Apple Bans Jailbreakers From the App Store

Hugh Pickens writes "Adam Mills writes in the Examiner that Apple has been cutting off access to the iTunes App Store for iPhone hackers and jailbreakers. Sherif Hashim, the iPhone developer who successfully hacked the iPhone OS 3.1.3 and unlocked the 05.12.01 baseband for iPhone 3GS and 3G devices, discovered he'd been cut off and twittered: '"Your Apple ID was banned for security reasons," that's what i get when i try to go to the app store, they must be really angry.' Another hacker, iH8Sn0w, who is behind the Sn0wbreeze tool, confirms that his account has also been deactivated even though iH8sn0w's exploit had only been revealed to Dev Team, the group responsible for the PwnageTool. 'It is kind of surprising that two people associated with jailbreaking have had this happen to them so soon after one another, but it's too early to say if this is a campaign that Apple is starting up,' writes Mills."

Comments

Figured it'd happen

[Coopjust]

That's why I've told anyone who jailbroke to use a separate account for apps on jailbroken devices.

Kind of silly, IMO. You're going to ban people from possibly paying for apps? Not every app is jailbroken, some are cracked incorrectly (some of the antipiracy mechanisms in apps I've seen are nothing short of hilarious trolling), and some are out of date. Additionally, if an app is really good, a user may buy the app to support the dev.

So you ban people and what happens? People jailbreak all the free apps too.

Seems like a bad move on Apple's part.

Re:Figured it'd happen

[Graff]

So you're willing to protest when you get cut off but not when the guys whose software freed your phone get cut off?

It's a matter of scale and purpose. Someone hacking their own device and keeping that action to themselves is a single event. Someone making tools and enabling others (most likely people who couldn't do it in the first place) to hack their device is a manifold increase in the number of hacks, possibly also enabling further, deeper hacks of the device and network security.

There's no hard and fast cutoff as to what I would consider a reasonable degree of a company's ability to defend its closed system. When we are talking about cellular networks it wouldn't take much to cause major problems, even legitimate users can bring down the system. Add in people changing the software in unanticipated ways and then DISTRIBUTING those changes and you can easily cause havoc. On the other hand, stuff like DeCSS which enables a person to make backups of their DVDs has a less direct effect upon other users. It can still cause problems with piracy and such but it's not going to suddenly make everyone's DVDs unusable.

In this case I think that perhaps the iPhone hackers broke the terms of service of the iTunes Store and they had their accounts terminated. Apple has a right to do this, it's spelled out in the TOS. As long as they use it selectively for major infractions I'm not too worried about it, it's when they use it to ban every single little violation that I'll be worried. Is that arbitrary? Perhaps but everyone draws the line somewhere.

Finally, I don't jailbreak. If I didn't care for Apple's rules I wouldn't have bought the iPhone in the first place. If I wanted a more open device there are some out there and I would have gotten one. My iPhone works just fine for me without hacking anything.

No proof

[daveschroeder]

Indeed, and see this Apple KB article:

For your protection, your Apple ID is automatically disabled (partially) if your account password is incorrectly entered numerous times. This affects some services you may access with your Apple ID, such as your accounts with: Apple Photo Services, iTunes Store, and MobileMe.

When you try to use some online services and your Apple ID has been disabled, the following message appears:

"This Apple ID has been disabled for security reasons."

So who's to say it's not someone just messing with these guys? All it takes is a few bad login attempts to temporarily disable ANY Apple ID.

And even if Apple was disabling just these Apple IDs, it's clearly not of all people with jailbroken devices, else we would know about it; instead it's specific, individual people (who are probably in violation of Apple's terms of service for Apple IDs).

Re:I can't wait for my contract to expire

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Cite that please. You're arguing that they make little to no money from content distribution through iTunes? I think you're full of it.

Sure. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/steve-jobs-tries-to-downplay-the-itunes-stores-profit/ ...is an article where a NYT pundit postulates that despite Apple having publicly stated they make little money on the operation, he thinks they might actually be making a billion dollars a year (they make 25 billion or so a year as a company). Be sure to read the update at the end where he acknowledges he was mostly wrong after someone explained to him how much credit card transaction fees cost.