India's Airtel claims "deadliest hackers" still can't crack its iPhone 3G
By Darren Murph 
posted Aug 23rd 2008 7:41AM
posted Aug 23rd 2008 7:41AM
Hey, hackers! Now that we've got the attention of millions upon millions of incredibly talented individuals, here's your next challenge. India's Airtel -- which is offering Apple's iPhone 3G at a near-stratospheric price -- has claimed that "even the most deadly hackers on the planet won't be able to crack the codes that support the iPhone's Airtel applications with rival company SIMs." Just so you know, it appears that Airtel worked with Apple to develop "operator-specific iPhone applications," which is an interesting tidbit in and of itself. But let's focus on the task at hand here, and that's proving that making ridiculous claims about impenetrability always comes back to bite ya.[Image courtesy of Zedomax, thanks Akshay]
Since when are hackers deadly???
O I get it, they've been watching Live Free or Die Hard...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNO6G4ApJQY
Serious Business
Anyway, I don't think the attention Airtel will get from claiming to be so secure and then from being hacked is worth getting hacked...
everybody knows hacking is MURDER
Hackers are not deadly, instead the cost of iPhone 3G in India is definitely the deadliest, costing 800 US $ for a silly phone which has connnectivity slower than a 54kbps dial up modem, I think the Dial Up modem will be faster than the speeds airtel or other operators have to offer for internet browsing on GSM or CDMA network, by the way the fastest known connection for these GSM operators is EDGE which has variable speed depending on the Volume of Users at the same time, God Bless the folks who fall for this marketing gimmick and seriously think of purchasing iPhone in India
That movie was so shit!
Nothing is impossible ;D
Obviously the guy who handles Airtel PR has never heard of Pwnage tool. We here in India will have the last laugh (or so we hope). The insane price apart. The phone is still LOCKED to Airtel. Not too surprising, Airtel is quite thuggish in its dealings with its customers.
u look like nick cannon
Killed for $1 or less? We do it for fuck all in Scotland.
Time to call in those hackers from Mars!
It would be funny if everythig would work with Turbo SIM or any other HW hack.
na .. i am sure after 1 month .. normal cranker will do that for 100 IC ..
belive me ..
india is country where people are killed just for 1 $ or less . ..
people will do anything to earn money.. and now hacking iphone is a new business ..
Lol - just like any other country in the world. If you're speaking of a harder work ethic then yes it's true, but it's not really a money thing as is illustrated from the fact that they often work for very little, at home and abroad.
although I would like to know where you found this statistic about "people are killed just for 1 $ or less ... "
Sounds like a (Steve) Jobsean Statistical Underestimation to me. (1% affected by Mobile Me outage)
Lol oh right I forgot, most people don't understand socio-economics.
Low ranking only makes me more arrogant :P
Now i really want this phone to be hacked. When companies bate hackers like this, its hard to show mercy as a consumer. I'm not a heavy "warez" user, but skyrocketing prices and security over innovation are very good reasons to be.
Still waiting for the unlock. What's taking them so long?
Social lives.
dont mind us Indians.. these airtel guys are the worst sort of n00bs you can find on this planet. they've invited trouble by stating such a thing. i know for a fact that my friend is using its Airtel Live service for free since a year.
am voting you down for lying :P
congrats!!!
@rahul they just say it because we Indians bought ONLY 700(seven hundred) iPhone 3G's on the 1st day!
1m 1n y0ur c0mput3r h4ck1ng y0ur f1l3s...
It was going to happen anyway, now it's going to happen quicker than ever.
Why would you hack the Iphone if you could get it unlocked in Belgium?
Because it cost's as much as 2 puppies and a lifetime supply of ham.
Seriously?
hey, being an indian lemme ask these airtel guys is this any way of ur strategy to make people buy iphone, atleast the hackers?????
cos nobody in india with little brains is gonna buy this fone from india......cos its damn costly.....700$ in India compared to 199$ in US without contract.......
what abt Steve Jobs speech??.......in the keynote he said the price will be similar to 199$ worldwide.....doesnt india belong to ur globe?????
ur typing iz hard 2read
Since when is it without contract for $200 in US?
