Key iPhone Source Code Gets Posted On GitHub (vice.com)

Jason Koebler shares a report from Motherboard: An anonymous person posted what experts say is the source code for a core component of the iPhone's operating system on GitHub, which could pave the way for hackers and security researchers to find vulnerabilities in iOS and make iPhone jailbreaks easier to achieve. The code is for "iBoot," which is the part of iOS that is responsible for ensuring a trusted boot of the operating system. It's the program that loads iOS, the very first process that runs when you turn on your iPhone. The code says it's for iOS 9, an older version of the operating system, but portions of it are likely to still be used in iOS 11. Bugs in the boot process are the most valuable ones if reported to Apple through its bounty program, which values them at a max payment of $200,000. "This is the biggest leak in history," Jonathan Levin, the author of a series of books on iOS and Mac OSX internals, told Motherboard in an online chat. "It's a huge deal." Levin, along with a second security researcher familiar with iOS, says the code appears to be the real iBoot code because it aligns with the code he reverse engineered himself.

Comments

Link?

[johnsnails]

why have an article like this with no clear links to the repo? Is it a legal reason?

Re:"This is the biggest leak in history," - Get be

[darkain]

Windows 2000: Version NT 5.0 (business OS only, like NT 4)
Window XP: Version NT 5.1 (business and consumer OS, replacing NT/2000 and 9x)

Their kernels were remarkably similar. Their releases were very close together. XP was simply 2000 with a skin and a few updated applications, otherwise they were essentially the same OS. Regardless of the actual install base of 2000, it was the core OS internals that migrated all of the multimedia and application code from 9x to the NT kernel. It was monumental.

Isn't it time?

[nightfire-unique]

Isn't it time to get some new laws on the books that recognize an individual's rights to be a superuser on their own equipment?

It should be illegal to manufacture, or offer for sale any device which has a privilege level technically feasible yet unattainable. There is literally no legitimate reason our society should allow non-rootable devices to exist. It's time for the practice to end.