The iOS 7 Jailbreak Fiasco

Bismillah writes "Evad3rs' new iOS 7 jailbreak featured a Chinese app store that sold pirated software, and which was pulled from Evasi0n7 soon after launch. Latest rumors say that the exploit used for Evasi0n7 was stolen by a certain person, offered up for sale, so the Evad3rs did a deal with TaiG instead. Jay 'Saurik' Freeman of Cydia meanwhile isn't happy about the whole thing, saying he was given no time to test Evasi0n7."

Comments

Jailbreakingg

[TyFoN]

It's funny. In any other operating evironment you would call these root exploits.
However in the Apple camp it's simply jailbreaking. One does not dear imply that the iphone is insecure :)

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Kell Bengal]

It's more a case of regaining entry after being locked out of your own house, rather than someone else breaking in.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more a case of regaining entry after being locked out of your own house, rather than someone else breaking in.

Except that the burglar could use the same route.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Anonymous Coward]

...and then having the power to fill your house to the brim with free clones of paid stuff, should you so choose.

Jailbreaking to work around OS/carrier lameness, sure. Trying to justify the pirated/infringing apps you warezed and put on your device for free, essentially ripping off developers for their 99c, supremely lame.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[JaredOfEuropa]

ripping off developers for their 99c, supremely lame

I never really understood this. You go and get a really expensive phone, then begrudge someone their 99 cents. Or seriously spend more than a few seconds thought on whether or not to buy that "really expensive" $1.99 app. And subsequently get suckered into dropping tens of dollars on in-app purchases in in some freemium game. People are weird...

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Noughmad]

At big part of it is the feeling that you're special, and that you "beat the system".

Re:Jailbreakingg

[93 Escort Wagon]

You're right - you really don't get it.

Most of us who jailbreak aren't interested in stealing apps. Heck, by default those repositories aren't even available to a jailbreaker. Instead, it's about adding functionality. Frankly, look at some of the new iOS 7 features... We jail breakers had those in iOS 5 and 6.

Prior to iOS 7, iPhone apps running on a non-retina iPad were displayed in low res, even though there was a high res "retina" version of the app's images readily available. The fix? A jailbreak App called RetinaPad (which, incidentally, I paid for). A free app, SBSettings, added some quick access toggles to the notification pull down - another useful feature that iOS 7 borrowed.

Want to ssh into your iPhone? Gotta jailbreak it first. Want a decent wifi scanner for troubleshooting? Again, you need to jailbreak. Want to be able to use gestures to replace the home button? Again, you need to jailbreak.

There are lots of reasons for jail breaking that have absolutely nothing to do with theft. They're probably of interest only to a minority of iOS users, but they exist. As iOS matures, those reasons gradually dwindle... but I can't see them ever going away completely.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Lumpy]

But this case is a random unknown stranger offers to make you keys for your house. And while they are at it, sets up a shop of stolen goods inside the front door.
How do you know they did not make themselves an extra key?

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you've ever bought a iPhone in certain Asian countries - such as MKB in Bangkok, the phones from small dealers are sold pre-jailbroken and loaded up with pirated Apps, movies and other content, as a "service" to the customer. As phones are frequently sold outright and off plan, this kind of distribution channel is a much higher fraction of the market, than it is in the US , where subsidised phones dominate. This likely represents millions of devices. Given jailbreak downloads are typically 10 million , its at least a very significant fraction, and it wouldn't be unreasonably be a majority.

I strongly suspect the motivation for, and the rate of jailbreaking varies wildly by country.

I'd also hazard a guess, the whilst there are people with pretty reasonable motivations such as the Wi-fi scanner example, they represent a tiny fraction of the jailbroken device owners - most have it done for them for commercial reasons - either explicitly to pirate Apps, or out of ignorance when its done for them because the offer of "free extras" is too good.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny. In any other operating evironment you would call these root exploits.
However in the Apple camp it's simply jailbreaking. One does not dear imply that the iphone is insecure :)

Well ... doing it on purpose to your own device it is jailbreaking and is fine. Having it done without your permission or knowledge is pwning and is an exploit.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Nerdfest]

The problem is that you're rewarding a company (known for making extremely high profit on their devices) for locking you out of your hardware. Their attitude towards letting you install the software you want is not going to improve in the future with people doing that.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Anonymous Coward]

Complain as much as you want: I can copy bits from you, and it won't take anything away from you. I shall continue, and it's highly unlikely you'll be able to stop me. DItto for the other million+ people.

