Video: 15 year old spends summer hacking iPhones
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted July 8th 2009 12:31PM
posted July 8th 2009 12:31PM
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.
This kid is going to be assassinated by Steve Job's secret Macintosh Hitman. Shouldn't have gone public dude...
plus kid probably doesn't know shit about programming anyways he's just a hack.
Steve Job's secret Macintosh Hitman LMAO, like i said this kid is just overrated, damn news media blowing things out of proportion...
Yeah, just a kid who can search a file system for some files to change or delete. I'd like to see his try at developing a commercial application. I've been in the programming business for a long time and seen a lot of people who called themselves programmers who only knew how to paste pieces of examples together and pray. Maybe he can code. Then again, maybe he just brags that he can code.
Chris:
He is a good coder. I have seen his work on some private projects that we are working on and he is very proficient in Objective-C. This is not him trying to brag, either. Yukari came to us because she wanted to write an article about hacking the iDevices. We agreed to do some interviews because "hacking the iPhone" was getting shown in a bad light, especially becuase developers in the App Store have the misconception that jailbreaking==piracy, which is not the case.
this kid is gonna be found by finder and shot dead
i wanted to slap him the moment he started talking, "NO! no no, I thought it was EARLIER than than... like 2 or 3 years..." he doesn't know about being humble...
I agree. Although the things he is doing could be considered cool, you wouldn't want to brag as much as he did. I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish by saying. Proving that he was able to use a computer before some of us could talk, therefore he is better than us, or that he has a sense of humor.
He's a teenager, not a saint. Did you really expect a 15 year-old to be the picture of morality? Even worse, you expected an Apple fanatic to be immune to social disease.
who said i was a guy?
Who said I was a 25 years old millionaire, brown hair, sexy body, with a luxurious house on beach...?
Wanna date?
overrated kid.....
He's over confident and too proud of himself. He'll do good Professionally, but won't have an easy ride doing so.
From the way this kid was verbally abusing his parents in the video, I'd say he's a real charmer.
...What?
which country fair were you guys hanging out behind? edinboro or mckean? i was the one smoking the menthols trying not to cough.
McKean, most definitely.
What about the PSP scene? We have our very own "young hacker" at the age of 15 too (somewhere around that area) who developed the most recent HEN (Homebrew Enabler)...he deserves some credit too (Davee that is)
I would rather be dead than be him
Why is that?
Psh..big deal. He's a smart little dude I guess, but his arrogance makes me want to slap him one. I'm sure he's arguing with his mom that he "Had to be younger than that"!!" lil bastard ;-)
Nono you're all wrong... and we're not arguing enough...
1M D4 M0zt 1337 H4X0rZ!1!1111
I love your avatar, dude! :)
I was bangin' high school chicks when I was 2. By 3, I setup proxy servers in Brazil and Hong Kong, so I could hack Bulgarian government databases for the Tokyo yakuza, selling some critical information for $12 million US. By the time I was 4, I was already hooked on coke and one of the largest distributors of ecstasy in Chicago (which was legal at the time). By 5, I had already made significant gains on investments in gold and tin, and my net worth was nearing $400 million US.
So basically by 15, I made this kid look like dogshit. I could send mercenaries to his house *right now* to take him out for being such an arrogant prick, but I'll let him live cuz he sorta reminds me of myself when I was 1.
What are you like 12?
@neofolklore
Yes, I am like 12. ---> http://www.peepeeland.com
I am not a fanboi and have a usable WinMo device (poss by XDA-dev - touch dual) and misses has a 3GS (her old 4 yr phone finally broke down). I used to be only a WinMo fan because of the 'cooking' XDA-dev have shown. But dev team/chronicdev/etc have really shown what the iphone is capable of once unlocked. ATT is not stable in my area (co-workers can't use ATT reliably either). With a jailborken and unlocked iphone, at least the misses is able to put her iphone on a stable TMo. So thanks to young hackers/developers that give a lot of legitimate consumers the ability to choose and not be slaved to a hopeless situation.
So... basically, iPhones and iPods can be hacked by 13-year olds?
Wow! That's what I call "The most secure OS ever made!"...
Girls being a problem not likely if he goes to GFS
BFD. When I was 15, I built a minature arc reactor in a cave, with a box of scraps.
That narrator nearly put me to sleep. She was one notch above monotone. She needs a dose of B12 and caffeine. Just damn.
This kid wants to work for Apple? (Stated in full article) Yeah right! He's not even an Apple person! He jail breaks IPHONES. Why the hell would Apple ever hire him? Oh wow, he can get around a dying companies parental control system. This kid isn't a serious hacker! Break into a secure site, steal data, and fool your IP. Then I'll call you a hacker.
And for all the other people who are against the iPhone for some reason: Money talks, bullsh*t walks.
WOW , somebody lived in ERIE ,PA.............like i do now....KOOl
I use some AppleScript and then a computer randomly says "This computer will self destruct"
All in all, it's pointless, but it's fun to do. :)
When you wish upon a weinstein.....
the last thing anyone cares about is if anybody on this website was "doin more advanced stuff when they were four"... no your werent. you were still sucking moms tit when you were four if you think anyone's gullible enough for that bs. when someone in these posts creates a hack thats downloaded over a million times, then we'll give you credit... not because you bragged on a tech blog that your a "better nerd".
I Like Turtles.
Huh. He goes to GFS? I live right near there.
looks like a spoiled script kiddie to me, no 15 year old needs or has the money to buy a macbook pro. all he did was take a method of jailbreaking and put it into a GUI, he didnt actually write jailbreaking software.
i believe, that that they tought he was the best. Well, at least it sounded like it. There are so many that are not in the dev team, they think, that people like him are smart because all he said the the directory of the iphone ssh (default). Please, if i went to a person that doesnt know how to code and told them that i knew boolean and said a string, they would be like WHAT! PUT THAT ON THE NEWS!@
what a looser... no offence. Plus I agree about low standards, theres waaaaaaay smarter 15 year olds trust me, lots of them. This guy probably just has special connections.
Rt 99 County Fair. Damn. I spent my youth (long ago in a galaxy far away called the early 1960's) just down the road at the Stoneboro Fair grounds. There was a little gap in the fence just behind my uncle's farm. My favorite was the Hurricane Hell Drivers stunt team. That and the 4-H girls.
What are these "Girls" you speak of?
When he grows up and realizes that he's actually not all that brilliant compared to peers/colleagues (perhaps despite fast development) he'll just wind up frustrated and farting himself to sleep.