Group releases free iPhone unlock hack
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(InfoWorld) - A hacker group released a free, open source unlock for Apple's iPhone late Tuesday, just a day after a commercial company started selling something similar for as much as $99 through a network of online resellers. The iPhone Dev Team, a dozen programmers who began their attempts to break the iPhone's reliance on AT&T in early July, have posted their hack on download servers. According to several sites, including Gizmodo and Engadget, the iPhone Dev Team unlock exploits the same iPhone bug as the for-money iPhoneSIMFree hack to do its magic. The two groups, however, came up with their solutions independently. But the process isn't for the faint of heart. "This unlock is not for everybody!" the iPhone Dev Team warned. The procedure involves several separate programs -- some of which must be obtained elsewhere on the Internet -- and requires that iPhone owners execute commands from a shell screen on the Mac or PC. Even so, reports have been posted to the team's site from users in more than 40 countries that the unlock hack works, and after a swap of the iPhone's included SIM card with one from another cellular service provider, that they've been able to access more than 90 different carriers. The iPhone's distinctive Visual Voicemail, which lets users select voice-mail messages rather than listen to them in the order they were received, is missing after an unlock; that feature relies on AT&T's back end. Some users have also reported that the iPhone's connection to YouTube no longer works after the hack is applied. The iPhone Dev Team is already working on a one-click tool sporting a graphical interface that will unlock an iPhone, but it had not been released as of this morning. "A new version of the GUI tool is almost complete," the group said on its site. It's likely, however, that any unlock will be undone by the next iPhone update, which Apple has said will be issued sometime this month to give the device new capabilities, such as Wi-Fi downloading from iTunes. The iPhoneSIMFree group, for example, has hammered the caveat into potential buyers' heads: "We cannot offer any guarantee should Apple Inc. choose to re-lock the phone after a future update," it stated in a FAQ. Resellers of the iPhoneSIMFree hack, who have priced the unlock as low as $45, have repeated the no-guarantee mantra. Apple has repeatedly refused to comment on the various iPhone unlock hacks -- paid versions or free ones.
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(InfoWorld) - Efforts to unlock Apple's iPhoneÂ continued on Monday, with hackers claiming "very significant progress." The locked iPhone only works with AT&T's EDGE network, and cannot be used with cellular service from other providers. Locked phones are generally used to help operators recoup the cost of subsidizing handsets for their customers, but AT&T is not subsidizing the iPhone, which is priced at either $499 or $599, depending on the model. Instead, the phone is locked because AT&T has a five-year agreement with Apple to be the sole iPhone provider in the U.S. Unlocking the iPhoneÂ would be a boon for users locked into a contract with another U.S. carrier, or for users outside the U.S. who want an iPhone. While initial signs indicate an unlocked iPhone is possible, hackers must first overcome several challenges. One of those involves circumventing the authentication process in iTunes that both lets users register for an AT&T service plan and turn on the phone's features, including its camera and music player. By Monday evening, U.S. time, hackers had made headway towards circumventing the activation process. But the phone remained locked at the time of writing. "We have been fairly successful in spoofing iTunes activation processes. This should allow us to activate the phone," poster gj wrote on the iPhone Dev Wiki, one of several Web sites tracking efforts to unlock the phone. "It may in fact also prevent the SIM locking from occurring in the first place ... though we haven't verified this yet." These advances allowed hackers to set and read data on the iPhone, including the ability to query whether a phone has been activated. "The rest of our work is legwork really, in understanding how certain functions operate with the rest of the phone," the site said, adding hackers are close to the ability to browse system files on the iPhone, a key step toward unlocking the handset. Once the activation problem has been overcome, hackers will be faced with other questions. For instance, does iTunes have the ability to recognize a phone that was not activated for use with the AT&T network? If so, how will iTunes react? After these questions are resolved, hackers can focus on unlocking the handset itself. That task is made easier by the iPhone's use of a removable SIM (Subscriber Identity Module), a smart card that contains a user's phone number as well as storage space for contacts and messages, instead of one that was hardwired into the phone. The use of a removable SIM card means the iPhone is locked using its firmware, which can likely be cracked. While hackers race ahead to unlock the iPhone as quickly as possible, iPhone Dev Wiki poster gj criticized those hackers competing against each other to unlock the phone, saying the lack of cooperation had slowed progress. "I can't emphasize enough how much this s*** stinks. Trust me, your ego is not as important as you think it is. If everyone worked together we would have been done by now, but instead we have a******* all over the world trying to 'beat us to the punch,'" the poster wrote. Â
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(InfoWorld) - Hackers areÂ working to unlock Apple's iPhone, but the job appears to be more difficult than initially expected. Hackers had hoped that modifying the iPhone's bootloader -- the program that runs before the operating system is loaded -- would unlock the handset. But that turned out to be a dead end, as the bootloader code must be signed using a 1,024-bit RSA private key employed by Apple, according to an update released last week by hackers working together on the #iphone IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel. Now, the hackers on #iphone are working to create an assembler utility for the iPhone's processor. "This is our last major hurdle to overcome in order to write programs for the phone," they said last week. Once hackers have the ability to write programs for the iPhone, they can write one to unlock the handset, they said. The iPhone is locked for use with AT&T's EDGE network. Unlocking the iPhone will allow the handsets to be used with other operators, including carriers in Asia and Europe, where the phone is not yet available. Efforts to unlock the iPhone began almost as soon as the phone hit store shelves on June 29. Within days, hackers managed to circumvent the phone's activation function, allowing users to access many of the phone's features, except its cellular phone function. TheÂ first to release an iPhone activation toolÂ was Jon Lech Johansen -- better known as DVD Jon, a hacker who helped develop a tool for decrypting the content on DVDs -- who released a tool on July 3. Within 20 minutes of that release, a second activation tool was released by the hackers on #iphone. While hackers have yet to unlock the iPhone, they have made other breakthroughs since overcoming the activation hurdle. For instance, hackers last week released a tool that allows users to install custom ringtones on the iPhone.
