iPhone unlocker trades phone for 'sweet' car
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A company that refurbishes cell phones is giving a car to a hacker that figured out how to unlock the iPhone.
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Software lets iPhone owners swap out SIM cards so that the device can make calls on cellular networks other than AT&T's.
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Now that Apple Inc.&#39;s iPhone is finally on sale, the race is on to see who can unlock it.
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Really: we can unlock an iPhone Belfast company UniquePhone has reacted to accusations that it can't really unlock Apple's iPhone by posting a four minute video showing someone apparently doing just that.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Hackers may successfully unlock an iPhone in as soon as three to seven days, according to a representative of one effort that aims to unlockÂ Apple's new handset. "We believe it will be easy. We are privately aware many of the iPhone engineers came from other handset manufacturers, and we understand their design techniques fairly well," said gj, speaking in an interview conducted using IRC (Internet Relay Chat). He requested that his real name not be used. "Easy to us means inside one week," he said, offering an estimate of three to seven days. Unlocking the iPhone means users will be able to use the handset with other service providers, not just AT&T, which has an exclusive deal to sell the phone in the U.S. By Tuesday night, U.S. time, hackers succeeded in cracking the iPhone's activation process, a minor step towards unlocking the iPhone but a significant technical challenge. The activation process uses a software token that is sent from the phone via iTunes to Apple, which signs the token and returns it to the phone. When that process is completed, iTunes tells the phone to activate. Hackers developed tools for both Windows and MacOS that allow users to activate their phones without iTunes. But users will have to use a token from an activated iPhone, which can be used to activate multiple phones. The hackers are not providing a token with the tools. "If you don't have a known token (which does contain identifying information) you won't be able to use the tool," gj said. At least one other hacker found a way to activate the iPhone without using iTunes. Jon Lech Johansen -- better known as DVD Jon, a hacker who helped develop the DeCSS tool for decrypting DVDs -- released a tool that can activate the iPhone without iTunes on his blog. "The iPhone does not have phone capability, but the iPod and Wi-Fi work," Johansen wrote. Cracking the activation process brings hackers one step closer to their goal of unlocking the iPhone. The phone requires iTunes to activate functions such as its camera and music player. But the process also requires signing up for a two-year data plan with AT&T. "Activating the phone really just makes the device more 'usable' for those who want to use it as a Wi-Fi device, for instance," gj said. With the activation process cracked hackers turned their focus to unlocking the iPhone, a challenge that is expected to be easier than cracking the activation process. "Unlocking is a function of the radio and the radio's interaction with the SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) logic, and these are mostly standards based," gj said. A rumored software update for the iPhone, expected to be released on July 5, could undo some of the progress hackers made towards unlocking the phone. "If Apple releases an update on July 5th that includes 'fixes' for our efforts so far, it will be a setback," gj said. "I don't know if it will be a permanent one." Hackers working together to unlock the iPhone don't belong to a specific group, and don't plan to claim credit for their work, gj said. "We just want to see the hardware freed. We accept that others will exploit those works but hopefully it will be a lesson to Apple," he said. "They're such a great company, it's a real shame for them to lock everything down like this. The design is top notch," he said. "They would win far more business by setting an example for the industry."
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(InfoWorld) - A hacker who figured out how to unlock the iPhone has traded an unlocked phone for a new car. After facing problems trying to auction the phone on eBay, George Hotz received a call from CertiCell, a company that refurbishes mobile phones. "Terry Daidone, the founder of CertiCell, contacted me this morning, and offered to make a trade for the iPhone," Hotz wrote on his blog. "I traded it for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones." Hotz shared the method he discovered for unlocking the phone on his blog, so the phone he traded doesn't hold any secrets. But he put the phone up for auction because he thought someone might want the phone, the second one that he unlocked, for its historical value. "If you are only bidding on this to get an unlocked iPhone, don't. There are much cheaper and easier ways to get one. This is a piece of cell phone history," he wrote on his blog. Hotz, who arrived at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York for his first days of college on Sunday, closed the eBay auction after receiving too many fraudulent bids. He then invited legitimately interested buyers to contact him directly. He plans to give the three iPhones from CertiCell to people who helped him as he worked on unlocking the phone. Besides accepting the gifts, Hotz agreed to do some consulting work for CertiCell, according to a statement from the company. While the statement says that CertiCell doesn't plan to commercialize Hotz's unlocking method, it also says that part of Hotz's consulting work will include training CertiCell staff on the unlocking process. CertiCell also hopes that Hotz will help its engineers develop new methods for updating software and reflashing refurbished phones. Since the iPhone went on sale at the end of June,Â hackers have been working on ways to unlock it. The phones are built to work only on AT&T's wireless network. Unlocking the phone means that a customer can use it on another network and avoid signing a long contract with AT&T. The process is controversial, however. One company, Uniquephones, says that it has developed a way to unlock the phones, but hasÂ delayed the release because of concerns of legal action from AT&T.
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Blog: Rumors emerge that the iPhone will be avaialble to prepaid AT&T users.
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By Barbara Grady  MATT MORGAN of Alameda said he plans to borrow an iPhone from a friend to check it out before he plunks down $500 for his own.
