Hackers jumped at the chance to try their hands at Apple’s iPhone when the device shipped in late June, producing a series of ‘jailbreaks’ that allowed users to access the file systems of their cellular phones. After gaining read and write access to the smartphone, it wasn’t long before hackers released utilities to ‘unlock’ the device, thus allowing users to sign up with other cellular carriers despite Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T as the sole provider of voice and data contracts for iPhone customers. Apple’s latest software update disabled these hacks, and since then only one claim of a rogue ‘jailbreak’ — which was announced yesterday — capable of providing filesystem access to the tested iPhone has surfaced.
Apple warned customers late last month that unlocking their phones could damage the device, and that doing so would void the warranty. The Cupertino-based company issued its iPhone update 1.1.1 soon after issuing that warning, which entirely disabled current hacks at the time and rendered hacked phones virtually useless.
Now, Engadget has confirmed that the new jailbreak, which depends on a TIFF image exploit to gain root access to the handset, does indeed exist and that the method provides both read and write access to the filesystem.
Source: MacNN