Hack

China’s iPhone Carrier is Offering In-Store Jailbreaking

Guest Author ∙ August 30, 2010

This is definitely going to make uncle Steve angry. TUAW reports that China Unicom is offering to jailbreak their customers iPhones directly from the very store they sell the devices from.

Apparently the staff will gladly hack the apparent iPhone 3GS devices (the iPhone 4 hasn't been released yet), or cut the SIM card down to fit the micro size on those who have opted to buy an iPhone 4 through alternative outlets. Some stores are even going as far as saying that they will show users how to download 3rd party applications. Wow.

Try These Sites If You’re Having Issues With JailbreakMe

Guest Author ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

I usually leave it up to Sebastien to provide our loyal readers with the jailbreak information but I'll take the reigns this time. PMP Today has posted a couple of alternative sites for those wishing to jailbreak their iPhone after individuals claimed they were having difficulties performing the hack with JailbreakMe.

If you're among those experiencing troubles with the self titled URL, it is recommended that you try using jailbreakme.com/index.html or accessing the Canadian site of jailbreakme.ca to perform the process. If none of those work for you, you can always try what iDB reader Joe suggested by visiting jailbreakme.com/blob.html from your iPhone.

iPhone Fans: Play by the Rules and You Wont Get Wiped [Rant]

Guest Author ∙ Updated January 24, 2016

Thank Buddha it's Friday! With the weekend approaching it's also that special day of the week where yours truly vents about a recent story that rubbed me the wrong way. This weeks session is dedicated to a story we reported on regarding Apple's new patent that would enable them to remotely wipe your iPhone. You may be rolling your eyes but hear me out because I think a lot of you will be even more irritated by the spin I apply here...

Fraud Warning: Your iTunes Account Might Be at Risk

Sébastien Page ∙ August 23, 2010

A couple of months ago we reported that the App Store had been hacked, resulting in a massive fraud whereby hackers would get into people's iTunes accounts and buy their own apps. At the time, Apple issued a weak statement, the App Store got hacked again, and we never heard anything about this matter until today.

A TechCrunch article reveals what seems to be a major security flaw in iTunes accounts linked to Paypal.

iPad KegMate Makes Perfect Bartender

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 24, 2016

Some engineers at Yelp have made the iPad and a keg of beer work together. The iPad is connected to the keg via several connectors and it is able to tell who's pouring the beer, how much he is pouring, as well as various information about the beer.

Watch the video for more details. It's pretty cool!

Do you want the same at home? Grab the source code here.

[JAiB - Gizmodo]

Hack Turns Your iPod Touch Into an iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ July 29, 2010

You're going to have to take this one with a huge grain of salt but it seems a company called Yosion figured out a way to turn the iPod Touch into an iPhone. And no, this doesn't require you to use some VoIP service. This hack, if legit, might be the ultimate iTouch hack ever made.

Basically the "Apple Peel 520" comes as an iPod Touch case that includes an Infineon baseband chip, an extra 800 mAh battery, and a slot for a SIM card. Just pop a SIM card in and plug your microphone-equipped ear buds and you should be good to go.

The Apple Peel 520 will presumably go on sale this week in China for $45 to $75. There isn't much proofs this is real so don't get too excited about it.

[Engadget]

The App Store Was Hacked

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

Two iPhone developers have uncovered what seems to be a massive hack of the App Store. After seeing the rating of their apps dramatically drop, Patrick Thomson and Alex Brie looked more into it and realized someone had been hacking into people's iTunes account to buy apps developed by someone called Thuat Nguyen.

By hacking into people's account and buying his own apps, he was able to rank 41 of his apps in the top 50 of the Books category, which seems to be the only category affected.

None of the apps contain legit reviews except for one app, which has 2 reviews from people complaining they had never purchased this app and that their App Store account had probably been hacked. Someone even mentioned his App Store account showed purchases he never made for $200.

By the time you read this, I'm sure Apple will have been alerted and removed these fraudulent apps from the App Store. I also assume Apple will give the money back to people who were hacked.

For the time being, a safe thing to do would be to change your iTunes Store password.

I think this is the first case of App Store hacking publicly revealed. Unfortunately, I also think this is just the beginning, and with the success of the App Store, we'll see more and more of these.

[via The Next Web]

GeoHot Discovers Exploit That Will Pwn All iPhones for Life

Sébastien Page ∙ June 21, 2010

We hadn't heard from GeoHot in a while. The little genius hacker might come back to the front of the stage with a new exploit called pwned4life. At Nuit du Hack, a hacking convention held in Paris, GeoHot indeed mentioned that he had found a new exploit that can pwn all iPhones for life, including the yet-to-be-released iPhone 4.

I'm not sure yet what pwnedforlife will do exactly but that sure sounds like some good news. Check out this video for more details.

[via Redmond Pie]

How to Enable MMS on iPhone OS 3.0 or 3.0.1

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

Those of you on a 3.0 or 3.0.1 jailbroken iPhone who were anticipating the iPhone MMS release last week might have been disappointed by the fact that you have to be on the latest 3.1 firmware to download and install the carrier update. Rejoice because there is a simple hack that will allow you to have MMS on your iPhone.

