The Iphone gets jailbroken again

APPLE'S LATEST Iphone OS 3.1.2 has been jailbroken again, allowing users to do whatever they like with the gadgets they've bought.

Jobs' Mob has been fighting a losing battle with people who come up with code that stuffs Apple's obsessive demand that its customers do only what they are told.

The blackra1n jailbreaking tool for Mac OS X and Windows and was penned by George Hotz, who is also known as 'GeoHot'. He was struck off Apple's Christmas card list after he wrote purplera1n earlier this year.

Now, by using blacksn0w, users with Iphone OS 3.1.2 and its updated 05.11.07 baseband can unlock the smartphone and use it on whatever GSM or UTMS carrier they prefer.

Writing in his blog, GeoHot said, "Jailbreaking and unlocking have never been easier". The tool means faster jailbreaking, one-click hacktivation, unlocking, and enabling tethering support all in one app.

It only works in tethered mode with the new Iphone 3GS and Ipod touch models that use a different bootloader than older models. In other words you have to be connected to a computer with blackra1n running whenever the device is rebooted. That's a pain in the arse but better than having to do what Steve Jobs tells you.

It can't unlock the baseband on EDGE-only Iphones, but that capability can be enabled by using the BootNeuter tool.

Apple is apparently incandescent with rage that all the money it spends on trying to control its users is being wasted. Rather than getting some counselling for its control freak ways, Apple has decided that the only way forward is to spend more money and write tougher controls.

Ars Technica noted that Jobs Mob has posted a job listing for an Iphone OS Platform Security Manager, who will oversee a team "focused on the platform security of Iphone OS."

The team is supposed to make sure that Apple can put an end to Iphone jailbreaking. It will also do "partitioning and hardening of security domains within the OS, cryptographic services, and risk analysis of security threats."

GeoHot warns that this current effort is about the best he can do to get the phone jailbroken. He thinks that Apple could - and likely will - patch the exploit that makes the jailbreak and unlock possible in the future.

However we are sure that as long as the control freaks in Cupertino insist on telling users exactly what they can and can't do with the hardware they've bought, there will always be jailbreakers who can work out how to tell Apple where to go. µ