GeoHot finally came back to reality and realized that working for Jody Sanders was not a good move. For those of you who haven’t followed the story, let me give you a quick summary.
A week ago, GeoHot said he wouldn’t work on an iPhone unlock for baseband 05.11.07. Then Jody Sanders came in and offered him $10,000 for BlackSn0w, the iPhone unlock. Surprisingly, GeoHot accepted the offer, which created a lot of noise in the jailbreak/unlock community.
Most people didn’t really understand the situation and thought it was a good thing for GeoHot to get paid $10,000. Truth is, Jody Sanders is a bad guy, a scammer who’s been stealing and illegally reselling jailbreaks and unlocks for a couple years and being paid by him didn’t really send the right message.
This morning, GeoHot wrote a blog post in which he explains why he declined the $10,000 and why it’s important you should never have to pay for a jailbreak or an unlock:
First off, Jody Sanders, I am declining your $10,000. Why? Because you, and the rest of the iPhone unlock sites out there are scum. You make money selling freeware; that’s not cool, and I am in no way going to legitimize it.
Seriously, the people who really lose here are the customers. These sites are full of blatant lies, claiming to have unlocks for 05.11.07 People buy them, and are told the unlock is in development, and the release date is unknown. Imagine you bought a cup of coffee and were told it’s in development? Recently, many of these sites sent out e-mails saying they made major breakthroughs and the unlock will be ready 11/04/09. Coincidence that that’s the release date of blacksn0w?
A little further down the post, he says:
I’ll give you a whitelist, two people make unlocks, me and the dev team. Every iPhone unlock site you see out there is selling our stuff, repackaged in some form or another. Same goes for jailbreaks, although ih8sn0w and chronicdev are legit. Notice what all the legit ones have in common? They are free.
I suggest you read the full post at GeoHot’s blog. It’s worth it!
And remember, you should never ever have to pay for an unlock or jailbreak. If you can’t figure it out by yourself, come to this blog as we’re always up to date on the latest jailbreaks and unlocks news, with full detailed tutorials.