iPhone 3GS exploit confirmed, jailbreak and unlock coming 'soon'

And so it continues. Geohot has returned with some help from hacking buddies chronic, posixninja, and pod2g with news that the same "24kpwn" exploit used to cracked open the iPod touch 2G will work on the iPhone 3GS. That means a jailbreak and unlock can be launched just as soon as the existing tools are updated for the iPhone 3GS (which won't be long). As George Hotz laments,

On a personal note, I'm sad. Apple, it took me a week to break through your new defenses. And to let us reuse an exploit like that; 24kpwn was so 5 months ago. Although I imagine it must have been painful watching the devices roll by on the assembly line, knowing they all had a hole in them and you couldn't fix it.

Oh George.

[Via Dev-Team Blog]

[oldmankdude @ Jun 26th 2009 1:58AM]

Engadget, did you even read the article before posting that last comment?

From the dev team post:

"Important: Apple has not given up on the cat&mouse game, and in fact there are challenging aspects of the 3GS jailbreak that aren’t in the other devices. It’ll take some time to work these into our tools, but the fundamental weaknesses are there: The bootrom is exploitable via 24Kpwn, and the baseband is exploitable via ultrasn0w. (And just like with the 3G, ultrasn0w for 3GS requires that you not update your baseband when Apple comes out with new firmware.)"

[mrazzino @ Jun 26th 2009 2:02AM]

What, you think Engadget reads EVERY source it uses for news articles? Puuhhhleeeeeeeeeeeeease......... that'd be like, journalistic credibility.

Oh wait, they aren't a news site, they're a "blog". That posts news. I don't know what to believe anymore. Either way, someone should have seen that part of the post and not posted the complete opposite here. Oh well.

Hurray for jailbreaking the new iPhone.

[Thomas Ricker @ Jun 26th 2009 2:02AM]

that was appended to their original post as I was writing. I've updated. -- Thomas

[ThreeDee912 @ Jun 26th 2009 4:27AM]

Why does everyone think Apple is intentionally trying to cripple their own phone? What about Verizon disabling GPS and Bluetooth file transfers (until the recent lawsuit that is), and physically crippling otherwise good phones (HTC Touch Pro anyone?) by removing half the RAM?

[cromas @ Jun 26th 2009 12:21PM]

@ThreeDee912: it's my estimation that Apple is being very careful to make Jailbreaks more-and-more difficult without actually making them impossible. The Jailbreak community is good for Apple, because it allows them to keep millions of "legitimate" users in a separate garden. They get all the benefits of having a hackable phone, plus the plausible deniability that maintains their carrier contracts and allows them to refuse warranty service if you eff up your own phone.

The kind of people who want to hack their phone are resourceful enough to find out how to do it. The rest of the iPhone userbase stays on a fairly safe, secure, Apple-controlled system. Everyone is happy.

[jibbyjabby @ Jun 26th 2009 12:22PM]

you guys are idiots. If YOU bothered to read you would see that the the 24kpwn exploit was not found until early 2009. However, the bootrom was already set in the 3GS in August 2008 and it probably would have taken too much time or effort to go back and redo something that was set 6 months earlier.

Therefore, Engadget is correct when they say Apple had to watch the 3GS roll off the assembly line knowing the exploit was there. It was just too late to fix it....

morons...

[nickolas_lim @ Jun 26th 2009 3:34AM]

Hurray !!!

[Chris H. @ Jun 26th 2009 2:19AM]

amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was fast, im so happy :)
So how about we get some tutorials rolling out showing ultrasnow unlocking these babies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kumquat @ Jun 26th 2009 2:26AM]

I've seen you drop plugs for your blog in like 5 different articles, and yet I still have zero desire to visit it.

[Steve @ Jun 26th 2009 2:32AM]

Yay! Oh, Cydia, how I missed thee... and Slingplayer on 3G....

[Jakob @ Jun 26th 2009 6:03AM]

Yep that would be the reason to jailbreak!

[sepirioth @ Jun 26th 2009 11:55AM]

sling on 3g huh.... i gotta unlock just to try that. its the only reason i still have a blackjack. does the one thing i want it to sometimes that the iphone doesnt. yes, two phones, what can i say.

[Brown Robott @ Jun 26th 2009 2:36AM]

It's called an iPod Touch not iTouch! When will you people ever learn!!?

[Arke @ Jun 26th 2009 12:14PM]

Does it even matter? If other people understand what you're talking about, isn't that enough?

[Chris @ Jun 26th 2009 1:54PM]

Yer rgt. It dsnt mater as lng as u can undurstnd.

[Beluga @ Jun 26th 2009 2:45AM]

Why are these clowns who write these articles still giving the impression that jailbreaking is somehow the equivalent of 'sticking it to the man' or some sort of evidence of clever hackers pulling one over Apple?

Jailbreaking still means you have to hand over your cash to Apple and buy an iPhone in the first place for the hardware (unless you've mugged one of your schoolmates for one) and the only ones being shafted are the real 'developers' who have their games cracked while 'chronic' and his buddies get celebrated by some clueless bloggers.

