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Prankster Jailbreaks Apple Store Display iPhone

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the that's-pretty-funny dept.

Stoobalou writes "A prankster has snuck into his local Apple temple of consumerism and footled with one of the display models." Is it wrong of me to think that it would be awesome if everybody did this to every phone? I mean, it's legal now!

27 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. "it's legal now!" by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if you do it to a phone you don't own, without permission from the owner?

    1. Re:"it's legal now!" by odies · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What is even more fun is that Apple users praise this as something that allows them to jailbreak their phone. The "jailbreak" is a PDF exploit that roots your whole phone. I would be a little bit worried if someone could completely take over my phone if I just visited a random website. Apple products don't have exploits or malware, huh? Of course Apple just keeps telling their users they are secure. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

    2. Re:"it's legal now!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Destruction? He was improving it!

    3. Re:"it's legal now!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      What is even more fun is that Apple users praise this as something that allows them to jailbreak their phone. The "jailbreak" is a PDF exploit that roots your whole phone. I would be a little bit worried if someone could completely take over my phone if I just visited a random website. Apple products don't have exploits or malware, huh? Of course Apple just keeps telling their users they are secure. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

      Well, you should have bought a blackberry if you were concerned about your data. Instead, fanbois decided to give all their data to big brother Steve.

      Note that the United Arab Emirates & Saudi Arabia aren't concerned about iphones, android or nokia.

      If you care about the security of your data, there is only one choice.

    4. Re:"it's legal now!" by TheKidWho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's because those phones route their data through the carrier. RIM's phones route it through RIM's internal servers.

      Nothing is stopping you from sending out encrypted data on the iPhone/Android/Nokia phones.

    5. Re:"it's legal now!" by mdwh2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What is even more fun is that Apple users praise this as something that allows them to jailbreak their phone.

      Indeed. On a related note, I'm reminded of two standard arguments:

      * "There's no viruses/malware on the Iphone. That only applies to people who have jailbroken their phones. They deserve what they get."

      * "What do you mean I can't do [insert basic task] on an Iphone? Of course it can, you just have to jailbreak it." (Apple, it Just Works - you Just have to jailbreak it to get it to Work.)

    6. Re:"it's legal now!" by beelsebob · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Actually, as an iPhone owner, I hope, no, expect apple to patch this in the next release. No one (sane) claims apple products don't have exploits or malware... Doesn't stop them being desirable products.

    7. Re:"it's legal now!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No one (sane) claims apple products don't have exploits or malware...

      True, but that won't stop the foaming-at-the-mouth hatebois from setting up & knocking over that straw man ad nauseum.

    8. Re:"it's legal now!" by x2A · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You missed a bit:

      "There's no viruses/malware on the Iphone. That only applies to people who have jailbroken their phones by running the viruses/malware that's available on the iphone"

      But hey, at least children can't run educational intro-to-programming software on it.

      --
      The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
    9. Re:"it's legal now!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm pretty sure Apple never made this claim.

      Huh? Did you miss the whole "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" line of commercials?

    10. Re:"it's legal now!" by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, this is apple.slashdot.org so everybody has taken sides. You are either a suckup or a hater here.

  2. It's not awesome by mccalli · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The cutsie word 'jailbreak' seems to be catching on, but if this were any other os I think the phrase 'gaping remote code execution security hole' might be more appropriate.

    I use an iPhone and I thank people who do these exploits for bringing them to attention. If the means of jailbreak is "connect via USB then faff" I can live with it. If it's "go to this website and get an instant remote execution exploit from people you don't know" then I become rather more concerned.

    It's an exploit, same as any other. It should be patched as fast as possible and such an action wouldn't be evil, it would be the correct response to a remote execution hole.

    Cheers,
    Ian

    1. Re:It's not awesome by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exploit or not, that is still a pretty funny video. I love the fact that the guy spent all that time in the store without a single employee asking if he could help him with something. I guess Apple has an OS security problem *and* a customer service problem.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    2. Re:It's not awesome by elewton · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Maybe it's because I'm Irish, but it annoys the piss out of me when staff bother me without my beckon. It's especially annoying when I'm reading a menu outside a restaurant and they use a greeter. That always moves me right on.

      He was obviously occupied, and needed no help. If he wanted to talk to a member of staff, he had only to look up.

      Nothing personal, just an off-topic rant.

    3. Re:It's not awesome by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think most people only go to the apple store to play with the hardware anyway. I know people who do that as a form of entertainment.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  3. cute by jewishbaconzombies · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I laughed - but they restore all computers and iphones (probably iPods too) every day. It'd be a short-lived prank.

    But I'm going to laugh more after waiting for years for ATT to provide tethering (which I'd gladly pay for) - if it were wifi - like every-freaking-body-else. Oh no - you can't tether your iPad - because - um - bluetooth only! Yeah that's it! It's apple's fault because they don't support bluetooth tethering - obviously.

