Jailbreak

The mobile tech world, and especially the Apple corner of that world, was flooded by news over the weekend about what could have been Apple's worst nightmare come to life. Just like what happened on the Switch and the Fusée Gelée exploit, a security researcher discovered a similar vulnerability that lay deep in the most inaccessible part of an iPhone's hardware. On paper, this exploit dubbed "checkm8" could offer a permanent way to jailbreak iPhones older than the iPhone Xs. In practice, regular users who want nothing to do with the jailbreaking scene have nothing to worry about unless they hand over their iPhones to an unauthorized person.

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Jailbreaking has always been like a game of cat and mouse between Apple and developers. Said developers will discover a critical vulnerability that grants them privileged access to the operating system and Apple will later close that security hole, thereby making the jailbreaking method ineffective. That has been repeated over and over again to the point that it has become harder and rarer for such exploits to be discovered and used. That scenario repeated itself last week with a bit more media coverage but that may be over now that Apple has once again shut that door in the latest maintenance patch for iOS.

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Jailbreaking iPhones have become less trendy in recent years, partly because Apple has provided many of the functionality and security that users have been asking for. The other reason is that each iOS release has made it more difficult to find exploits that would give hackers entry to jailbreak those mobile devices. It is then quite ironic that the latest update, in fact, does the exact opposite, allowing them to create the first public jailbreak release in quite a long time.

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The Nintendo Switch would have been one of the most difficult to consoles to hack had it not been for a hardware exploit that not even Nintendo nor NVIDIA could patch via software. Thanks to that, the convertible handheld console has become the target of much alternative software, not least of which is a port of the still unreleased Android Q. And, thanks to that, it's now possible to play games that may not even get a console port, like Blizzard's Overwatch.

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No, iPhone jailbreaking still isn’t completely dead but it may have just been put on life support. Earlier reports pointed to Cydia’s shutdown, the most popular app store for jailbroken iPhones, but was clarified to affect only its purchasing system. While it simply means you won’t be able to buy apps there anymore, it could be the start of the end for Cydia. And when the last biggest bastion of iOS jailbreaking goes, so too might the other repositories as well.

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iOS, particularly on iPhones, may be one of if not the most popular mobile OS in the market, but that doesn’t mean all of its fans are completely satisfied with how things are. Some advanced users still feel stifled by Apple’s control but not enough to switch sides. For them, jailbreaking their iPhone is the only option but that has become even more difficult year after year. Now Apple is formally letting its opinion on the matter known and is giving jailbreakers less and less room to breathe.

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Apple's walled garden is partly made possible through its closed, proprietary software. While Microsoft has made a U-turn on its stance on Linux and open source in general, Apple remains steadfast in embracing a "security through obscurity" philosophy. That stance, however, will soon be put to the test now that a critical piece of software used to secure Apple's devices has now been leaked on the Internet in a very big way. Source code for Apple's iBoot bootloader has been posted on GitHub, potentially opening the doors for hackers and security researches to more easily break into iPhones.

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Jailbreakig iOS devices has always been a hot topic, much more than rooting in the Android world. Lately, however, it has become even more heated because of iOS 11. Never mind the drama surrounding Cydia developer Saurik. To date, there is no ready and simple to use jailbreak method for iOS 11, though there is at least one proof-of-concept based on a new bug discovery tool developed by Ian Beer from Google Project Zero. And while this new LiberiOS jailbreak looks promising, it is something only the most daring and most skilled of jailbreakers should attempt to use.

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Jailbreaking on iOS and rooting on Android aren’t as big as they were years ago but communities around them still do exist. Fortunately or unfortunately, those communities are also some of the most passionate and most vocal around. So when the last remaining jailbreak for iOS goes silent, there’s unsurprisingly no small amount of frustration among some in that circle. Cydia’s owner and lone developer Saurik has just basically confirmed that he is still working on a jailbreak for iOS 11. But given the hurt feelings and strong words being tossed around, there’s also a real possibility it might not arrive soon.

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Last week, Apple released the iOS 11.2.1 update, addressing a number of software bugs for iPhone and iPad owners. However, only a few days later, security researchers have said they've managed to jailbreak the latest version of the operating system on an iPhone X. The researchers from Secure Pandora Labs, a part of Chinese company Alibaba, note that they were able to jailbreak the latest iOS version with the same exploit they used for iOS 11.2.

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Jailbreaking iPhones and iPads have somewhat fallen out of fashion because of two things. One is that Apple has addressed some of the pain points that previously made jailbreaking ideal, or even necessary. The second is that each new update made it harder and harder to find ways to jailbreak iOS. Some seem to have even given up on jailbreaking because of the latter. Hope, however, springs eternal with a new tool that could be the gateway to jailbreaking iPhones today and tomorrow. And, somewhat ironically, the tool comes from within Google HQ.

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Once upon a time, jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad was really the only way for users to truly get the best experience out of their expensive devices. Fast-forward 10 years later, jailbreaking iOS devices feels almost like a distant memory. That memory might be fast fading too, as ModMy and ZodTTD/MacCiti shut down, leaving BigBoss as the last remaining major source of apps, themes, and files for jailbroken iPhones and iPads. This, in turn, could mark the slow decline and decay of the jailbreaking community.

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