Venceremos comrades, long may your perpetual struggle keep you from causing greater damage (or god beware, any real constructive activity) elsewhere.

[Tony @ Jun 26th 2009 3:00AM]

hallelujah Beluga

[brentbizzle @ Jun 26th 2009 4:05AM]

it's considered sticking it to the man because companies like ATT get exclusive contracts from Apple to sell the iPhone, and with jailbreaking and tools like Ultrasn0w we can shed the shackles and bring the phone to other networks like we should be able to do in the first place!

Without Ultras0w my iPhone would remain locked to Softbank Japan because they refuse to unlock any phone no matter the circumstance. Now I can bring my iPhone to Australia.

[Shunnabunich @ Jun 26th 2009 3:46AM]

Yeah, "God beware" any of us should be permitted to use the phones that we paid for with software that isn't so crippled it makes us feel physically claustrophobic. Can't have us accomplishing "real constructive activity", now, can we? I know this will come as a shock, but there are plenty of people — perhaps even the majority, although that's blind hope speaking — who jailbreak their devices for any of the zillion reasons OTHER than pirating App Store apps, and still buy those apps legitimately like everyone else. Some of us aren't trying to be Zorro when we jailbreak; we just want usable smartphones or PMPs with the added benefits of an iPhone or iPod touch. And let's face it: without any competition until the recent Palm "Dashboard-on-a-Phone" Pre, the jailbreak scene was the only thing keeping Apple even slightly honest. It's a safe bet we wouldn't have seen a native SDK for a lot longer, if ever, if people hadn't gotten so fed up with "web apps" that they started developing native ones without help. Vencê-los, comrade; long may your own perpetual struggle to understand personal choice keep you from undermining that of others.

[emc815 @ Jun 26th 2009 12:04PM]

I don't think anyone is trying to 'stick it to the man' and if they were the man would be ATT not apple. The reason geo mentions apple in the post is because it's apple's job to prevent the phone from being used on a network other than ATT in the US because they have a contract to be an exclusive carrier. Also, if someone doesn't have an iphone or want to jailbreak/unlock it then why are they trolling blog posts about it trying to start debates about something completely irrelevent to them.

[Tim morrison @ Jun 27th 2009 10:18AM]

Dude, DOUBLE your medication dose....like now

[saq @ Jun 26th 2009 3:04AM]

Alright, now I get to make my 3GS useful again! The 4 days I've gone without Intelliscreen and some other tweaks made me realize how poorly designed the iPhone is.
A completely useless lock screen that requires me to unlock and load up an application just to see if that email I got was spam or not?
A tiny little quarter of a second vibrate with no reminder that I got an email or have a calendar reminder with nothing on the again useless lock screen?
It makes me wonder if any of the designers ever used a smartphone on a regular basis before. At least some there are some people who know how to put functionality where it belongs.

[Marcin @ Jun 26th 2009 3:08AM]

Please remove the quickpwn.com link from the news! They have nothing to do with this and are making money out of dev-team!

[tgluak @ Jun 26th 2009 3:13AM]

Yep, theres a bit of a dispute at the moment. So I second Marcin, remove the link

[NoAndThen @ Jun 26th 2009 7:28AM]

Seriously engadget, quickpwn are a bunch of losers making ad revenue by drawing people away from dev team, who actually do the work, for FREE. You guys are supposed to know what's up; it's disrespectful to devteam.

[Unknown @ Jun 26th 2009 10:49AM]

Yes, please remove the link. Statement by the Dev-Team relating to QuickPwn.com: http://twitter.com/iphone_dev/statuses/2314248790

[murmermer @ Jun 26th 2009 11:35AM]

@ Marcin

So its ok that dev-Team makes money by exploiting Apple but its wrong that quickpwn.com expoits the Dev-Team?


What goes around comes around...

[bdlghtt @ Jun 26th 2009 11:53AM]

@murmermer
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/41744653/donations-to-dev-null

[emc815 @ Jun 26th 2009 12:06PM]

Dev-Team doesn't make money by exploiting apple. They don't make money.

[Extinction @ Jun 26th 2009 3:18AM]

Get over it, the de facto term for ipod touches and iphones is itouch, its short/sweet/covers both. Quit being anal

[redcard @ Jun 26th 2009 3:22AM]

At least you've got 1 person who checks your blog regularly ;)

[Topkingtips @ Jun 26th 2009 3:23AM]

Wow, apple has creat the great iPhone and now release 3GS， which works so cool:) 3GS with best dvd ripper,enjoy video any where now:)

[Slade @ Jun 26th 2009 3:44AM]

"On a personal note, I'm sad. Apple, it took me a week to break through your new defenses. And to let us reuse an exploit like that; 24kpwn was so 5 months ago. Although I imagine it must have been painful watching the devices roll by on the assembly line, knowing they all had a hole in them and you couldn't fix it."

Hey-Yo! Ouch!

