The iPhone Dev Team have announced that they are delaying the release of the updated ultrasn0w iPhone 3GS jailbreaking and unlocking tool. In a post on the Team’s blog, they detail the nature of the exploit used to jailbreak (and then unlock) the 3GS, a loophole which Apple could readily close once it was made public.
Owners of the new iPhone 3GS will soon be able to jailbreak and unlock their smartphone, thanks to a five-month-old security flaw in the handset’s baseband. The iPhone Dev Team have verified that Apple have not addressed an exploit known as 24Kpwn that was originally identified in the iPod touch 2G; with it, they will be able to upgrade their ultrasn0w tool to work on the iPhone 3GS.
Industrious hackers have managed to get Google’s Android OS to run on the Omnia i900, the first-gen Windows Mobile phone from Samsung. The project currently loads Android from a microSD card, and in its early stages can’t access the majority of the Omnia’s hardware; that means no calls and no using the 5-megapixel autofocus camera.
The iPhone Dev Team have released their latest tool for Apple’s smartphone, Ultrasn0w, which unlocks the iPhone 3G for use with any carrier. The tool works in conjunction with the Team’s Redsn0w app, which is first used to jailbreak the iPhone 3G, and can unlock the latest iPhone OS 3.0 software.
Developers playing with Palm’s webOS have discovered a method whereby software can be installed on an unhacked Pre. The system emails a .ipk link to the app, and seemingly takes advantage of a loophole in the platform to bypass Palm’s security.
You’ll need more than a passing familiarity with the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 to spot the mod here, so we’ll give you a hefty hint: it’s the fingerprint reader in the right-hand side of the palm-rest. MyDellMini forum member Rich decided he wanted biometric login functionality in his netbook, so inserted the guts of an Eikon fingerprint reader into the Mini 9.
It hasn’t taken hackers long to enable unofficial tethering on iPhone handsets running OS 3.0, and its taken carriers even less time to put out the predictable dire warnings regarding anyone found using such hacks. UK carrier and official Apple iPhone partner O2 have issued a statement suggesting that anybody found using tethering without their official “Bolt On” package will be charged or disconnected.
As we know, iPhone OS 3.0 brings with it the potential for tethering on your Apple smartphone, using the handset’s 3G connection to get your laptop, netbook or other mobile device online while on the move. Apple have done all they can to make it straightforward – you can tether over USB or Bluetooth, with minimal setup - but the carriers seem less enthused. Some, like AT&T, don’t officially support it yet, while others, such as O2 in the UK, will allow you to tether but have an expensive extra data plan you need to add.
One thing we know about iPhone users, though, is that if you show them a sign saying “no entry” they’ll work out a hack to enable it, and sure enough there’s now a simple way to turn on iPhone tethering no matter your carrier or tether-plan status. All you need do, in fact, is visit help.BenM.at on your iPhone and install a new local carrier profile configuration file.
The iPhone Dev Team have released a video demo of their latest unlocking tools, including yellowsn0w, doing its magic on an iPhone 3G running OS 3.0 which is set to be released sometime in the next 24 hours. They’ve also revealed the development of a new tool, ultrasn0w, which they claim should be able to unlock any iPhone to-date, running any OS version.
Video demo after the cut
Security researchers are claiming to have found a way to run non-approved code on iPhones that have not been jailbroken. Charles Miller, a principal analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, and Vincenzo Iozzo, a student at the University of Milan in Italy, have discovered “more than one” technique for loading an application into a factory iPhone as a non-executable chunk of data, which then flicks over to an executable and could potentially be used to monitor the smartphone, listen in on calls or harvest user data.
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