To Jailbreak or Not to Jailbreak
Hacked iPhone
To Jailbreak or not to jailbreak. That’s the question.
No longer.
For a while my iPhone 2G was jailbroken. It was a neat novelty back when there wasn’t an app store and there were a few cool features you could add via a simple web hack in iPhone OS 1.1. Some days I miss the customization of the lock screen and the ability to change the icons and background – enough that I was considering the really quick and simple blackra1n for my 2G.
Two things happened over the course of this past weekend.
First – my trusty iPhone 2G finally bit the dust through no fault other than my own (dropping it firmly and matter of fact on a ceramic tile floor). No worries – blackra1n jailbreaks 3GS just the same.
Second and more concerning – rootkits have now appeared for jailbroken iPhones. The first being harmless (rickroll, anyone?), but this iPhone banking exploit showing just how nasty the potential really is.
So, jailbreakers – change your password. Now.
Me, I’m not jailbreaking my shiny new iPhone 3GS.
Reality check. I’m a customer in good standing with AT&T and have been for over 15 years now. For some reason, and I guess I should consider myself lucky, I don’t seem to have all the other nasty problems people claim they have. Perhaps it’s because I don’t live in New York or San Francisco. I can’t speak to others’ experiences, only my own. Jailbreaking your phone will, indirectly so, violate your contract and void your warranty. I like both and want to keep both.
Big deal? Who can tell? Take me as pessimistic if you would, but it would trivial to add a check to iTunes to see if the root password has been changed (and you did change it after you jailbroke your phone, right). I expect as word of this malicious hack trickles down to Apple and AT&T that they’ll be doing just that. I certainly would.
This sort of exploit allows Steve Jobs’ original concern to come true. Maybe he was smarter than we gave him credit for.
