Video: 15 year old spends summer hacking iPhones

When we were fifteen we were too busy smoking Winstons behind the Country Fair on Pennsylvania state route 99 to do anything of real value for society, so perhaps that's why whenever we cover one of these "teenager does good" stories it's with a slight tinge of regret. Ari Weinstein, the precocious spawn of a real-estate developer and a social worker, says he began his career as a "hacker" at the age of 7 when he figured out how to get around AOL's parental controls. Since then its only been onward and upward for the lad, who has since made short work of the iPod mini, the iPod touch (which led to the development of iJailbreak) and, with as a member of the Chronic Dev Team, the iPhone 3GS. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, "he's going legit, as he spends his summer tooling up a new app." Sure. As we know, once the hacking bug bites, there's no going back to the straight world. That is, until AriX (as he's known on the street) discovers girls. Jailbreaking fans, please enjoy a rather confused (and wildly conflated) video after the break.

[DR House @ Jul 8th 2009 12:33PM]

First? yay

[Puggs @ Jul 8th 2009 12:39PM]

Yeah, First to FAIL!

At 15, I was playing Sega Megadrive!

[Shenanigans @ Jul 8th 2009 12:40PM]

Congrat to you Dr House, well done sir.

[DR House @ Jul 8th 2009 12:46PM]

This guy suppose to be a hacker? cause when he was 7 he figured out how to get around AOL's parental controls and at 15 he can hack a phone? we are getting low standards here on planet earth

parental control is good for one thing if your kids couldn't get around it they are mentally ill, my 3 years old brother knows how to get around that /face palm

i hacked my father's TV when i was 10 to watch porn and he had like 3 passwords (yes we grow up fast and losing virginity at 11-12 is common here)

[Lando Calrissian @ Jul 8th 2009 12:49PM]

@DR House

You can't lose your virginity to your right hand. Sorry, your definition of "losing your virginity" is totally wrong.

[DR House @ Jul 8th 2009 1:18PM]

Lando, replace that with lefty ;( I'm left handed

[Cronos @ Jul 8th 2009 1:24PM]

Anyone else find the fact that, someone with the screen name of Lando Calrissian is knocking someone else about virginity, ironic?

[Shenanigans @ Jul 8th 2009 1:33PM]

@Dr House

pretty low standards? So you have pretty high standards for what can be considered a hacker but extremely low standards for your life? I assume you have low life standards cause you try to be the first poster on Engadget a lot. If something so meaningless makes you so happy, you have some real low standards.

[DR House @ Jul 8th 2009 1:56PM]

Shenagans ever heard of RRS feed service? its ok you are too dumb to get it so google it

[MrEverdred01 @ Jul 8th 2009 2:02PM]

Thanks for giving us a little insight into the lives of people who comment "FIRST!" on internet blogs, Dr. House. I always figured people who do that would have perverse lives and do things like watch porn at 10 and live in a town where everyone loses their virginity before they've gone through puberty yet as well as bash 15-year-old boys for not being as nerdy as them because all they can do is jailbreak an iPhone.

[shibathedog @ Jul 9th 2009 2:02AM]

WTF!? How is this news? I had my first computer at age 4, I was doing way more advanced stuff than this. When did people start considering getting around AOLs parental controls hacking? First of all that isn't even hard, I think every single one of my friends who had AOL figured out how to do it pretty quickly and none of them where very good with computers because it was annoying and blocked almost everything. AOL in general was the absolute easiest piece of software to exploit. I was accessing hard drives and personal account information in no time. This kid sounds like a literal script kiddie. I actually got in trouble at school for encrypting a bunch of stuff on a school server and then not telling them the password. I don't remember exactly why I didn't tell them what it was eventually, I guess I wanted to see if they could figure it out. Now that I think about it every time I got in trouble at school except for once in elementary school for throwing rocks at a kid and once in high school for fighting it had something to do with computers. The only reason I ever got caught was if I did something really obvious they started automatically coming to me. I was usually pretty cool about it and would just admit to it and tell them how to fix whatever I did. (often even carried backup discs I could just hand to them once they found me) They actually wanted me to help them catch who did it when the school website got hacked and someone put porn all over it. I did find out who did it because it was one of my friends (although I had to trick this information out of him because he was afraid of getting caught so bad he wouldn't tell anyone) I never did rat him out though :P To this day I'm still afraid to type any kind of admission to some of the stuff I did because it was pretty bad and illegal so sorry if the above examples aren't that great but it's still better than this kid!