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A group of hackers releases perhaps the easiest application yet for getting third-party software onto iPhones running the most up-to-date version of Apple's firmware.
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A 17-year-old hacker has broken the lock that ties Appleâs iPhone to AT&Tâs wireless network, freeing the most hyped cell phone ever for use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones.
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InfoWorld - Hackers are&#160;working to unlock Apple&#39;s iPhone, but the job appears to be more difficult than initially expected.
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iPhone hackers have some new tools now, thanks to HD Moore, one of the developers of the Metasploit hacking software.
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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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A new software-based unlocking scheme for your iPhone makes it easier for those of us without soldering skills to leave AT&T. But the good times probably won't last.
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More jailbreaks than a spaghetti western The latest version of the firmware for Apple's iPhone has fallen to hackers less than a week after its release.â¦
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Two software-based hacks, as well as one that involves hardware modifications, are set to allow iPhone owners to swap in SIM cards from providers other than AT&T.
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Hackers claim 'very significant progress' toward making Apple's iPhone work with carriers other than AT&T.
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Hackers have figured out how to unleash Apple's iPhone from AT&amp;T's cellular network, but people hoping to make money from the procedure could face legal problems.
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(InfoWorld) - One of the groups that claims it has developed an unlock hack for Apple's iPhone is now saying it will only offer the software to resellers, not to individuals, a popular technology blog reported Monday. According to an e-mail message sent to interested volume sellers -- and posted by Engadget Monday -- iPhoneSIMFree said it would not sell the unlock directly to iPhone owners. "iphonesimfree.com is a wholesale only company," read the e-mail. "Although we could, we do not and will not sell directly to end-users because we want to work together with our valuable resellers as a team and not interfere in their business." Late last month, iPhoneSIMFree said it had created software that would let iPhone owners make calls on mobile networks other than AT&T, the smart phone's official and exclusive carrier in the U.S. Unlocking the iPhone is contrary to Apple's intent; according to the company, iPhones must be activated only with AT&T, and buyers must subscribe to a two-year AT&T calling plan. Even so, Apple has made no public announcement about iPhoneSIMFree or any other of several unlocking schemes that have been publicized. iPhoneSIMFree's e-mail also outlined the unlock process and spelled out its pricing structure. The unlock requires that a file be installed on the iPhone and a connection made to the iPhoneSIMFree servers; the latter, said iPhoneSIMFree, links the specific iPhone to the unlock. Resellers will handle part of the process. Prices will range from $25 per unlock (in lots of 5,000 or more) to $36 (in lots of 50). The company, which has no mailing address, has kept its composition and the identity of its developers, under wraps. Its Web site, for example, uses an anonymity service to cloak the usual address, phone number, and contact person information searchable via WHOIS. iPhoneSIMFree also said it would not guarantee that the unlock would work in the future. "It does currently work on all firmware versions, up to and including, 1.02," said iPhoneSIMFree in the e-mail quoted by Engadget. "We will naturally try to provide our resellers an updated version of our software for each firmware update, it is in our interest, but we do NOT guarantee that we will be able to do so." Apple's iPhone updates have required users who installed hacks or work-arounds to restore their devices from scratch, which erased the modifications. The most recent update, 1.0.2, however, did not cripple most hacks as had the first firmware update. An Irish company that announced another unlock has been silent on the subject for a week. UniquePhones last mentioned its iPhone unlock on Aug. 28 when it posted video of an unlock in progress. Prior to that, UniquePhones had said it would start selling its unlock Aug. 25 but backed off after receiving a phone call it said came from a California law firm representing AT&T. Another unlock, a Czech product dubbed TurboSIM, is currently unavailable; its maker's Web ordering site had been inundated, and now sports messages such as "Sorry, temporarily closed" beside the unlock product. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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Hackers have found a way to use Apple Inc's iPhone on networks other than AT&T Inc's, opening up the coveted device to rival carriers and overseas customers, according to a Web report on Friday.
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If you&#39;re fed up with using an iPhone on AT&T&#39;s network, you now can download software to unlock your Apple handset. One package, developed by iPhoneSimFree, is now available from resellers in the U.S., the Middle East, and Europe. It&#39;ll set you back $99. Once installed, though, the app allows you to use your iPhone with another carrier.
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With iPhone prices dropping and noticeable improvements in the quality of iPhone hacking tools, Apple's phone has become a more interesting target for hackers.