    What about WIFI? "ahem cough cough - ahem".

    Fixed that little problem in 30 seconds - and oh noes - if my phone has problems, I guess I'll just have to suffer and restore it to preserve my warranty. Such a huge sacrifice that.

    Suck MyFi dick ATT / Apple - you had your chance for nearly 3 years and you fucked it up. Here's a fork - you know where to stick it to see if you're done.

  4. Re:yes, its wrong by ciderbrew · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But he only clicked on a link? How was he to know what would happen?

  5. Idle is right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Beyond the vaguely amusing "Let's stick it to Apple!" shtick that's been going on for a while, what the fuck is the point of this?

    Oh no! Some kid did stupid shit and posted it online! Huzzah?

    What next? Are we gonna go out and watch as the kids giggle as they smoke pot outside the police department?

  6. Wrong? by whisper_jeff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it wrong of me to think that it would be awesome if everybody did this to every phone? I mean, it's legal now!

    Wrong? Probably. Infantile? Absolutely. Legal? Absolutely not. It's called vandalism which is still illegal.

    1. Re:Wrong? by rotide · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Modifying something without the owners consent is vandalism. I can modify your car with a brick or with a new engine. You may dislike both of those options as your old engine got you 40mpg while the new one is so much more awesome (your opinion) at 500hp and 15mpg (yay for car analogies!).

      Same thing is happening here. Apple wants things a certain way and it makes no difference what your (or anybodies besides Apple's) opinion is about what is being done to the phone. No matter how much "better" _you_ think it is, it is theirs and they don't want you mucking with it in that way. I'm no Apple fan, far from it, but even I can see this isn't something you want to make a habit out of as the police will eventually make their presence known when Apple catches on.

      (I know you're trying to be funny and not entirely serious, but I thought it still needed to be said).

    2. Re:Wrong? by whisper_jeff · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's not vandalism. You're not reducing or eliminating the intended functionality or the appearance of the device.

      That's not what vandalism is. Vandalism is (quoting wikipedia because they summarize it rather succinctly) "private citizens commit vandalism when they willfully damage or deface the property of others or the commons."

      You don't think that jailbreaking an Apple store display device if vandalism? Fine - I'll issue a challenge to you then. Put your money where your mouth is. Go get a cop, go into an Apple store, get the manager, tell them both what you're about to do and then jailbreak one of their devices. If the store manager doesn't have the cop arrest you for vandalism, then you're right and I will apologize for erroneously calling it vandalism.

      I bet you won't accept the challenge, however, because you know you'll get arrested. Because it's a pretty clear-cut case of a private citizen willfully damaging or defacing the property of another. But, hey, feel free to prove me wrong.

  7. Re:Go to the original source, Slashdot by Idbar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How in hell is now reddig (or digg, or whatever "aggregation service" - even Slashdot - for that matter) an "original source"?

  8. Just because you have the right to do something... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ...doesn't mean it's necessarily the right thing to do.

  9. Re:Ethically wrong, but probably not legally... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The fact that you allow USB devices to be connected to your display machines is, well shocking really.

    Its pretty easy to disable USB devices on Windows. I've had to do it for all sorts of kiosk and public use machines. You should be glad whoever is doing management there doesn't know what they are doing. If it were me, someone's job would be on the line if a display machine was configured to allow someone to plug in a USB device and copy god knows what onto the machine.

  10. Re:yes, its wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So when I see your car parked with the window open, I'll be happy toss stuff into it--after all, I'm adding features to it. And when I pass your house, I'll try the door knob. If it's unlocked, then I'll come in and rearrange things to make them more efficient and I'll re-paint several rooms, adding to the aesthetic.

  11. Re:Go to the original source, Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    agreed. slashdot is just a souped up rss reader that thinks it somehow adds value. laughable isn't it.

  12. Re:Poor User Experience, the bane of open source. by geogob · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There is a lot of stuff of questionable quality available but a few very useful tools or modifications not available otherwise. Add to that the carrier unlock possibility, I think you strongly under evaluate the importance of this procedure. You may also want to be more restrictive on the modification you install. If you start installing all the available modifications that look interesting on any OS, you will have stability issues.

    If you want to play outside of Apple's "Eden", you'll have to treat and understand your device as a computer running a Unix based OS... not a cellphone on which you install apps.

    Also, Cydia is mostly a graphical front end for the Debian package manager with a repository browser. You can install your packages yourself using command line. You can also add your own sources to Cydia. Not sure I understand where the problem lies regarding the jailbreak process installing Cydia. What other mechanism do you expect to install packages once the device is jailbroken?

    And blaming your poor user experience on open source or open devices, that's just wrong.