RIM Says No To BlackBerry PlayBook Jailbreaking

RIM addressed its stance and future policy on BlackBerry PlayBook jailbreaking in a post to the company's blog today, officially confirming that jailbreaking the PlayBook would void its warranty. RIM's opposition to customers using jailbreak tools, such as DingleBerry, isn't surprising, but it also outlined a policy of continually and aggressively patching any root access exploits.

It's understandable that RIM isn't going to take a flexible stance on jailbreaking as say Android would, since it's targeting enterprise and business users. Plus, the image of having an especially high standard in security may be one of RIM's last advantages over competing smartphone platforms and manufacturers. It has already quickly squashed the DingleBerry rooting tool since it was made available last year and its PlayBook is so far the only device in the BlackBerry lineup to be rootable.

But in the detailed post today, RIM outlined the different ways in which it will handle two basic types of root access exploits. The priority in patching goes to exploits that require little interaction from the user. These include jailbreaking methods that only require users to visit a web page to download a software to the device. Since this type poses a much greater security risk, it will be patched immediately following discovery.

The second type of root access exploit involves connecting the PlayBook to a computer and voluntarily making changes that may require putting the device into developer mode, a method that requires much more interaction from the user and generally cannot be performed by remote attackers. With these exploits, patches will be distributed through a future software update instead of through a more immediate security update.