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Apple Quietly Drops iOS Jailbreak Detection API
bednarz writes "Without explanation, Apple has disabled a jailbreak detection API in iOS, less than six months after introducing it. Device management vendors say the reasons for the decision are a mystery, but insist they can use alternatives to discover if an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad has been modified so it can load and alter applications outside of Apple's iTunes-based App Store."
If you can jailbreak the phone, you can trick the detection API. Once the system is "untrustable" it is not trustable.
Jailbreaking became legally protected recently. Disabling functionality when a jailbreak is detected seems like it might open Apple to a class action lawsuit.
I'm sure they're legally allowed to say that jailbreaking voids the warranty, but I'm not sure they're willing to risk crippling a jailbreaker's device with an api flag.
"Sorry, you can't play our game because you jailbroke your phone" -- if Apple encouraged app developers to do this, things could get nasty.
IANAL - this post is total speculation
Damn skippy you don't jailbreak the phone that your workplace gave you. After all, they own that phone. Literally.
Which is what the article is actually about - functionality that allows enterprise software to detect whether a phone deployed through that enterprise has been jailbroken. It's a simple part of compliance testing of work issued equipment.
I believe you could already legally unlock your phone.
You probably don't understand the intent of the DMCA. The purpose of it was to stop copyright infringement. It was never intended as a lock to protect a company's business practices. In fact, the write up from the Library of Congress specifically targetted that fact--that Apple had submitted their oral and written opposition asserting their attempts to protect their business model. The Library of Congress concluded that to mean that Apple wasn't really trying to protect the right's holder's copyright, instead they were trying to protect their business model.
This is what the Register (Library of Congress) stated (taken from the Ars Technica write-up):
"Apple is not concerned that the practice of jailbreaking will displace sales of its firmware or of iPhones," wrote the Register, explaining her thinking by running through the "four factors" of the fair use test. "Indeed, since one cannot engage in that practice unless one has acquired an iPhone, it would be difficult to make that argument. Rather, the harm that Apple fears is harm to its reputation. Apple is concerned that jailbreaking will breach the integrity of the iPhone's ecosystem. The Register concludes that such alleged adverse effects are not in the nature of the harm that the fourth fair use factor is intended to address."
Copyright protection is granted to protect the rights holder from illegal distribution of their content and not to prohibit owners of the hardware from doing other things with it once they own it.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Sigh. You really ought to RTFA, otherwise you just come across as a dumbshit. This story has nothing to do with preventing you from doing what you want with your i-Device. It has everything to do with an enterprise-provided and -owned device reporting itself to the enterprise-owner that you as the non-owner-user have jailbroken your i-Device, thus causing a security hole the size of the one in your backside in the enterprise's system. And yes, Virginia, the enterprise that owns said device does have the right to know if you're being said dumbshit and jailbreaking a device that you don't even own.
I realize you are new here, but it is a long and proud slashdot tradion to not read the linked article. Many really hardcore slashdot users do not even read the summary.
are ya sure it hasn't just been retooled to become super_secret_function()
I don't think you've seen the iOS SDK.
I'd guess something more like [NSReallyInternalDeviceIdiomDetector superSecretFunction:host:port:withDelegate:inSection:byAppendingString:context]
Long live the BSD license