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Apple: iPhone Jailbreaking is Illegal
Post by trog @ 08:56pm 13/02/09 | 27 Comments
The US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation is reporting that Apple has made its first formal statement on the subject of jailbreaking your iPhone - and they reckon it ain't all that cool, claiming it is copyright infringement and a DMCA violation. As always the EFA is stepping up to the plate to do battle for the right to do whatever the hell you feel like with your own hardware.

Obviously it seems unlikely anything will happen because of this that would actually put a dent in jailbreaking, but at the same time it'd be nice for people not to be made to feel like criminals (or actually become one) for running an application that Apple doesn't want to let them. Stay tuned!
Tags: iphone / apple






Latest Comments
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BatShit
Posted 10:01pm 13/2/09
Fuck off Apple. The report gave a perfect analogy:
One need only transpose Apple's arguments to the world of automobiles to recognize their absurdity. Sure, GM might tell us that, for our own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts. Toyota might say that swapping your engine could reduce the reliability of your car.
....
Of course, many iPhone owners will be happy to choose solely from the applications that Apple is willing to approve, just like many Ford owners are happy relying exclusively on their local Ford dealer. But if you want to pop the hood, the DMCA surely shouldn't stand in your way.

As long as the homebrew software is not used for piracy, why should it be problem?

Makes me want an android phone even more now.
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Hogfather
Posted 10:24pm 13/2/09
Yeh, if this is somehow proven in a court I'd be pissed. Apple can make any claim they like about legality but they don't actually get to say what's legal and what isn't.

I don't see how they get away with the phone being locked at all to be honest, especially given the phone's rapidly increasing market share.

Can you imagine the Anti-Competition fury if Microsoft stopped you running drivers and software on your computer that didn't have an MS stamp of approval?

last edited by Hogfather at 22:24:49 13/Feb/09
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Obes
Posted 10:26pm 13/2/09
Hence why the DMCA is such a dangerous piece of legislation.
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Raven
Posted 10:50pm 13/2/09
Too bad Apple's (and Microsoft's) licenses don't hold up in court here. It's illegal to tell someone what they can and can't do with a product as a condition of sale or use here. So... yeah, fuckoff Apple.
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Obes
Posted 10:54pm 13/2/09
It's not their license that matters.

Its the DMCA and FTA.

an you imagine the Anti-Competition fury if Microsoft stopped you running drivers and software on your computer that didn't have an MS stamp of approval?

You mean like vista 64 ?
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Jum
Posted 11:52pm 13/2/09
macs r 4 fags lol
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Denny
Posted 12:40am 14/2/09
I'm actually considering a master's thesis at some stage in the future (past IT/Law student) looking at the current overlap between Copyright/Contract/Criminal Law, because there's a lot of gray area and lack of legal certainty on how these three areas intersect in day to day transactions (particularly with regard to EULAs).

My non-legal/legal risk/assessed advice would be to assume that all usage not explicitly allowed by your vendor is potentially infringeing on a patent on copyright they own

That said I jailbreak my phones and fuck apple if they sue me for it. They're welcome to my credit-card debt.
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simul
Posted 01:33am 14/2/09
Too bad Apple's (and Microsoft's) licenses don't hold up in court here. It's illegal to tell someone what they can and can't do with a product as a condition of sale or use here.


IIRC the dodgy thing about software/ EULA's these days are that your leasing the software? Happy to be corrected, I just remember reading something about that a while ago. I think it was something to do with Windows when I read it. Maybe it was something like your buying the license to use the software, but the software itself was still copyright by the company? Really cant remember, twas a few years ago. Anyone who knows more would love to hear what the current state of play is.
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whoop
Posted 02:24am 14/2/09
You mean like vista 64 ?

wachoo talkin bout willis?

I'm using vista64 and have no trouble running software that isn't made or approved by MS.

I don't think it's fair to include drivers in there unless jailbreaking involves changing drivers as well admittedly I know knothing about the process.

As long as the homebrew software is not used for piracy, why should it be problem?

The trouble is if they allow homebrew apps who is to say what the software is used for? What if someone writes an application that turns the iphone into a hackers tool to go around stealing peoples address book or something like the old blue tooth hacks that used to exist?
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kos
Posted 07:50am 14/2/09
The trouble is if they allow homebrew apps who is to say what the software is used for? What if someone writes an application that turns the iphone into a hackers tool to go around stealing peoples address book or something like the old blue tooth hacks that used to exist?

If homebrew apps do something malicious to the jailbroken phone iteslf then the user who jailbroke it only has themselves to blame and would not receive technical support anyway, if it manages to exploit something in non-jailbroken phones that it can connect to then that's a security flaw in the normal iphone regardless and I don't think you could blame it on the jailbreaking.

