iPhone Application Key reportedly leaked

[McGiord]

Here is the link:
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/28/rumors-iphone-application-key-reportedly-leaked/

Could this key be leaked by :apple: to generate any kind of confusion with the unofficial 3rd party apps?

Like an experiment to see what happens with the unofficial 3rd party developers community, and how the jailbroken iPhone owners react to some issues?

So after that we stop jailbreaking and buy from the iTunes Store like them want us to.... so there are no more free apps?

What MR members think?
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[Stianu89]

Hopefully this will give us a software unlock for the 1.1.2 otb :) If not, alot of great apps!

[GFLPraxis]

If Apple is very closed about iTunes, this is a good thing as it allows homebrew...if Apple is very open about letting people publish stuff, this is bad, because it could allow people to create malicious apps that run on the iPhone.

[jeffmc]

If Apple is very closed about iTunes, this is a good thing as it allows homebrew...if Apple is very open about letting people publish stuff, this is bad, because it could allow people to create malicious apps that run on the iPhone.

or, if this is the actual sdk key, they could just... change it?

[zetsurin]

This is all a bit mysterious, but if that is the public key or a hash that is checked for in the firmware, it's actually quite useless. I would be very surprised if Apple weren't going to be using symmetric encryption for this. Look at the PSP hacking scene for an example: nobody has ever been able to encrypt their binaries to run on a un-exploited machine, and the process of allowing user created code to run on PSP's requires a patched firmware to be installed. I believe the same will be the case with the iPhone and as such I don't see what the relevance of that key is apart from grabbing headlines/visitors - and this is why I feel that those who discovered it decided to release it now and not wait for the SDK. ie. It's almost meaningless.