Since when is it $200 without contract in US?
Arre... what he meant was its without contract in india.
$799 fro locked phone without contract.... this is absurd.
I guess this will push sales for HTC touch, HTC diamond, Samsung Omnia, Samsung Instinct, SE W960i, etc etc
They do have toilet paper. They also have the toilets that spray your arse...
Guess who I'm rooting for? :)
I think my answer is wrong... ;)
I'll give them a week til they hack it.
hey this is another kinda hype like iPhone 3G is twice faster than ..errr.. 2G!
I think you mean 1.5G
you got me!..
uhhh it depends on where you are. Most houses in major cities like Kolkata, Madras, and New Delhi have it, but some of the more old-fashonied mug and bucket types are still out there. But hey when I lived in India 8 years ago, I never even knew wat toilet paper was, Now i'm living in the us and just visited india and toilet paper is used widely. It's also available in most department store, but not like the kind u get in the states. After spending a month in india, i treated myself to some charmin!
I have to bow before these hackers who made Jailbreak & Unlocking what it is. It was because of them that I went out and got a iPod Touch. When all other iPods came out, I found nothing really useful of them to really care about buying one. Sure, everyone that I knew had one, showing off the Apple device, but I was like whatever. Just another MP3 on the market.
However, when the iPod Touch came out and when I learned on what kinds of things it could do, exspecially browsing the internet and running games and applications, I was sold. That was something I knew would keep me entertained and informed off all the things I wanted.
It is going to be funny as shit when someone does crack the 3G and unlock it. I bet everyone and their brother would be shitting their pants. All this goes way past my knowledge of code & everything.
its just their marketing tatics...The iphone sales increases if it gets hacked...Wish someone hacks vodafone iphones and leave airtel unhackable...only a few will buy airtel iphone then...
last time Airtel did this - the impenetrable hack was sim superglued into their phones
AirTel...I though Vodafone was going to be carrying iPhone in India. Airtel has really good service, I was using them when I was in India few months ago.
if nobody can afford it, nobody can hack it
Wow $800 for a LOCKED iPhone. Do they think people are stupid?
Yes.
I wish if anyone atleast read the article. Article states that if the "deadly hacker" used sim of the rival network and used voice call he wont be able to use "Airtel Live" ( which is a network dependent feature). So basically neither is the iPhone locked and neither they have implemented any super "Anti Hacker Technology" . But since its super expensive they wanted to be newsworthy and whats most news worthy nowadays than security and hackers ;) By saying how secure they are they are just promoting ...their uber expensive iPhone to PHBs .
Note: AirTel Live is not an iPhone specific application either its available on nokias and SE and any other gprs phone on Airtel network.
haha this is just like when Apple said no one could write a virus for a Mac...too bad back then no1 cared about writing viruses for Macs because no one who didn't have their head up their ass would store vital information on a Mac.
Someone will crack the iPhone 3G. And then Apple will scramble to issue a new update to make that hack null and void, rinse and repeat. If they don't, I will renounce my Apple prejudice and jump on the Apple wagon
Now that i have stopped laughing reading this absurd claim, the only two features that Airtel "claims" to be unpenetrable are Airtel Live and Airtel Apps. Anyone using Airtel will tell you that Airtel Live is just another portal...nothing "exclusive" out there. Believe me, u got better ways to access google search than through Live and Airtel Apps r nothing to write about. So there IS NO challenge since Airtel themselves admit that the phone can be competely manipulated except for these two features.
I guess what they mean is deadly hackers wont bother cracking iPhone on airtel as no one is going to buy it! 800$ for a locked phone?!!
Yeah. That makes much more sense !
Apple should claim that. AirTel is just a service provider, how can they claim it ?