Apple can't use the excuse of added security when they demonstrate that they are just trying to control the market to ensure less competition and more money for themselves (by blocking apps that compete directly with their own software).
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Opec
Posted 07:48am 14/2/09
Yep one less reason to buy shit from Apple.
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Obes
Posted 08:54am 14/2/09
Yep one less reason to buy shit from Apple.

About the only reason to jailbreak at the moment other then to pirate software is to tether you phone.

Compared to other people at work, I have significantly less problems (basically none) then nokia's or palms (palm make the buggiest phones known I think).
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Thundercracker
Posted 10:40am 14/2/09
jailbroken iphone is the shizzle
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3dee
Posted 10:58am 14/2/09
It adds some handy features (like SBSettings overlay on the Springboard and StatusNotifier - PLS ADD THIS APPLE!!!) but it makes it laggy.

I just restored to 2.2.1 unjailbroken and things are back to fairly smooth. Was handy having those things but yeah bit too laggy.
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Dazhel
Posted 02:29pm 14/2/09
IIRC the dodgy thing about software/ EULA's these days are that your leasing the software?


It's been like that since the dawn of commercial software. Off the shelf shrinkwrap software isn't a product as such in the same way as the box and the media that you walk out of the store with are products.

Almost every single time when you part with $ for commercial software you just get a license to use it as long as you agree to the license terms. Implicit in the agreement is that the license can be revoked at any time. In practicality the license agreement is usually transferred to whoever owns the box & media, but not always (IIRC Windows licenses, once they are consumed, aren't transferrable).
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Dan
Posted 04:39pm 14/2/09
The trouble is if they allow homebrew apps who is to say what the software is used for? What if someone writes an application that turns the iphone into a hackers tool to go around stealing peoples address book or something like the old blue tooth hacks that used to exist?
I honestly don't see why that should be any of Apple's concern.

To use the car analogy again, It's not like any fingers would be pointed at Holden if someone turned their Commodore into a Killdozer
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ViscoS
Posted 06:10pm 14/2/09
Apple just wants you to buy their apps and no-one else's.
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Obes
Posted 06:20pm 14/2/09
It's not like any fingers would be pointed at Holden if someone turned their Commodore into a Killdozer

In today's world, I rekon someone might sue Holden.
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trillion
Posted 08:43pm 14/2/09
Apple gives this ACDC tune even more relavance now

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BillyHardball
Posted 10:48am 15/2/09
I just jailbroke my iPhone and I really don't see what the fuss is about. Maybe it's because I don't know the best programs to install, but there's nothing there that I couldn't live without.
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Creepy
Posted 02:01am 17/2/09
Never bothered jailbreaking my iPod touch...

But that video clip is farken awesome - haven't seen it in YEARS. :D
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BillyHardball
Posted 10:58pm 17/2/09
I have spent the past few days muching around with my Jailbroken iPhone. It was too much of a pain in the arse so I'm restoring it back to normal now. What the hell is the fuss about???? The only decent thing was being able to switch wireless on/off more easily. I also would like to be able to dock 5 apps, but when I had that on, the order of my apps would change every respring.

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parabol
Posted 11:18pm 17/2/09
What the hell is the fuss about????

I'm not sure what legitimate apps have come out since, but jailbreaking my Touch a few months ago gave me a command shell, SSH/FTP server to let me view PDFs locally, ScummVM (to play Monkey Island, etc) and a couple of other things I can't remember off the top of my head.

I haven't even used the device in ages as I don't listen to music out of the home/office, so it's been gathering dust.

Then again I don't have an iPhone so I can't comment on unique features for that, only the Touch.

last edited by parabol at 23:18:35 17/Feb/09
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BillyHardball
Posted 09:29am 18/2/09
Yeh, I guess jailbreak caters towards the small portion of people who need that more powerful stuff - SSH/FTP is unnecessary for me. As for viewing docs, there's a couple of really good file sharing apps that let you wireless link up documents to your iPhone, and then they have a really good viewer for looking at them, eg, Discover, Air Share.
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parabol
Posted 10:22am 18/2/09
SSH/FTP is unnecessary for me

Yeah at the time there weren't [m]any good apps for offline PDF viewing, so FTP/SSHing localhost was the only way. No doubt there are proper free apps for PDFs now in the store.
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chexsum
Posted 09:44pm 18/2/09
Jailbreak = Themes, MMS and Modem.

NFI why Apple doesnt allow these things.
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BillyHardball
Posted 10:27pm 18/2/09
While I agree, Jailbreak is too buggy to make it worth those things.
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