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Guide To Building a Cable That Improves iOS Exploits
mask.of.sanity writes "An Aussie network engineer has published a guide to building a serial cable connector that allows access to a secret kernel debugger hidden within Apple iOS. The debugger was a dormant iOS feature carried over from Apple OS, and seems to serves no function other than to allow hackers to build better exploits. The cable needs an external power source and a jailbroken device to access the debugger." We've mentioned Pollock's serial adapter kit before, modulo the kernel debugging abilities.
Wait... so in order to use the cable to find exploits, you need a jailbroken device. But in order to jailbreak your device, you need to first find an exploit.
* Yes, I do know that there are other ways to find exploits...
...exists in pretty much all phones (amongst other devices) although most would require some soldering on the PCBs, they are also used for forensic investigations -- or have completely separate circuits used just for forensics.
I don't remember much to be honest (like protocols etc) but I remember it from a forensics class I took.
The only surprising thing here is that they allow access to that circuitry via the normal device ports.
Even over a year after the iPhone 4 came out, it's still outselling individual phones from the likes of HTC and Samsung.
Its not such a good comparison. Here's why. You use a smartphone to run certain programs on it (or to look good or whatever).
If you want an Android phone, you have tons of choice. Most of them will run the same software, and so you just choose your price range or whatever.
If you want an iOS phone you basically either buy second hand, or buy the current iPhone.
So the iPhone isn't better than 'individual' phones, its just the only choice you have if you want iOS
What is it that "we geeks" get?
I had both an iPhone and an iPhone 3G, before getting pissed off with iOS 4 on the 3G enough to decide to try out the Android side of the story.
I acquired a new HTC Desire in February, and merrily set about using it as my main phone. Today is the 8th of August, so I have been using my HTC for around 6 months as my main phone - and the conclusion I have come to is that I absolutely hate it.
I have to dig around in subscreens to get to the apps I want - on the iPhone I just scroll left or right on the home screen, but on Android I only have six homescreen slots for apps, the other home screens are taken up with applets, mail and other shite, so I have to open the apps screen specifically, and then dig around in there.
The back button on the HTC is unbelievably broken - it entirely depends on what you were doing before as to what action it has. Does it return you to the home screen or to the previous page in the app? It depends! For example, I get a text message while my phone is locked - I unlock the phone and the message is displayed. I now want to refer to another message I have received previously, and since I am in the SMS app (as that is what is loaded), I click the back button to get to the message list. And I get dumped to the phones home screen instead. If I open the SMS app myself, the back button works as expected! Lots of examples such as that.
The Android Market Place is a terribly poor user experience, I utterly hate using it - its hard to find apps, its hard to search, its hard to preview apps. The AppStore just seems so much better put together, especially when browsing from the device itself!
I have had far far more interface issues with the HTC than I did with either of my iPhones - for example, the other day I was on the phone to a colleague, and the call dropped - but the HTC wouldn't let me hang up! It was sat there on the call screen, with the "End Call" button active but nothing on the line - and each time I clicked "End Call" it would briefly blank everything and then the call screen would reappear. This has happened to me several times.
The screen locking is poor - I cant count the numerous number of times I have taken my HTC out of my pocket to find my penis or keys had randomly dialled someone, or started to write an email. And yes, I am sure the phone was locked (prime example of this happened to me earlier today - I ended a call, locked the phone, put the phone in my pocket - 5 minutes later, I take the phone out to make another call and the phone is unlocked and halfway through a gibberish email).
The HTCs touch sensitivity seems to wildly vary depending on what you are doing, and buttons can be hard to actually get a press confirmed on - plus the onscreen keypad isn't anywhere near as good as the iOS one.
Thats just some of the issues I, as a "geek", have with my Android phone - I desperately want to go back to an iPhone...
He used the assertion that it outsells "individual" phones as proof that apple got their strategy right. I disputed the his proof and not the conclusion.
If you notice his second sentence was "People want" which is a stepping stone based on how they're purchasing iPhones more than any other individual phone.
I remember the days when apple play commercials claiming their OS don't get virus's, malware, etc.
That was in the old days when major Windows applications required you to run as administrator, when mail messages could silently install software and an unpatched XP machine connected to the internet would be infected before you had a chance to download the patches. Win 7 has done a lot to reduce that, which may by why Apple dropped the ads...
An iOS exploit that requires physical access to the machine, a custom cable and only works on a machine which has already been jailbroken (i.e. deliberately cracked by the legitimate user) isn't exactly in the same league as the sort of remote pwnage seen on PCs in the Bad Old Days.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.