1. First, download the AT&T Profile .IPCC 5.5.

2. Make sure iTunes is closed and run one of these commands, depending on your operating system:

On Windows: Note that it took me a few minutes to get this to work... It seems I was always typing something wrong.

Windows XP: Go to "Start", click on "Run" and type "cmd" then hit Enter. Now type the following: cd C:\Program Files\iTunes\ and hit ENTER then type iTunes.exe /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1 and hit ENTER Windows Vista: Go to “Start” and type “Command Prompt” in search and then hit ENTER. Now type the following: cd C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\ and hit ENTER then type: iTunes.exe /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1 and hit ENTER

On Mac OS X:

Open Terminal by going to Applications > Utilities. Type the following: defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE and hit ENTER.

3. Launch iTunes and plug your iPhone. PC users should hold the SHIFT key on their keyboard (Mac users should hold the ALT key) and click on CHECK FOR UPDATE, while still holding the SHIFT or ALT key. A windows will pop up.

4. Navigate to the .IPCC file we downloaded in step 1.

5. It will update your iPhone, which should take just a few seconds.

6. Unplug your iPhone and reboot it.

7. You should now have MMS enabled.

Some people report loss of cellular data network and loss of visual voicemail. I haven't experienced any of that but if you do, here is how to fix it.

Go to Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network to update your configuration.

Visual Voicemail change wap.cingular to acds.voicemail MMS settings should match the following (leave blank fields blank):

APN: wap.cingular Username: Password: MMSC: mmsc.cingular.com MMS Proxy: 066.209.011.32 MMS Max Message Size: 614400 MMS UA Prof URL:

Troubleshooting: Reader "Since OS 7" gives an important tip in the comments.

Those receiving the 0xE800003D error: Did you install a carrier theme from Cydia? Like the AT&T logo or MakeitMine? If so remove that and try again. It seems that others before were getting that error because of this.

That's it. As usual, since this is a hack, you are taking the risk of messing up your iPhone...

SmartScreen Will Be the Best iPhone Hack Ever

Guest Author ∙ Updated October 2, 2009

SmartScreen is a soon-to-be-released application that will add little widgets on your iPhone lock screen, letting you access information witout having to launch any application. You'll be able to rearrange these widgets in the same way you move icons around.

Looking at the video demo below, I am very eager to get my hands on SmartScreen as I think it will be one of the best iPhone hacks ever. Needless to day that SmartScreen won't be available in the App Store...

MediaPhone, the guys behind SmartScreen, will even have an SDK available:

A SmartScreen SDK will be available to everyone in November 2009 but widget developers are being selected to participate in a Beta programme, if you feel you could participate and would like to produce widgets, please email dev@media-phone.ch and we will consider you early access to the programme.

I really can't wait for this to be available. Exciting, isn't it?

Hackers Want to Hijack Your iPhone Via SMS

Sébastien Page ∙ July 29, 2009

If you receive a strange looking SMS on your iPhone this Thursday, you'd better turn it off right away as it might enable hackers to infect your iPhone and take control of it. That's what a Forbes article is reporting today anyways.

Using a flaw they've found in the iPhone's handling of text messages, the researchers say they'll demonstrate how to send a series of mostly invisible SMS bursts that can give a hacker complete power over any of the smart phone's functions. That includes dialing the phone, visiting Web sites, turning on the device's camera and microphone and, most importantly, sending more text messages to further propagate a mass-gadget hijacking.

Why would they do that? Simply to show Apple how vulnerable this iPhone bug really is. Apparently, the hackers notified Apple about a month ago, but Apple didn't bother responding to them.

We've known about this SMS bug for a while now and Apple will probably release the patch in the next OS update 3.1, supposed to be available sometimes in September (that's what the rumor says).

I think the chances you receive such a SMS are pretty thin, but you never know...

iPhone Hacking 101: Removing Passcode and Encryption

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 11, 2018

While Apple is struggling to get the iPhone adopted by business users, some more problems come their way as iPhone hacker NerveGas found yet another security hole that can allow anyone with a little technical knowledge to bypass the passcode and access encrypted and protected information on your iPhone 3GS. You can see NerveGas hacking an iPhone 3GS in the video below.

Zdziarski said it’s just as easy to access a user’s private information on an iPhone 3GS as it was on the previous generation iPhone 3G or first generation iPhone, both of which didn’t feature encryption. If a thief got his hands on an iPhone, a little bit of free software is all that’s needed to tap into all of the user’s content. Live data can be extracted in as little as two minutes, and an entire raw disk image can be made in about 45 minutes, Zdziarski said.

If you're an average iPhone user like me, chances are you don't care much about this security hole. However, if you're a business person, that can be a big threat to you.

Hey Apple, why don't you stop worrying about the jailbreakers out there and start working on making the iPhone a more secured device?

Thank you David for sending this in.