[NG @ Jun 26th 2009 4:01AM]

i stopped jailbreaking my iphone since app store started to get lots of good stuffs in :p

[Eaton @ Jun 26th 2009 4:14AM]

The only reason I got this iCrap is because I know that the jailbreak will be out soon.. I moved from Windows Mobile to this, and even tho there are a lot of things that make the iPhone better, the little things is what really causes the issue

[pika2000 @ Jun 26th 2009 4:16AM]

It's ironic that here people are thinking they're "sticking it to the man" by hacking their iPhones, while people in other countries are getting unlocked iPhones out of the box, and some are straight from Apple themselves. It boggles the mind.

[thebomberman @ Jun 26th 2009 4:58AM]

That's not irony.

[Quantic @ Jun 26th 2009 5:22AM]

@Thomas Ricker, please don't link to the quickPWN.com they do not develop anything for the iphone and steal undeserved ad-revenue from the dev team.

[Cy Starkman @ Jun 26th 2009 5:52AM]

@Brown Robott

Yeah, like the Wiimote or WinMo, or the 360 or PS1 or MS or ....

Dude in a world where "chrz m8 cu tomoz" means something a wee small abbreviation like iTouch can only get you worked up if you are already on edge.

[Level 5 @ Jun 26th 2009 6:06AM]

Jailbreaking drives sales. Is anyone even shocked Apple allows this stuff? I'm sure's hell not. If you were the owner of a jailbroken 3G, wanting a 3GS, would you upgrade if you knew that the jailbreak and/or unlock were months and months away? Of course you wouldn't. Once you have that freedom, why would you give it up? Given that perspective, Apple wants you to buy their phones, they're in this business to advance the platform, and to make money. They'd rather have you buy an iPhone and jailbreak it, than not buy one at all. Given that the iPhone homebrew community is pretty large, this affects the bottom line. So, Apple leaves the exploits in. They know majority of users don't want to jailbreak for a great many reasons (don't care, too scared, it goes on and on), so they leave the exploit in to appease those who would had just waited anyway. I mean at least initially. It makes more sense to leave 3.0 open so the 3GS devices can get some market penetration, then issue a firmware update to lock out those who aren't careful about their jailbreak and auto updated.

[mbentley @ Jun 26th 2009 8:01AM]

i am curious what percent of iphones are jailbroken. i can't imagine that there are that many jailbroken iphones that they would worry about it that much. that is like saying that computer part manufacturers are all making computer parts for overclockers because everyone overclocks.

...but it is apple so who knows. hard to say what is going on with them sometimes.

[jordn @ Jun 26th 2009 6:24AM]

your blog sucks balls


and big ones at that

[Leindurstit @ Jun 26th 2009 7:47AM]

Did you feel the sarcasm, because that's how I think he meant it when he said he was "sad."

[Greg @ Jun 26th 2009 8:44AM]

a jailbroken 3gs is still a revenue generating unit sold for apple. They only give a shit to the extent they're obligated to give a shit under their contract with the carriers. Whatever geek hacker wrote that sarcastic "i'm sad' note probably should address it to AT&T.

[chronicdev @ Jun 26th 2009 9:18AM]

It was kind of a punch in the face to Apple. He was kind of making fun of how the exploit was still there in bootrom, and they knew about it since march, but did not have time to fix it at that stage, since they probably started non-fpga production chips in late 2008, so they had to watch all those exploitable devices go by them at the factory and they couldn't do shit about it :P

[Greg @ Jun 26th 2009 10:09AM]

my point remains - Apple doesn't really care that much once you buy the iPhone. Yes they'll play cat-and-mouse with the hackers, but mostly b/c the carriers require them to.

Apple keeps the ecosystem tight so the experience is good for the majority of consumers who don't hack. If you're willing to go outside the ecosystem, feel free, but those who venture out choose to do so knowing the risks.

[Woob @ Jun 26th 2009 8:46AM]

Jailbreaking is just selling more iPhones. How much could Apple actually care.

[Mikey @ Jun 26th 2009 8:49AM]

I don't think Apple or AT&T put a gun to your head and forced you to get the iPhone.

[ChrisM @ Jun 26th 2009 9:14AM]

If anything, these hackers are leeches. They wait for some company to spend millions on software and hardware R&D, get subsidies for the hardware, and then rip it open, demanding that they have full control of every aspect of the product. I'm not necessarily anti-iPhone hacking, but to act like it's your God given right to control unmarketed aspects of a product by giving Apple the proverbial software finger, is stupid. If it weren't for these "big evil corporate money grubbing companies", you all would probably be hacking an abacus.

[chronicdev @ Jun 26th 2009 9:22AM]

not everyone is like that. I for one, like when devices are locked down, because it means that I get to have fun cracking it open. the Palm Pre, for example, is no fun in my mind, because you can flash firmware unsigned and execute unsigned code from boootloader level with no additional hacking, so it's all done for you. most of the people I hack with anyway, I can't speak for devteam, do this just because hacking it is fun, not because of "evil corporate greed" or some kind of weird hippie excuse.