As many of you are already aware, Geohot is due to be releasing an unlock tool for the latest iPhone models / basebands later this week, called BlackSn0w. Along with his announcements on this upcoming tool, he has also provided a timely reminder for everyone looking for iPhone jailbreak and unlock solutions – on where you should and should not go to find those.
The short story is that he feels there are two legit places to find your jailbreak and unlock tools – Geohot himself and the iPhone Dev Team. There have been some other ‘legit’ contenders over the lifetime of the iPhone (Zibri and Ziphone are just one example) and there are some around now claiming they have solutions on the way (the Chronic team) – but the one consistent factor is that none of them have ever charged for their solutions, though most have accepted donations.
It seems GeoHot was offered a large sum of money for his latest unlocking efforts, and has decided to refuse the offer. Here are some of his thoughts on why he’s refusing and more on the issue of where to go for jailbreak solutions:
have an unlock for 05.11.07. I will be releasing on 11/04/09, for $0.00
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?
I’m not going to post all these scam sites here, as I don’t want to give them the pagerank boost. Rather 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.
Now despite rumors of the ferocity of my legal team, they actually are pretty poor lawyers. And the scum who run these websites are the type who get off on legal battles. So we have to fight them in another way, and I’m asking for everyones help on this. Our weapon is information. Get the truth out, that all iPhone unlocks and jailbreaks are free, and if you are buying something, you aren’t getting anything a simple google search couldn’t get you, and are probably funding someones crack habit.
This is the first time I have tried to make something simple for the end users, and it enrages me to see people selling it.
Check out GeoHot’s full post on this HERE.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
God bless the child that's got it all.
Much props to Geohot. Not only is he a hacking king and child prodigy, but he also has some integrity and principles. He actually took the time to write and release such a statement which I find commendable. With the iphone market growing as it is, there is a large number of people trying to enter into the world of jailbreaking with little or no knowledge about it. These people could easily fall prey to alot of the scammers out there. Also he is not getting paid for his work, and didn’t sell out for the cash. I think that really shows his passion about what he does.
No argument with any of that, though I would add that the Dev Team probably deserve even bigger props – as they've consistently delivered the most tools, the most support, the strongest opposition to the rip-off / repackage merchants out there, and so on. They've been a huge jailbreak community resource – the biggest by some distance I'd say – for a long time.
Thanks for the add, you're right. The Dev Team truly has been the cornerstone of support for the jailbreak community. I guess what I was attempting to point out was how pleased I was that he was following in the footsteps of the Dev Team as being a "stand-up" hacker. LOL if there is such an oxymoronic type. Kind of that "by the people, for the people" mentality, which shows a maturity beyond his young years.
Oh, I realized that and I agree with you totally. Hope he is going to continue to get closer to them, and collaborate with them in future.
True, the dev-team do deserve kudos, however they are a team of people while Geohot is just one person working on his own, so i dont think he’ll be able to keep up with a team of four hackers in terms of support and tools release.
However Geohot on most occasions is the first person to find the exploits, he was also the first person ever to jailbreak the original iphone.
Again, no arguments here. I think it's not a matter of one vs the other – they are all extremely valuable resources for the iPhone community.
You must log in to post a comment.