Jailbreak

The sheer impressive power of the Apple Silicon M1 processor has made developers, hackers, and tinkerers daydream about possible use cases beyond what Apple intended or would even allow. Some have already gotten Windows to run on it, in a virtualized environment fashion, of course. Now a few security researchers have also figured out how to run Linux directly on the hardware, albeit with a few catches that could still make it not that useful for a daily driver for Linux users.

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The Oculus Quest 2 is an admittedly impressive kit as far as standalone VR systems go. Its otherwise positive debut, however, has been marred by controversy, confusion, and consternation over the requirement to have and use a Facebook account to even use the previously independent product. Unsurprisingly, there have been attempts to circumvent that requirement but the most successful one so far is also asking for trouble by jailbreaking the Quest 2 that will surely force Facebook to respond in kind.

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Jailbreaking iPhones and iPads have become less prominent these days, partly because of Apple's sometimes overzealous security measures and practices. It has been quite a while since a vulnerability was discovered and exploited within just days from an iOS release. That's exactly the reason why the Unc0ver jailbreak for iOS 13.5, which was just released last week, is making rounds over the iOS community and the Internet. Given the current global situation, however, it might not be the best time for a security exploit to come out.

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This week the folks at Corellium released Project Sandcastle, a method with which an iPhone can run Android. It's not especially simple, and it doesn't really run like a full-fledged Android phone would, but it's real. The hack comes courtesy of Chris Wade and his associates, who've released this bit of software amid a legal row with Apple for their creation of software versions of the iPhone "for security and testing."

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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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