I'm sure you'll feel the same when someone gets their paws on your Bitcoin wallet. It is just a string of 0s and 1s.

BTW, why don't you spend your time creating something useful. Anything at all. And then let everyone come along and copy it for free. We're waiting. And don't give me the "What about Linux?" shit. You're a taker, not a giver. The people who have donated their time and efforts to Linux, some of whom have dedicated their lives to it, are givers and you have not earned the right to compare yourselves to them.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[noh8rz10]

You're a taker, not a giver.

+1. some people create things, so they have empathy with other people who create things. others are just takers and add no value to society, so they cannot comprehend how their actions hut those that create. like arguing with a rock. good news is, they rooted their own phones and gave them to chinese hackers, in exchange for free angry birds (yes, I bet they download cracked versions of free apps too lol).

Re:Jailbreakingg

[noh8rz10]

why don't you just not buy the phone? if you don't want to reward the company that makes the phone? or steal the phone? pro tip: if you paid for the phone you've already rewarded them.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Nyder]

It's more a case of regaining entry after being locked out of your own house, rather than someone else breaking in.

Except that the burglar could use the same route.

Or the police, or the NSA or the FBI, etc....

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Nyder]

You're a taker, not a giver.

+1. some people create things, so they have empathy with other people who create things. others are just takers and add no value to society, so they cannot comprehend how their actions hut those that create. like arguing with a rock. good news is, they rooted their own phones and gave them to chinese hackers, in exchange for free angry birds (yes, I bet they download cracked versions of free apps too lol).

Takers & givers. Pitchers & Catchers, Tops & Bottoms. Good & Evil. Left & right. 1's & 0's.

You do realize that most of life is a binary system and you can't generally have one without the other?

In other words, some people give, some people take. It's part of life. If you feel superior because you are one and not the other, then you are missing out on how life really works.

Does that person downloading a pirated app really hurt the developer? No it doesn't. That person most likely doesn't pay for software, so the developer would never get money from him. But oddly enough, there is enough people who have no problem paying for stuff, and that is why developers & producers make money because there is enough people buying to turn profit. It has always been this way. Thinking your superior because you pay for stuff is deluding yourself. Thinking your smarter because you don't pay for stuff is also deluding yourself. We are just all playing our parts in life.

Good software/music/movies sell and make money. Crappy software/music/movies don't sell and they blame it on people pirating the stuff then the fact they made some crappy software/music/movies.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[mlts]

Even more basic... want ad blocking? Jailbreak. Want some privacy? JB time. Jailbreaking allows one to use their device, which they paid for (in one way or another) as they see fit.

iBlacklist is another useful feature, only available by jailbreaking. Yes, I can block callers by creating contacts, but it gets old having a bunch of "zzzzRoboCaller" entries in my contacts as opposed to just one blacklist that does the job in a few taps.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Rick Zeman]

Wifi Analyzer and SwiftKey are two apps that are so useful to me that I will never even consider an Apple phone.

Wow. After switching from Android to iOS those are the ONLY two apps I miss...not enough to regret switching, though.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[mlts]

There is one downside of "free" apps. When I read some various iPhone forums, it is amazing how many people get stung by rogue IPAs and end up having to DFU restore.

There is a reason for moderated/curated app stores, and yes, other places might have other people's app for free, but those apps might just bring along more than just the program itself.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[jo_ham]

Actually, I do refer to this as root exploiting, but if I point that out (as I have in the past) and praised Apple for closing the security hole I get jumped on by Android fanboys calling me an enemy of freedom.

In other words, they care about exploits and security when it's convenient, but not when it's in any way in conflict with bashing Apple.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[znrt]

Apart from the revenue I should have got.

should you? oh, because you said so? you have no right to get a revenue from your work, you only have the right to try. if it doesn't work, don't blame it on others.

Neither of which makes it right.

nor wrong.

Just because you can copy someone's digital work and they still have it does not morally justify your actions.

if you find it's inmoral, don't do it. what i find morally injustifiable is you wanting to impose your personal morals on others. keep them for yourself.