I hate to say this, and take it lightly, but Engadget, is this really what you want to do? Engadget has always covered all news, including hacks and piracy and everything, and thats fine if you're just reporting about it, but now this is like an actual call out for hackers based on Engadget's home page.
I dunno, I personally wouldn't mind seeing them eat their words, I just don't know if it's an appropriate article for such a big tech news site, especially one that's corporately backed.
honestly, at this point, I'd be more impressed by a company that could actually make something un-hackable, than by someone hacking a phones software. that's not to say that I'd enjoy said device, it's just that everything has been hacked these days.
Then you are very impressed by Nokia. Sony Ericsson also impress you.
People who expects iphones to be unlocked quickly needs to take a look at what's the current status with other phone manufacturers.
They can always buy an iPhone without a network lock from Hong Kong (A phone with a network lock is not going to make it in Hong Kong), and NZ and Italty with that $800~
Who cares? Go buy it from Hong Kong.
I bought unlocked Iphone 3G from Hong Kong and brought it to Thailand.
It worked really well for Thailand sim card and
my friend bought the unlocked 3G from Australia and it worked too.
Only US hackers can't unlock the phone because the power of AT&T's $$$.
Iphone 3G is already unlocked by some smart people in India. Its not a complete unlock though. What happens is; they unlock your iphone 3G from any carrier and lock it to another one (gsm network) of your choose, using their own custom hacking software. Its pretty expensive (110US/-) that why I didn’t try. Because its, only add up to my iphone cost; which is 850US/-, as I imported it from U.S., almost a month back.
@
CUBSWILLWIN i lovee the toilets that spray ur arse .. we don't get them here in usa :--( . anyway about the iphone .. it fuckin sucks! the only thing i like about is the ipod + picture gallery interface and yes the web browser!! rest all is bullshit. i have the first gen iphone and now that iv installed bunch of applications it crashes alot , hangs alot. about the iphone 3g.. lol i laugh at people who get fooled by "3g" .. technically yes it is supposed to be fast but try openin a website on 2g and 3g iphone. i swear to god it opens faster on 2g lol. 3g reception out here in U.S. Sucks... and being a indian i know one damn thing for sure, you are not gonna get 3g speed in india. airtel's gprs and even edge is fookin slow! and about the price.. its not a big deal.. $800 phone in india is a very normal thing. i mean look at nokia. every new nokia's phone costs anywhere between $700 - $900 . anyway fuck iphone after using it for a year im back on communicator. i fuckin love nokia communicators.and i'll wait for the next year to buy another iphone.hopefully by then they'll have a much better iphone. what's gonna make it better is like a 32gb hard drive with 5mp camera and basic things like cut copy paste , folder lock ann bla bla bla........
i think Airtel is still in it's 20's apple iphone hacking is a child's stuff..belive me.........
winpwn and many diffrent types of jailbraking available for iphone wach out for the youtube stuff all will love it .........
one will be moron who will purchase such a costly cellphone to crack... it will be same as cracking the US version in 1/4 of the cost
Why hack a buggy firmware? Its a waste of time and nothing to prove. Programmers (Hackers) are just waiting for a better challenge. Besides, Pwnage is doing a great job.
Hello everyone at engadget.
We did it 10 days before it launched in India.
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=oeRmagjpmFU
A new video will be up on www.rebelsimcard.com on Monday - 25-Aug-2008.
With a price tag of about $700 for a 8 gig version, i do not think hackers are clammering to buy the iphone from airtel.
And this is the same company which cannot get scripting on its website and its billing right!!
I expect this statement to have been made by some gloating suit who had no idea what he was talking about!
LOL
Now they got the attention, prepare clocks, on your marks, ready... Go!
Just a few days and they will sorrow for their words...
Don't you guys get it?
They are trying to create hype by "challenging" hackers so that more and more people can buy.
LOL, in Poland they are PAYING Actors to be in line....
