open source for the user is everything that closed source is. Plus the source is available.
The idea that "closed source" is magical security pixie dust needs to die.
this move could 'open a lot of possibilities for the future,' mainly in terms of the speed of the updates and avoiding sloppy and possibly dangerous binary patches.Ugh. This is just another version of "open source code is more secure because you can review it and compile it yourself."
No, it hasn't. Try to understand that it's not just you reviewing the code but potentially many other parties apart from the originator. Are you trying to tell us independent third party review is not a good idea?
Open source code can be more secure
No, open source is likely to be more secure. Because many independent third parties can review it. Not just a vendor who has a commercial, ego or "not-enough-manhours" incentive to hide mistakes.
, because a qualified individual can conduct a lengthy security audit,
No, because many different individuals with many different levels of expertise can conduct all sorts of audits, security and otherwise, and in addition use the code in ways the the original author[s] never even envisaged.
and maybe catch some malicious or insecure code."
Better than no chance at all.
* virtually nobody that uses the code will be even remotely qualified to even understand how the code works, much less be able to tell if it'll screw up their phone.
So, out of a population of billions that leaves a population of thousands, or more, who are more than qualified to look at it. Think the statistics.
* Opening development to more people makes the chances of someone SUBMITTING (note, I said "submitting", not "successfully getting away with putting malicious code into an official release) go up; now the few people who know what they're doing have to spend a lot of time reviewing code not just for correctness but malicious intent, something they may not be qualified to do.
Malicious code is a strict subset of incorrect code. You check all your code for correctness, right? If you're not qualified to do that then you're not a programmer.
* Releasing the source code now makes it exceptionally easy for people to trojan the code and release a compiled version. The bar has been lowered from "knows assembler and iPhone internals" to "is decent with C."
No, it hasn't. Let me know when you've managed to break code signing and vendor repositories. Every binary package I use was either compiled/signed by the vendor or compiled by myself from vendor signed source code.
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I want a free and open market. Do you?
The real motive for opening the source for AnySIM is that the iPhone Dev Team doesn't have the time to work on the project by themselves anymore. The other dev team (iPhone Elite Team) was able to patch the binary so it works with the new firmware (sort of) before any update form the iPhone Dev Team. They are so out of time that they still didn't reverse engineered the basic functions from iTunes that are necessary for the jailbreak process of newer firmwares. These are the functions iTunes uses for restoring the phone's firmware and stuff like that. Every thing was figured out for firmwares 1.0.2 and under, but ever since the Firmware 1.1.1 was out the process no longer used these funcitions directly. Instead, it relies on minor flaws in the update process like leaving some symbolic links that are no erased afeter the update or device files. Although these techniques work, you always have to downgrade the firmware, create the symbolic link or the device file, then update the firmware (the update process doesn't erase the links nor the device file). Ok, one might say they came up with a neat solution with the jailbreakme.com site, that uses a buffer overflow in Safari, but still, the old way was a lot better (since it used iTunes native calls) and faster. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining or anything, these guys are awesome. They simply don't have the time anymore. They have their families and their jobs. It's a cool project if you crack the phone just once and that's it, but when you're faced with the need to maintain the jacks, now that's not so cool. That's why they are opening anySIM, even though this will give apple much more information regarding the bugs that are being exploited. And I agree with them. After all, "Better off alone" just makes sense when you're actually doing something.
Oh, wonderful - so now the same group of retards whose original sloppy work resulted in tons of iPhones initially getting bricked, have come with another masterplan to further endanger the safety of iPhones -- by essentially open sourcing code that deals directly with the innards of the iPhone, and stands the potentially to seriously screw up people's systems. Brilliant!
Personally, I see this as a desperate attempt to counter the efforts of the 'iPhone Elite Team', who, for my money, are a far more reliable group of coders, and actually take their pursuits seriously (for the record, while the 'iPhone Dev Team' has promised lots of stuff, including unbricking of phones they previously bricked), the 'iPhone Elite Team' has actually delivered. For all I'm concerned, the 'iPhone Dev Team' is merely coasting along on the fame and recognition they originally garnered, and really hasn't done much - this open sourcing idea is motivated more by their search for relevance, than actually providing a worthwhile product.
You combine that with a dawning realization that most likely by February exploits on iPhone will be mostly eradicated, and that backdoor hacks won't work in the era of the iPhone SDK(*), and these kids most likely see their 15 minutes ticking to a close.
(*)Undoubtedly followed by howls of anger directed at Apple (particularly a drivel of passive aggressive articles from Erica Sadun), when these kids realize their hacking days have been severely curtailed... while the rest of us have stable and reliable iPhones with the occasional useful app for it.
By "iPhone dev team" do they mean the team at Apple that develops the iphone? why would they get to decide if the tool gets released without input from their corporate overlords? or is it just a bunch of people in their mom's basement who have nothing to do with apple that like to call themselves 'the iphone dev team'? in that case, why wasn't this open source in the first place? who runs a binary that can probably brick your iphone without having the source?
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
with the new bootloader anyway. None of the established software unlockers will work unless a new vulnerability is found in the baseband bootloader. Since Apple and Infineon seem to have done their homework this time, these unlocks might never work again. Not much fun to be had with maintaining dead code ;-)
:)
yeah, let's show apple how we're cracking their phone. 'cause that's a good idea. sure, open sourcing it would mean that it would be developed faster assuming that apple don't see it. unfortunately that won't be the case.
Here in Canada, Apple has not released the iPhone yet. Rumors last month said that Rogers will announce it before Christmas.
However, you see some people here who use iPhone.
Even in places as far away as Qatar, the iPhone is widely used there.
Since all the sets had to come from USA (or recently from Germany and UK), they have to be unlocked in order to work with the "normal" GSM carriers. Which means it is a widely used practice.
Perhaps Apple's dev team are just bowing to the inevitable. But how does that fare with AT&T and the exclusive contract.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Apple may very well already have an inside man in the iPhone dev team, so keeping the source closed wouldn't make much sense in that case. I think Apple has more to win than to loose when the iPhone can get unlocked.
The reason for this is probably that Apple doesn't want to miss out on the iPhone audience that doesn't want to tie themselves up to a 2-year contract with AT&T. If those potential customers cannot unlock the iPhone it means $0.00 revenue from them. Selling an iPhone without getting shared revenue from AT&T is better than nothing fro Apple.
Obviously, they can't be promoting this because it would seriously fuck up further revenue sharing deals with mobile operators. Therefore they also "brick" the iPhone from time to time, just to discourage non-contract use and make a statement to mobile operators that Appple remains committed to their exclusivity.
Just my 2 cents.
is awfully self-aggrandizing on their part?
The iPhone Dev Team is at Apple. These people are, at best, the iPhone Hack Team.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Fastcompany.com had a really good video of various exploits on the iphone.
Uh huh. You realize, of course, that the "iPhone Dev Team" is unassociated with Apple, and is merely a group of hackers that unlocked iPhones before Apple started adopting countermeasures, yes? No, of course you didn't, because you didn't read the article, nor bother to even read the abstract or other commentary before publicly posting your speculation about what an interesting strategic move this is for Apple. Oh what a good move for Apple! They're not doing it, asshat.
I suppose I shouldn't blame you though. I guess it was hard to bother yourself to understand anything about the story, what with my cock in your mouth and all.
Canadian piece of shit... don't they teach you god damned caribou eating freaks to read in that armpit of a country? Why don't you fucking play some ice hockey, you fucking Francophone asshole Canuck. We'll be by to conquer you later.