Since the release of the iPhone in 2007, hackers have began a battle against Apple and its closed software.
When I say closed, I refer to the control the company exercises on its products, limiting the applications and programmes that can be installed by the user. Here is when hackers made available a tool for consumers to break that wall and “hack” into these gadgets, allowing the to use third-party software.
The process of enabling users to install unauthorised apps is called jailbreaking. When doing so, the tool provides a new store called Cydia.
Jay Freeman goes by the name of saurik and was the creator of this alternative store.
Jailbreaking has a long story. Jailbreakme 1.0 was released few months and was available for the iPhone and iPod Touch in the United States. It allowed to free the operative system 1.1.1 and went by the name of AppSnap.
Then the 3G version of the handset was released worldwide and Pwnage Tool came along. The iPhone Dev Team has been in charge of making jailbreak process possible, releasing tools like Redsn0w, QuickPWN and GreenPois0n, and creating a whole new community of people dedicated to challenge Apple’s security systems.
Other tools include Spirit, JailbreakMe 2.0 and 3.0, purplera1n and Limera1n, exploiting flaws in the devices that include entering through PDF files and the breaking into the process of reboot.
When in it comes to legality, the Library of Congress in the United Sates ruled in July 2010, “The user is not engaging in any commercial exploitation of the firmware. At least not when the jail-breaking is done for the user’s own private use of the device”, this explained by the country’s Copyright Office.
Cupertino’s based company explained to Cult to Mac , “Apple’s goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience. As we’ve said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably.”
What does this mean to the user? In the simplest terms, the warranty would end when jailbreaking the range of Apple’s products: iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Though, scrolling through the Internet, some people argue the process is reversible, avoiding the lost of the company’s agreement.
Jailbreaking has pros and cons, the latter being malfunction and privacy issues. In the United Kingdom, Duncan Geere, a reporter for Wired, argues, “Over here we have a far more tangled set of rules and regulations, thanks to the intervention of the European Union. The relevant EU directive essentially says that breaking “technical protection” (i.e. DRM) on software is fine, as long as you’re not doing it for the purposes of infringing copyright (i.e. playing pirated games).
“But that’s Europe. In the UK, we have to ratify all of these EU directives before they become law, so the British lawmakers transposed the EU directive into British law, in the “Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003”.
That says essentially the same thing — that it’s okay to break these “technical measures” for interoperability reasons, but not for the purposes of infringing copyright.”
Andres Guadamuz, who is a lecturer in IT law at the University of Edinburgh, says there haven’t been any test cases that set any legal precedents in the United Kingdom.
But while piracy can be accomplished by jailbreaking an iPhone, most of the users don’t do it for that reason. They procede to get access to software created by third parties that Apple won’t allow on its own store. Geere explains, “They jailbreak so they get more access to the device’s hardware, and use it in different ways.
“They jailbreak because they don’t want Apple’s controlling hands on everything that they do on their device.”
It is hard to say do it or don´t do it, but from my experience, it is worth the shot for the reason that will be explained further on the magazine and that exemplify the good qualities of jailbreaking.
Just to be clear, it is under your responsibility to jailbreak. I don´t want any complaints, but don´t worry, I can assure if you Google jailbreak you will find a very good response from user that have tried it and that want tools like this to be released.
EPELTECH 