[Alasdair @ Jul 8th 2009 2:08PM]

"Shenagans ever heard of RRS feed service? its ok you are too dumb to get it so google it"

1. It is spelt Shenanigans and the spelling is less than 8 inches from your 'Reply' button.

2. "its" should have a capitalized "I" and an apostrophe between the "t" and the "s", as IT'S an abbreviation of two words: "it" and "is".

3. For correct grammatical flow of the sentence, a comma should be included after the 'word' "Shenagans".

4. "ok" should be all-caps ("OK").

5. For correct grammatical flow of the sentence, a comma should be included after the 'word' "OK".

6. "google" is a proper noun and should therefore be capitalized ("Google").

7. A full stop (known in the US as a period) should be used at the end of the sentence to mark that it is complete.

8. It is called an RSS feed, and not an RRS feed. Google it.

[DR House @ Jul 8th 2009 2:16PM]

Alesiader...... . GraMmar policia?

[EV-D'OH! @ Jul 8th 2009 2:34PM]

This thread proves that 90% of hacking is bragging about your "mad hacking skillz."

[BobSpaceTech @ Jul 8th 2009 2:48PM]

My first computer was so crappy and slow, I could only run power point successfully.

I created animations by drawing pictures on each slide and then had it play through them like a flipbook.

The end of my worthless computer came when I opened the case to check out the internals and such for upgrading. I hadn't turned off the computer, because I was just going to be looking and not touching.At least I don't remember touching anything. The computer flicked off and a small whisp of smoke rose from the depths of the case just like you see in cartoons. T'was a sad day...

[Shenanigans @ Jul 8th 2009 3:12PM]

aww Dr House got skool'd. Literally!!

^^ Nice use or a Napoleon Dynamite quote.

[Cycomachead @ Jul 8th 2009 8:54PM]

Hey it's cool stuff he's doing! Some isn't hard but it benefits people. Oh and some of you probably couldn't pass school now. Just sayig isn't not the same as it was in 1980...


Personally Im jealous of his abilities and that his school has a lab of iMacs and some are running leopard server! I want my high school to use macs

[Hung @ Jul 8th 2009 11:23PM]

@ DR House

10/10 - Perfect trolling, would read again (already have)!

[neofolklore @ Jul 9th 2009 8:51AM]

@Alasdair,

The SS called, they're recruiting grammar nazis

[Jordan @ Jul 8th 2009 12:36PM]

Thanks Engadget..don't know how I ever could have went on with my life without knowing this...

[urdaddy @ Jul 8th 2009 12:48PM]

for starters you could have just read the headline and moved on since it was of no interest to you. instead you go and read then comment on the article, giving engadget the page view they set out to get by posting it. No one forces you to look at and read every article nor like them. don't like one? move on to the next and quit complaining, or better yet leave all together.

[Jordan @ Jul 8th 2009 12:53PM]

I could, but it's more much fun to see what comments people like you waste your time leaving in response to comments like that

[Rocky @ Jul 8th 2009 1:17PM]

There's also something to be said for letting them know you don't like a specific article in hopes of not seeing its like again in the future. If all the comments were rainbows and sunshine, Engadget might wrongly assume everyone loved the story and continue to post about it. I'm indifferent to this specific story, but not everyone is going to be. I don't see why everyone thinks you shouldn't post if you didn't like a story. There are legitimate reasons to post dislike for a story. In fact, I'd say posting that you didn't like a story is much more valuable than posting about how much you liked it.

[jason @ Jul 8th 2009 1:18PM]

I dont get the point... he was on a "team" and the other members of the team hacked the phone so what exactly did he do?

and wow the article says he "learned how to make websites at age 7" but his website for iJailbreak is a free template.

Did the other members who actually unlocked and jailbroke the ipod touch and 3GS even know he was on their team?

[warrrennnnn @ Jul 8th 2009 3:30PM]

You wasted your time posting it.

[eyerishman @ Jul 8th 2009 12:37PM]

Should I say something mean about his potential future luck with girls, or let it go?

[Shenanigans @ Jul 8th 2009 12:39PM]

I was going to say something but I will play nice this morning.

[Excelsium @ Jul 8th 2009 12:42PM]

he'll probably be rich so he can have any girl he wants..

[Peter @ Jul 8th 2009 12:45PM]

Why would Ari need girls, when he has computers?


