Legal Worries Delay iPhone Unlocking Software
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Fear of litigation has led to an indefinite delay in the planned Saturday release of software to unlock Apple Inc.&#39;s iPhone.
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Apple Inc  said on Monday  that programs available on the Internet to unlock its iPhone  and enable it to work with service providers other than AT&T's  Cingular network could cause irreparable damage to the device.
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Apple Inc. on Monday warned iPhone owners who have used unauthorized programs to unlock the cellular service feature of their handsets that they may end up with a phone that doesn't work after the company's next software update for it.
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Apple and AT&T could use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to sue hackers who unlock the iPhone and publish their methods.
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A controversial new law that could signal trouble ahead for independent programers is delayed again.
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Walls come tumbling down A UK firm that specialises in unlocking mobile phones reckons it's close to developing an application that would allow iPhone users to use the device with carriers other than AT&amp;T.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - A video showing the founder of a Belfast, Northern Ireland, company unlocking the iPhone hit the Web early Wednesday U.K. time as proof that software exists that can unlock Apple Inc.'s device for use with carriers other than AT&T Inc. In the six-minute video, posted on the iphoneunlocking.com blog , John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, is seen with a PC and an iPhone unlocking the device using software from his company. In the video, McLaughlin takes the SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card out of a Vodafone Blackberry device and puts it into the iPhone. He then makes two phone calls using the device. The video was shot at his house in Northern Ireland, he said. The video is of poor quality, as noted in his blog entry. "Sorry about the focus, it was done late night using a Nokia N95, but youâll see the process," he wrote. Uniquephones already unlocks phones from many manufacturers, including Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc., and about 60 percent of its customers are in the U.S. The video is the second time someone has tried to prove a software-only method exists to unlock the iPhone. AT&T has a long-term contract with Apple to be the exclusive U.S. wireless carrier for the phone, a fact that has irked iPhone users who want to have the option of using another carrier's service. The iPhone isn't yet available officially outside the U.S. The race to unlock the iPhone began as soon as the device hit stores June 29. Beginning last Friday, reports began to surface that a teenager in New Jersey had won. Seventeen-year-old George Hotz, who has sinceÂ traded his unlocked iPhone for a new car, unlocked the phone via software and hardware modifications, the latter of which required soldering. However, most observers agreed that not many users would want to tinker with such an expensive device this way. On the same day, a company called iPhoneSimFree.com and McLaughlin both claimed to have the first software-only unlocking method, but iPhoneSimFree.com was the first to show it to a credible third party: an editor of Engadget.com, which reported that Engadget editor Ryan Block had witnessed someone from the elusive group unlocking the iPhone via software. McLaughlin had planned to post his company's method for unlocking the iPhone to the Web site iphoneunlocking.com last Saturday, but it didn't go up. He said he feared legal action by AT&T Wireless if he posted the software because of a phone call he received at 3:00 a.m. in Belfast from a representative of O'Melveny & Myers LLP, an international law firm calling on AT&T's behalf. McLaughlin claimed the caller said Uniquephones.com would be in violation of copyright infringement and distributing Apple's intellectual property if he began selling the software to iPhone subscribers. As of Tuesday, McLaughlin said he is still undecided whether he will distribute the software, but that the video at least proves to naysayers that his company has unlocked the iPhone.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. _ Cisco Systems is giving Apple until February 15 to respond to a lawsuit over the trademark to the name "iPhone," according to a federal court document filed late Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - A company that unlocks cell phones in Europe said it is close to having an application that will allow customers to unlock their Apple iPhones so they can use SIM cards from carriers other than AT&T to activate the phones. In an interview this week in New York, John McLaughlin, founder of Belfast, U.K.-based Uniquephones, said he has engineers working around the clock in several countries who are close to cracking the complex security system Apple has set up to ensure customers can only use iPhones with AT&T Wireless service. The race by hackers to unlock iPhones has been on since the phone was released last Friday. Currently, AT&T Wireless has an exclusive deal with Apple to provide service for iPhones, and customers must agree to a two-year service plan with the company. However, customers have complained that the carrier's wireless service is slow, and according to McLaughlin, there has been tremendous interest in the ability to unlock the phone. By Sunday night, he said, more than 150,000 inquires had come in through the Web site he set up to request IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers from customer iPhones. While not everyone would volunteer their IMEI numbers, they still expressed interest in learning how to unlock their iPhones, McLaughlin said. When the site was set up, he thought it would be an easy case of supplying unlock codes from AT&T to unlock iPhones. But sometime over the weekend after iPhones went on sale, unlock codes from AT&T for about 6,000 iPhones disappeared from the carrier's database, and McLaughlin's team also realized it would be a more complex matter than simply providing an unlock code to release iPhones from AT&T's grip. There is at least a two-step process to unlocking an iPhone, McLaughlin said. His team has been able to unlock the activation process to the AT&T SIM card specific to an iPhone so another AT&T SIM card can work with the phone and be activated through iTunes. However, any attempt to change the firmware of an iPhone so it can support another carrier's SIM card breaks the phone, he said. The key to unlocking the phone is breaking the encryption process that protects the token sent through the iTunes activation process to an iPhone's firmware, McLaughlin believes. Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen, also known as "DVD John" because he cracked the DVD encryption scheme, claims he's been able to unlock the iPhone beyond the activation process that requires an AT&T account but said the device can't be used as a phone when that happens. Even after an iPhone were unlocked, it still could only work on carrier networks that support the GSM network, which is what AT&T's service is based on. In the U.S., T-Mobile is the only major carrier on a GSM network. And there is no guarantee Apple will not lock down the phones again in a future firmware update through the iPhone synchronization process or create a new way to unlock the next wave of iPhones they put on the market. That is, in fact, exactly what one analyst said will happen. "I assume that someone will succeed in unlocking the iPhone," said Avi Greengart, principal analyst, mobile devices at Current Analysis. "I also assume Apple will close whatever loophole is open the next time they synchronize [the software]." It's also likely there will be complications with special features of the phone that are designed to work only on AT&T's network, such as the visual voicemail feature, he said. Greengart said that he sympathizes with those that might want to use an iPhone with another carrier but "that's not the way the product was designed." "Exclusive agreements are not that unusual in this industry at all," he said. Aaron Santell, an iPhone user in New York, said that he would have preferred to use the service provider he has for his Blackberry device, Verizon Wireless, when he purchased an iPhone. But using AT&T's service is "a small price to pay" to use a device that provides such a rich user experience as the iPhone does, he said. As one might imagine, unlocking phones is a thorny issue with carriers, which certainly don't condone it. Carriers will give users unlock codes upon request for a fee, but they don't encourage the practice. In the U.K. and Europe, third parties have been unlocking handsets for several years, although there is no law that specifically protects them, McLaughlin said. However, in the U.S., it is legal to unlock mobile handsets under an amendment to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that was passed in November 2006. McLaughlin said that even though it's legal in the U.S. to unlock phones, he anticipates that if his team is successful, Apple may take legal action against them based on their tinkering with the firmware. "They'll probably come after us for copyright infringement," he said. Apple did not reply to requests for comment Thursday. McLaughlin plans to charge customers about $49.99 for software to unlock iPhones. Even if Uniquephones is not the first to offer unlocking capability, it won't be hard for them to replicate what others have done once the encryption is cracked, he added.
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After Apple warned iPhone users yesterday that the next software update could break their phones, the group behind one of the unlocking projects says they'll have a fix next week.
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The secret to unlocking the iPhone may be available, but the legal waters are murky, experts say.
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Apple's iPhone is locked to AT&T's telecom service, but now that the device is finally available for sale, a number of hackers are working to unlock it. The prognosis is promising.
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A video showing the founder of a Belfast, Northern Ireland company unlocking the iPhone hit the Web early Wednesday U.K. time as proof that software exists that can unlock Apple Inc.'s device for use with carriers other than AT&amp;T Inc.
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User groups said some customers waited nearly 60 hours without getting the iPhone activated, but AT&T and Apple said the problem affects only a small number of customers.
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Most U.S. carriers profit from consumer ignorance about the locking issue. But the iPhone controversy is changing all that. It's time consumers demand unlocked cell phones from their carriers.
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Unlocked and loaded Efforts to open up the functionality of Apple's iPhone to users disinclined to sign up to expensive two year contracts with AT&amp;T are growing.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Fear of litigation has led to an indefinite delay in theÂ planned Saturday release of software to unlock Apple Inc.'s iPhone. John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, said Saturday that he received a phone call about 3 a.m. Saturday local time from a man claiming to be from O'Melveny & Myers LLP, an international law firm, calling on behalf of AT&T. The firm has worked with Apple in the past. The man informed McLaughlin that if he posted the unlock code, he could be sued for copyright infringement and for dissemination of Apple's intellectual property (IP). McLaughlin was not completely awake when he took the call and did not get the full name of the person on the other end, he said. The man presented "friendly advice," but because of the timing of the call and the fact that it came on a personal mobile phone that McLaughlin never uses for business, it felt more threatening than friendly. "If he wants to give me advice, he could have sent me an e-mail," McLaughlin said. Spokespeople with O'Melveny & Myers, AT&T Wireless and Apple could not be immediately reached for comment Saturday. McLaughlin and his team had planned to release software by 2 p.m. EDT that he claims would unlock the iPhone so it could work with SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards from carriers other than AT&T Wireless. Uniquephones set up the Web siteÂ right after the iPhone's release on June 29 and had been working on the software since then. McLaughlin is concerned that fighting a lawsuit with AT&T or Apple would sink his small company, which does a modestly successful business unlocking wireless handsets in the U.K. and Europe. At the same time, he and engineers in several countries have invested time and money to come up with the unlock software. "It really annoys me," he said. "We have the solution sitting there and we have the customers there, but if you connect the two you could lose everything." About 550,000 people have signed up on Uniquephones' iPhone unlocking site as of Saturday afternoon in the U.K. McLaughlin said he still plans to release the software eventually, but is not sure when. "We'd be happy to let another company take the heat and be the second or third company to post [the software]," he said. In addition to Uniquephones' software, there have been two other reports of ways the iPhone can be unlocked. On Friday, blogger George Hotz posted a step-by-step tutorial for unlocking the iPhone that involves both hardware and software modifications. At another site, www.iPhoneSimFree.com, a company claims it can unlock iPhones through software only. The iPhone has been a hot target for unlocking since its launch, both because of its advanced design and features and because AT&T has an unusual long-term exclusive relationship with Apple. It's common for U.S. mobile operators to lock the phones they sell, but in some cases they will later unlock the phones free or for a small fee.