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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!

12 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 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.

    4. 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.)

  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. 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).

  4. 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"?

  5. 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.