If you want a copy of a digital work, then you should reward the creator for creating it

no, see above.

further, I didn't ask the creator for anything.

even further, the creator didn't "reward" the zillions of people whose effort he himself used in order to produce his digital work.

the fact that they don't lose their bits is irrelevant.

it isn't. this is a necessary condition for "theft" in any legal code. you IP zealots want to equate copying with theft and that's why you come up with this "loss of rightful revenue" crap, which isn't rightful at all.

Otherwise, why should anyone bother to create any digital work?

exactly. why should they? to cry for some revenue they think themselves entitled to? funny.

fact is many of them do it just because they want. others because they actually do get a revenue. so what?

If everyone had your attitude, no-one would create any digital products.

it's not an attitude, it's elementary common sense and it is pervasive. and still ... people keeps creating.

As it is, the people that don't pay are leaching off those that do.

besides ignoring (or twisting) reality you are intending to insult a lot of people with this. i would say it is inmoral, if it weren't just lame.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[nurb432]

And then you have people that create things, give them away and expect the same in return.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Solandri]

In other words, some people give, some people take. It's part of life. If you feel superior because you are one and not the other, then you are missing out on how life really works.

Everyone gives and takes. Every legitimate economic transaction involves both giving something and receiving something. So anyone with a significant non-criminal income is also a giver. You have to give something to earn money. Contrary to the implications of this thread, it's actually the artist and software communities which are the exception to the rule, because they can work to create something once and give it away repeatedly for more money. Most regular people have to constantly give away stuff (e.g. their labor) every time they want more money.

So despite being a programmer and photographer, I'd take exception to the characterization in this thread that the programmer/artist is the giver and the pirate is the taker. If you look at it based on net work vs income ratios, most of the highly successful programmers and artists are takers. Piracy is rampant because of the mismatch between how much they charge for their work, and how much society feels it should cost given their success.

The best way to see this problem in action without resorting to the piracy extreme (by which point it's so distorted it's not educational) is to look at how things work in hardware. When VCRs first came out, they cost over $1000. They were incredibly popular and successful, and eventually every Western household had one (if not several). More sales meant you could amortize R&D costs over more units, you could buy more supplies meaning discounts for bulk purchases, and it also meant more competition which insured those manufacturing savings were passed on to the customer. By the time the DVD player came out, VCRs had dropped to about $20.

That's the kind of price drop people expect from successful products, and aren't seeing with software or music or movies. And that's why they feel justified pirating it.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[ArbitraryName]

Because iOS has the specific apps they want to use.

Re:Jailbreakingg

[Dixie_Flatline]

You don't need to create a contact in iOS 7. Just find the number after the call is done and ask for it to be blocked. It's near the bottom.

Confusing summary

[wonkey_monkey]

Evad3rs' new iOS 7 jailbreak featured a Chinese app store that sold pirated software, and which was pulled from Evasi0n7 soon after launch.

Evasi0n7 is the name of the jailbreak?

Latest rumors say that the exploit used for Evasi0n7 was stolen by a certain person, offered up for sale, so the Evad3rs did a deal with TaiG instead.

TaiG is the name of the Chinese app store? Who's the "certain person," and why does them stealing it lead ("...so...") to the jail break creators doing this deal with TaiG?

Jay 'Saurik' Freeman of Cydia meanwhile isn't happy about the whole thing, saying he was given no time to test Evasi0n7."

What's Cydia, and why is it important that they have time to test the jailbreak?

Re:Confusing summary

[lhunath]

Evasi0n7 is the name of the method used to apply a tethered jailbreak to the phone. The 7 is for iOS 7. The jailbreak is what disables the security features that lock people out of their own device.

TaiG is the name of a "store" the distributes Chinese applications, similar to Cydia, the store that is currently considered to be the "default" for distributing applications on jailbroken devices. Aside from using Cydia or TaiG, you can also put apps on the device manually or use other stores / distributions.

The deal with TaiG was not a result of any stealing. Evasi0n (the team that made the Evasi0n7 method) had been approached by TaiG with an offer of bundling their store instead of Cydia (which doesn't have a lot of Chinese content) for Chinese users only. Terms of the deal included that TaiG would not be allowed to distribute any "pirated" applications. Evasi0n's rational was that without TaiG on the device, most Chinese users would proceed to install an app store that did provide "pirated" apps and this way they would be condoning a "non-pirating" app store to the huge Chinese jailbreak audience. In exchange for bundling TaiG and therefore giving TaiG a huge userbase in China, Evasi0n was offered a lump of money.