:-)

[Anthony M. @ Jul 8th 2009 1:02PM]

@Dontchaknow

Zzzzzzzzzzzing!!

[Sea Urchin @ Jul 8th 2009 1:14PM]

Ahhh yeah, he will make so much money girls will be all over him.

[James @ Jul 8th 2009 5:34PM]

Or he will just make a girl.

[Saad Rabia @ Jul 8th 2009 12:40PM]

Bravo little buddy.

*Waiting until the schooling system combined with Apple's lawyers ruin his life.*

[Lolz @ Jul 8th 2009 12:43PM]

Lol, I laughed when i read about the Country Fair on PA Rt 99. I can almost see it from where I'm sitting.

[lburkholder @ Jul 8th 2009 3:33PM]

Dudes! I totally grew up there, just south, actually. ahhh... Country Fair: memories.

[nikolas.g1 @ Jul 8th 2009 12:44PM]

I'm 15 and have jailbroken my iPod Touch, wheres my Engadget story?

[Insert Name Here @ Jul 8th 2009 1:21PM]

I know, seriously... I've done all that except create a fully functioning jailbreak utility and ffs, I'm pretty sure I've done a lot more in less time. I started with computers when I was nine and this kid thinks that it's more impressive to have been using computers for longer? It just means he's slower than some of us *sigh*. What a disappointment.

[Shenanigans @ Jul 8th 2009 1:39PM]

There is a large difference between being on the team that writes the code and apps to jailbreak an iPhone/ iPod Touch and using the app to jailbreak an iphone/ iPod Touch.

[SimonRichards @ Jul 8th 2009 5:10PM]

Exactly, what is with this nonsense? So he wrote a little app to do a bunch of things in sequence...I don't see any hacking going on.

[Kimleng @ Jul 8th 2009 12:45PM]

I wonder how long it's gonna take for him to jailbreak his first girlfriend? What special abilities will he unlock within her???? Or will he need to jailbreak her in order to keep her around?

[Uchiha Sasuke @ Jul 8th 2009 1:39PM]

He wouldn't know,...since um, he has two dads.

[Félix @ Jul 8th 2009 12:45PM]

Damn it... when I was 15, all I did was going to school, playing warcraft and smoking pot....

[canibaljay @ Jul 8th 2009 12:58PM]

so the only thing thats changed is going to school

[Hung @ Jul 8th 2009 11:36PM]

He was probably addicted to W3, not WoW

[NG @ Jul 8th 2009 12:49PM]

at 15, i was busy trying to get drunk, stoned & laid ....
what happened to our planet?

[maarek7 @ Jul 8th 2009 12:53PM]

You don't promote yourself as a hacker unless your getting paid for it. Ari's app would be turned down by Apple anyways, because it violates the use of iTunes as the medium for the device. You're not allowed to put files on the device like a Flash drive.

If Ari wants full programming and use a device to the full extent, he should get an android phone and program on that than the iCrap. It's more challenging to program for android than the iPhone one (mainly due to the limitles possibilies and functionality of the device), but you receive more satisfaction from creating the app and seeing something that actually useful rather than another "toy".

[Zak @ Jul 8th 2009 12:59PM]

Oh is that why the iPhone is so popular? Because it doesn't do anything useful? I knew there had to be some reason, thanks for clearing that up for us.

[Casey @ Jul 8th 2009 2:14PM]

Oh, hey Zak. Thanks for reminding us that you're still a condescending jackass. You hadn't posted in a while and I was beginning to forget; thanks for clearing that up.

[maarek7 @ Jul 8th 2009 2:21PM]

the iphone is a fad. The app store only has a few useful apps which are on all other mobile OSs anyways.

Reasons why the iCrap sucks.

* iTunes.
* you have to "jailbreak" the phone to get more use out of it.
* you can only install useful apps after jailbreaking it.
* you cannot change the battery or memory of the phone.
* it took how long for copy / paste?
* you still can't MMS yet
* using your phone with exchange screws up your exchange account and you have to reload your email on the phone to get it working again.
...shall I keep going?
* easily breaks since the screen is glass and not a hard plastic
* no voice dialing
* no FLASH (ever)
* resolution is only 320x480 where the FUZE is 480x640
* no document editing, no word or excel
* no real GPS in google maps (only cell area)

[Johnny @ Jul 8th 2009 2:36PM]

Oh, hey, Casey. Thanks for telling us what a condescending jackass Zak is and always has been. I didn't know that and don't really remember having seen him here before, so thanks for clearing that up.