Hypes like these don't run well in India
Oh, if it's the sweet "K" from Balaji Films.... lol then it would be another thing all together... NOT
huh.... hype.. i m sick of it
Off Topic but I just have to add that with the world economy being on a general downturn I hope people exhibit some common sense & refuse to pay such high prices for this phone. After having 3G reception problems, minor case cracks & application lags that drove me crazy I took my iphone back. After my experience I feel sorry for anyone who pays the prices I've seen reported here. Plus, you've still got a phone that doesn't support copy/paste functions or MMS..
Have you seen the disadvantages of Apple iPhone ?
do you guys have is 3G in India?
PAY for every thing over and above $800 (Rs 36000) simply WOW
NO BLUETOOTH - you cannot use it for file transfers nor for A2DP, Apple calls iPhone as iPod touch. what is use of this bluetooth, if you CANT HEAR songs via wireless. What this also means is that you cannot have any good ringtones or transfer jpg files across from your Nokia or a Reliance phone for that matter ANY other phone. ;-)
NO GPS - whats the use if you cant use it for turn by turn navigation? Apple put GPS chip on their phones. at this moment there is NO software on iPhone installed with turn by turn navigation capabilities, whats more is that whenever (if at all) it becomes available you will have to PAY for the SOFTWARE. In comparison, Nokia 6210 offers ALL with 1/3 the price.
NO COPY PASTE - (Apple - it's a Computer, but a computer need not have a copy paste facility).
NO MMS - MMS may not be as popular as SMS but still
NO AUTOFOCUS CAMERA - (Apple - why should a phone have a camera in first place?) hahaha what 2 Mega err. 2 Million pixels is it?
NO VIDEO RECORDING - (Apple - why record video when you can DOWNLOAD them from Apple STORE) ssss.
NO USER REPLACEABLE BATTERY - (Apple - why would you want to replace a battery when we are going to launch new iPhone V3 next year. after all it's just $800 bucks this year) WHY you need a battery replaced.
NETWORK LOCK. How many Indians are used to put up a CONTRACT with a PHONE. We europians are not so used to, I am guessing Indians would absolutely HATE the contracts, FREEDOM is order of the day. Oh, except for the Reliance customers lol.
Yes, iPhone does have a GOOD TOUCH SCREEN. perhaps the Good User Interface. But that's about it for iPhone V2
Aahhh. perhaps Apple iPhone V20 in about next 20 years (considering 1 version per year with 1 or 2 feature (advertised / hyped as 100/200 so called 'improvements') added each year) will have some features that can be compared with today's SamSung or SonyErricson or even for what it's worth Nokia Phone :P
Get a Nokia Instead, You wont regret it, be it Nokia 1100 or Nokia N96, all are great. In fact any other phone that is NOT apple iPhone will be far better and wise purchase than getting a 36000 $800 brick.
I have to agree with everything but your last line. Where you state "any other phone that is not apple" should read like such,
"any other phone that is not Apple or Windows Mobile". Talk about a pick of scrap OS, Windows Mobile takes the cake..
Crack it! I'll break it in half.
hmm Dunno how this is hack free :) since I have been using Airtel Live on Unlocked/Pwned 2.0.1 phone.
Also,
I just updated to 2.0.2 and it did not ask me to "activate the phone". Yay !! (So, I dont think we need to use pwnage anymore in India for the phones bought in the US)
gauntlet thrown...
2.0.2 doesn't lock the phone but you still need pwnage to jailbrake.
die slowly
yeah, phanbouy said it, die slowly! you'll always get a high rank when you tells dumb people to die because that's what is cool to do to dumb people, because everyone knows how dumb they are! phanbouy knows how this goes, he got you good!
What they really mean, there is no hacker brain-dead enough to buy their locked iPhone for 31,000 rupees just to unlock it.
People never learn, do they? If there's one thing you should never do its saying your protection is super-cool. Hacking something some thing that people say is un-hackable is like raw meat thrown at a hungry lion.
ok....
on another note... video recording is now available on the iPhone 3g, in two flavors.
visit http://customiphone.com for details
enjoy
it is write it give it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!