Unfortunately, it turns out after the fact that some pirated apps were spotted on TaiG. Evasi0n reported these to TaiG ASAP and they were removed. You can imagine the trolling that ensued especially from competing jailbreak teams.

Other teams working on a jailbreak method in parallel to Evasi0n were also given this offer from TaiG. In fact, another team was getting a jailbreak release ready with a similar, stolen or different method, I don't know, but since they were getting close to a release, Evasi0n decided to fast-track their working method and release a jailbreak early. The up-side of an early release was that they'd get TaiG's money and they'd get the credit for the jailbreak. The down-side is that the huge volume of apps written for jailbroken devices hadn't been tested and fixed to work on iOS 7 yet, including "Cydia". iOS compatibility is even more crucial for jailbroken apps than for standard iOS apps since they often use undocumented API which is obviously very volatile across iOS versions.

As a result of Evasi0n's early release, a bunch of people jailbroke their device only to find that almost all of the apps written for jailbroken devices that they were installing crashed or cashed their phones to break - since, as I said, they weren't updated for iOS 7.

TL;DR - Evasi0n worked really hard to find a method for jailbreaking, figured they deserved some money for their effort, figured in the mean time they'd condone a safe store to the Chinese, saw their chance at success slip away as other teams were gearing up to steal the glory and released before the developer community was ready, causing breakage and mayhem, never mind the trolling about the sudden appearance of a Chinese app store instead of Cydia.

For Evasi0n's side of the story, read http://evasi0n.com/l.html

Not touching it.

[Lumpy]

A jailbreak comes out from a unproven group, Only fools are installing this one.

Evasi0ns response

[dave1102]

I actually made an account just to post this -- evasi0n's response to all the criticism/speculation: http://evasi0n.com/l.html

Re:Jailbreak vs Rooting

[GrammarPoliceChief]

Apple treats you as a criminal? I'm sorry but you are simply trolling. iOS is designed for the masses. They do not want problematic user problems, they do not want many ways to do the same task, they should not have to care about the OS. I'm pretty happy with Apples way that they created their ecosystem, it is fair for both the consumer and the developer. Android is difficult if not impossible to root on many devices. Some even come with a fuse on the main SOC package that detects if the phone has been rooted.

I'm not Trolling I'm Rolling

[tuppe666]

Apple treats you as a criminal? I'm sorry but you are simply trolling.

http://www.legalzoom.com/intellectual-property-rights/copyrights/apple-responds-eff-jailbreaking FRom the article because I am lazy.

"Apple has responded to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)'s request to the US Copyright Office to declare hacking a smartphone legal; not surprisingly, Apple believes jailbreaking is copyright violation and, therefore, illegal."

Someone needs there mod points removed :)

Re:I'm not Trolling I'm Rolling

[plover]

The line isn't that simple. iOS already knows when it's been jailbroken. There's even an API for that so that programs that deal with security can refuse to operate if they don't trust the environment. Square Payments won't let you read credit cards on a jailbroken device; AirWatch reports jailbreaking back to corporate servers (I keep an un-jailbroken device around just for reading company email); and even Skype pops up a warning dialog that says "this app is unsupported on a jailbroken device."

Since Apple can detect a jailbroken phone, they could obviously take harsher actions themselves. They could shut the phone down, or make it rapidly eat batteries, or delete your accounts, or do any of a hundred different nasty things to the phone. But they don't. They have arrived at a somewhat unstable cease-fire with the jailbreakers. So Apple, in this weird way, actually has OS level "support" for being jailbroken. They don't treat us as criminals.

And they need to. I own many different iDevices, but I wouldn't have even bought the second if I hadn't been able to jailbreak it. I won't upgrade iOS until there's an untethered jailbreak for it. I seriously never consider buying an iDevice unless I have high confidence that I can jailbreak it the day I buy it. It's all a part of making a deal with the devil: if Apple wants my money, they have to tolerate my jailbreaking their device. And I've heard that somewhere around 30% of iPhones are jailbroken -- that's just way too much money for them to walk away from.

Re:I'm not Trolling I'm Rolling

[twocows]

Don't confuse the issue. The problem is that Apple believes it's illegal to root your own device. The italicized portion is the important part. It is perfectly legal to exploit a root vulnerability on hardware you own. Exploiting software on your own devices is often used in penetration testing, among other things.

