Verizon iPhone Is Now Jailbreakable

An anonymous reader writes "The Chronic Dev Team have rolled out Greenpoison RC5_4 aka Greenpois0n RC5 b4 for both the Mac and Windows platform, which brings untethered jailbreak for the Verizon iPhone." Since 500k iPhones were sold on the first day it'll be interesting to see how Verizon throttles users.

Comments

Remember, not illegal!

[Skarecrow77]

Go for it guys! Jailbreak your iphone all you want, completely legal! Ruled as such by the Library of Congress! ... why doing the exact same thing to the black sony box setting next to my tv isn't legal, I'll never understand.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[natehoy]

Just to play devil's advocate here, why should lock-down not be permitted?

No, really. There are plenty of devices that you can buy that are not locked down. Most of the Nokia line offers non-locked-down phones. There are a decent handful of Android devices. Blackberries are generally available in an unlocked flavor.

Yes, they are more expensive, but that's because you aren't being subsidized by a damned phone company when you get it. It's your phone, and all the features belong to you. The phone company can't turn off your GPS like Verizon likes to. They can't turn off the WiFi like AT&T likes to. You put their SIM in the phone and you use it for what you want to use it for, and pay accordingly.

AT&T seems to welcome unlocked GSM phones (admittedly, their discount for using an unlocked unsubsidized phone is nonexistent, and they'll still force you on a data plan for certain phones whether locked or unlocked). From what I've heard, Sprint not only loves 'em, they offer a discount. There aren't as many unlocked phones available for Verizon, since they are LTE and the rest of the world is pretty much GSM, but it's not like there aren't offerings for unlocked phones.

It's only the fact that we USAians are so used to having our phones subsidized that we've forgotten there is a whole universe of unlocked phones out there that we can use, if we want to get off the mobile carrier teat and buy them ourselves.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[betterunixthanunix]

I always wonder who these folks are that want to jailbreak for purposes other than unlocking

How about to keep features that are arbitrarily taken away? I used to use my phone as a dialup modem, low bandwidth but enough to fetch some email, which is all I really want. My phone broke; my new phone is programmed to always say "CARRIER ERROR" when I try to use the modem feature. I am not paying less, and when I demanded an explanation, I was told that only people deploying telemetry devices or doing government work were allowed to use their phones in that manner, and that I should just sign up for mobile broadband.

There is no technical reason for this restriction; jailbreaking can remove it. Why would I not jailbreak? The phone still has a built-in modem, the network still supports it, and the carrier is still going to get paid (since I use minutes just like I would for a voice call).