Just read this on Arstechinica. Apparently jaibreaking an iPhone is legal for now but not the iPad or other tablets.
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General Jailbreaking iPad becomes illegal as well as unlocking your iPhone
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meh, Apple needs to thank the JB community. without it, I for one, wouldn't be using an iOS device.
New exemptions go into effect October 28th and from what I understand it was legal to JB the iPad until now. With this it seems that Apple will be able to ask federal intervention to prevent hackers from creating or distributing jailbreaking tools (like Absinthe).
It has been legal but on the 28th it becomes illegal. In 2010 there was no mention of iPads or anything else. I suppose the iPad was too new to make it into the DMCA.
Oh, I see.
That sucks.
I wonder if Jailbreaks for ipads will stop because of this in case the law stays like that?
I dont know if the dev team will risk it or if other underground hackers will still go for it.
The iPad was never legal to jailbreak in the US. In the 2010 exemption it wasn't part of the proposal because it didn't exist at the time it was proposed. The exemption only lists smart phones. Something the iPad and iPod Touch are not.
How can it be illegal if it was never mentioned. If it was illegal do you think Apple would have sat still and not tried to legally prevent jailbreaking tools to be distributed? Now that it is specifically illegal Apple has what it needs to pursue authors of jailbreaking software and I suspect they will.
It's illegal because it violates the DCMA's digital protection laws by hacking into a system. Apple could sue someone with a jailbroken iPad back in 2011 and very likely won. Solely based on the fact that they modified the copyrighted code and broke through their (Apple's) encryption. The 2010 exemption says that the above process is allowed for iPhones. They never needed the means to be provided, because the means always existed in the form of the 1998 DCMA law.
Apple doesn't want to kill off jailbreaking by suing people. The act of jailbreaking is a very good source of knowing the weak points in a system. Apple's going about this smartly. Instead of paying a security firm thousands if not millions to go through their code, they wait for someone else to do it for free. They then release a new firmware to fix the hole. This process has not only made iOS one of the most secure mobile operating system, it has provided Apple with a nearly endless pool of features it can incorporate into iOS. Shutting it down via suing them would not only remove these two critical business points from Apple, but would cast the company into bad PR. If Apple really cared so much about jailbreaking, they would have sued people back in July of 2007 when the first jailbreaks came out and put a stop to it then. But instead they integrated some of those early features into iOS. A good example is the scrolling of the homescreen. A feature first introduced by Summerboard in August of 2007. A full five months before that feature showed up in iOS 1.1.3.
Apple doesn't want to kill off jailbreaking by suing people. The act of jailbreaking is a very good source of knowing the weak points in a system. Apple's going about this smartly. Instead of paying a security firm thousands if not millions to go through their code, they wait for someone else to do it for free. They then release a new firmware to fix the hole. This process has not only made iOS one of the most secure mobile operating system, it has provided Apple with a nearly endless pool of features it can incorporate into iOS. Shutting it down via suing them would not only remove these two critical business points from Apple, but would cast the company into bad PR. If Apple really cared so much about jailbreaking, they would have sued people back in July of 2007 when the first jailbreaks came out and put a stop to it then. But instead they integrated some of those early features into iOS. A good example is the scrolling of the homescreen. A feature first introduced by Summerboard in August of 2007. A full five months before that feature showed up in iOS 1.1.3.
Hope you're right Intell.
I am still nervousHope they dont act like Sony.
Hmm I hope we don't see a Applejuced version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iUvuaChDEg
Actually Microsoft and HTC had the same dilema some years ago, WinMo was proteted as well, eventually they decided not to persue the legal avenue, mainly because of the endless stream of improvements out of the modding scene.
A lot of features now incorporated in Android came in the first HTC build Android phone, those features came over from the HTC WinMo phones.
And i agree with Intel, breaking copyright is illegal unless exempted by the DMCA, there was and is no specific exemption for tablets and therefore illegal.
A lot of features now incorporated in Android came in the first HTC build Android phone, those features came over from the HTC WinMo phones.
And i agree with Intel, breaking copyright is illegal unless exempted by the DMCA, there was and is no specific exemption for tablets and therefore illegal.
You can agree with Intel as much as you want, you still do not need to break copyright laws to jailbreak. Thats also why a jailbreak for iP5 is not out yet, cause of copyright and NDA issues.
I am saying this law is unjust, and uncalled for.
Thankfully I don't live in a country where DMCA is in affect.
Well the IP5 failbreak issue is a bit more than just copyright.
Besides that, my post was an interpretation of the DMCA regarding the legal implications, not a statement if i agree with the principle or not.
One of those implications might be that if a jailbreak is to be released it is for the iphones only, as it might otherwise be illegal, that might complicate things dramatically.
I hope note, but @MN already tweeted about the change in DMCA.
edit:
on the otherhand, @comex jailbroke the iPad2, after which Apple hired him!
Besides that, my post was an interpretation of the DMCA regarding the legal implications, not a statement if i agree with the principle or not.
One of those implications might be that if a jailbreak is to be released it is for the iphones only, as it might otherwise be illegal, that might complicate things dramatically.
I hope note, but @MN already tweeted about the change in DMCA.
edit:
on the otherhand, @comex jailbroke the iPad2, after which Apple hired him!
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To jailbreak, some copyright laws are broken. Specifically the ones that protect the copyrighted code from unauthorized changes. That is not the reason why the iPhone 5 jailbreak isn't out yet. The reason is because it requires a developer account and requires the redistribution of copyrighted code.
The DMCA, just or not, is copyright law in the United States. And the DMCA explicitly prohibits the circumvention of encryption and other protective measures implemented in software. Apple's chroot jail in iOS falls squarely within that prohibited activity and removing it, i.e., jail breaking, is therefore illegal in the United States unless the Librarian of Congress creates a specific exception allows for it. The exception created several years ago originally allowed removal of such protections from phones solely for the purpose of effecting a carrier unlock, although it was later expanded to include jailbreaking for the purpose of installing third-party software. Under the DMCA it has never been legal in the US to remove those protections from devices other than phones because no exception has been created for those devices.
It now appears that the following have happened:
The Librarian of Congress has maintained the exception to allow jailbreaking/rooting of phones for the purpose of installing third-party software but is eliminating the exception that allows unlocking for devices purchased after Jan. 1, 2013.
The Librarian of Congress refused to expand the exception to allow jailbreaking/rooting of tablets for the purpose of installing third-party software, meaning that it continues to be illegal to jailbreak/root such devices in the US.
What makes no sense to me is that by eliminating the unlocking rationale as the reason for exempting jailbreaking/rooting they would seem to me to have eliminated any reason for maintaining a distinction between the two classes of devices. What possible reason could there be to allow jailbreaking of an iPhone but not of an iPad?
QFT. I would go to the dark side if Apple's iOS was forbidden to improve upon on my own personal property. In a New York minute.
Here's my question, a jailbreak is used for many things and by default the list of those things does not nclude obtaining cracked apps. That is something you need to configure after the fact.
So for those who jailbreak without using those sources get screwed out of jail breaking forever?
So for those who jailbreak without using those sources get screwed out of jail breaking forever?
Apple doesn't forbid it because of cracked apps, though that may be their excuse.
They do it mainly to hold tight control over their user base. And patch security exploits, many of which are so complicated they would never be used as true security threats to the typical user.
I agree, if such was the case, then a argument would have been made to support a piracy link.
https://twitter.com/MuscleNerd/status/261626193147740161