Re:I'm not Trolling I'm Rolling

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be up in arms if the same thing happened on my Android phone!

I guess you've never tried to 'rent' or 'buy' a movie on Google Play on a rooted device before (even one of the free ones, like Elf that is currently available). If you had, you'd know that Play Videos just pops up a message that says movies are not supported on a rooted device. The message also contains a link to request a refund for your movie, which they processed (the one time I tried it) in about 24 hours.

Android is certainly no better when it comes to having apps 'trust' the DRM stores of the phone. It's crap either way, but 'both sides' do it.

Re:I'm not Trolling I'm Rolling

[BasilBrush]

I would be up in arms if the same thing happened on my Android phone! How can you even tolerate this sort of thing

And yet you tolerate Android being a den of malware. Each to their own.

$650 and you still don't own it

[lophophore]

Apple makes nice stuff, but I won't touch any more of it. $650 for an unlocked iPhone 5s and you cannot do what you want with it without a "jailbreak". Contrast with a modern Nexus phone that you can install your own software (e.g. Cyanogenmod) on with a PC and a USB cable.

The same is true for Apple's tablets -- in fact, it is even worse, because "jailbreaking" your iPad is a federal crime under the DMCA.

Apple makes nice stuff, no doubt, but if you cannot change what's inside, you really don't own it.

Re:Jailbreak vs Rooting

[quacking duck]

Google gives you (the option) of control, and supplies ample warning before the user chooses to this, it is an option on some phones...even a selling point, mainly used to load none play applications (Android is Eden...with gates).

Basically nothing like each other.

That's for darn sure. Android still doesn't let users override an app's demand for permission to access stuff like GPS, contacts, cell data, photo album, etc.

Sure, you can simply not download an app based on what it says it demands when you try downloading it, but that's beside the point; for all Android's claim to empower the user, why is this of all things not a user option, years after iOS started doing it?

Re:Jailbreak vs Rooting

[fatphil]

The whole sentence is almost certainly bullshit. Not least because fuses don't detect anything. However, almost all ARM-based SoC's come with a bank of e-fuses that can contain write-once data, which theoretically could include security tripwires being triggered.

However, in my experience working for 2 of the largest mobile phone companies in the world, and one of the largest ARM-based SoC vendors in the world, I've never seen anyone do this. It can makes the phones non-repairable - you never want that, you always want the ability to reflash the firmware. Maintenance/returns are expensive.

Reasons to jailbreak ....

[King_TJ]

I have to thank "93 Escort Wagon" for those comments, first of all. That's exactly what I keep trying to explain to people who seem to be under the impression that jailbreaking is simply a tool to allow piracy on the device.

Personally, I do a bit of litecoin mining and I find it immensely frustrating that I can't manage my wallet with an iOS device, thanks to Apple imposing a ban on App Store apps related to crypto-coin exchange.

I also like some of those apps they have for Android phones (such as the one AT&T recently advertised) which automatically read your incoming SMS text messages to you when you're in the car. Again though, iOS doesn't have any because Apple decided any code that interfaces directly with the "cellular side" of the phone is off limits. You can use Siri in a limited way to compose an SMS reply or have one read to you, but it's still a manual process. It doesn't automatically detect you're plugged into a car charger and see you're in motion, so probably driving, and automatically go into that mode.

You already mentioned another thing I'd be interested in having on my phone; a packet sniffer for wifi troubleshooting.

Despite all of this? I still prefer iOS to Android or other options. I've used both types of phones at various times and I keep going back to a personal preference for iOS and support for integration of Apple iOS devices with other devices on the market. (My iPhone is a "superset" of an iPod, after all, which means my iPod aware car stereo can queue up custom playlists of songs from it, etc.)

So yes, a jailbreak gives me the best of both worlds, since Apple has motivation to disallow a few things I want to do on my devices.

re: pariahs?

[King_TJ]

How is this Apple's fault though? Skype isn't owned by Apple. Square payment systems don't have ties back to Apple.

If all Apple does is provide an API that can be queried to see if the device is jailbroken, I'd say they're pretty much a neutral party.

People should get angry with the developers who opt to use it to prevent you from using their software, if they have a problem with it.