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(InfoWorld) - Hackers who unlock Apple's iPhone from the AT&T network and share the method with 10 million of their closest Internet friends are inviting a lawsuit from the two companies, several intellectual property (IP)Â lawyers said Monday. Apple and AT&T may have a legal case against unlockers under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), especially if they try to sell software code or devices that unlock the iPhone, the lawyers said. But the legal landscape gets a bit complicated -- there's a legal exception to the DMCA's anticircumvention provisions that allows individual mobile phone users to unlock their devices for use on other networks. So figuring out how to unlock the iPhone yourself is not likely to be a DMCA violation, most of the IP lawyers said. But posting instructions or code online, even for free, may earn you a cease-and-desist letter from an unfriendly lawyer, and selling software or a device that unlocks the phone is inviting trouble, most of the lawyers said. But there's plenty of disagreement among IP lawyers about the interpretation of the DMCA. "It's an extremely grey [area], because I don't think the exemption was altogether clear," said Bart Showalter, an intellectual property lawyer in Dallas with the Baker Botts LLP law firm. "The idea of trying to use copyright to, in a sense, establish exclusivity in a service contract ... is going to be an interesting thing to watch." John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, had planned to release software Saturday that wouldÂ allow users to unlock their iPhone. But early Saturday morning, McLaughlin said he received a phone call from a man saying he was from a law firm representing AT&T. The caller saidÂ McLaughlin could be sued for copyright infringement. Two other groups have claimed to have unlocked the iPhone. Representatives of both AT&T and Apple declined to comment Monday on possible legal actions against unlockers. Showalter suggested that unlocking the iPhone and posting code or instructions for free would likely fall under the exception to the DMCA's anticircumvention provisions, thus protecting the unlocker from legal action. The exception allows circumvention of device controls "for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network," according to language from the U.S. registrar of copyrights. So if a hacker unlocks the iPhone, then posts the unlocking code for free, he's engaging in a legal activity and enabling others to engage in the same legal activity, said Michael Lewis, an IP lawyer with Fox Rothschild LLP. If that hacker is sued, he could probably argue that posting of the unlocking code is protected by free speech provisions in U.S. law, according to Lewis. Other IP lawyers disagreed. Movie studios have successfully sued Web site operators for distributing the DeCSS DVD-copying code, noted Carole Handler, an IP lawyer with Foley and Lardner LLP. The unlocker of the iPhone who posts code online could be held liable for secondary copyright infringement, she said. "I don't see that [Apple and AT&T] have a choice," Handler said. "They have to do something. If you don't protect your intellectual property, it's gone." Lewis' colleague, Gerry Norton, agreed, saying the unlocking exception was narrowly written. "The exception was just for the end-user," he said. Most of the lawyers agreed that selling software to unlock the iPhone, as McLaughlin was planning to do, would invite a lawsuit under the DMCA. "The courts seem to have less sympathy for people who are doing things to make a buck," Lewis said. But there wasn't even unanimous agreement on the legal liability of selling unlocking software. If the software being distributed targeted only the network lock on the iPhone, the developer could have a defense, Showalter said. "It does seem a little unusual to me that they say somebody can unlock their phone, but if someone tells them how to do it, that's a violation of the DMCA," he said. "If the software that's being sold is only doing the minimum amount that's necessary to allow it to interoperate with other services, you may have some support in the DMCA exception." Beyond the legal questions about unlocking the iPhone, Apple and AT&T could face their own legal challenges, Handler said. The exclusive contract between the two companies could lead to an antitrust lawsuit if a competitor or customer could successfully argue there's no other device like the iPhone available on the market, she said. "Consumers want new technology," she said. "This is the era of the consumer controlling the media. When the consumer is told he or she can't do something, they get pretty upset, and they start claiming conspiracy, antitrust, and the whole bit."
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I had a great Skype talk with Paolo yesterday. He was driving his car, in Italy near his home in Trieste. The connection was great, it was like living in the future.  One of the things we talked about was the iPhone. At first I talked about it as if Paolo had had one from the outset. He feels that close, and he's the kind of person who would get the latest Mac toy on Day 1, just like me. Later, when he said he just got his iPod Touch, I realized of course, this is one of those things we got here in the U.S. that they haven't gotten yet in Europe. Don't worry, they have some something we don't, a strong currency. :-( So here's his first writeup of the iPod Touch.
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There's more to gain than lose from the upcoming iPhone.
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A New Jersey teenager unlocks the iPhone, opening the way to Apple's hit mobile being used by non-US networks.
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By Jim Hopkins  SAN FRANCISCO -- Can't wait until the end of the month to buy an iPhone?    Someone in Atlanta is advertising Apple's must-have cellphone for $800 on classifieds site Craigslist. The ad  includes a photo purporting to show the gadget.
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If there is a billion-dollar gamble underlying Appleâs iPhone, it lies in what this smart cellphone does not have: a mechanical keyboard.
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Shortly after activating his new iPhone, Michael DeAgonia  received his â first phone call. A few moments after that, I got another. I was able to swap between calls, merge them, put them on hold, and separate them without hassle. Other phones, of course, do that as well. Whatâs the difference here? The multitouch screen and interface. I can confirm what early reviewers have already pointed out: it works like magic.â The iPhone, DeAgonia indicates, â isnât a collection of features, itâs a well-thought-out multi-function device with functions bound together by a drop-dead simple, drop-dead gorgeous interface. The sum is more than the parts.â
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Apple's offer of a $100 credit to early iPhone buyers has restored faith in the company for most customers.
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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.