Legal jailbreak: where it leaves us?

[XJ13sd]

So, if breaking the phone is now legal, and everyone is allowed to do it, what happens to the jailbreak developers? If apple can't legally patch the jailbreak with each firmware update that means the dev teams have nothing to do, right?
Also, would apple have to sell them jail broken or offer an actual apple approved jailbreak? Instead of people doing it illegally each firmware update you should be able to update from apple and keep the jailbreak right?

What do people think. I find it funny for me as I have had 4 generations of iPhone and never hacked one. The ip4 was the first one I was going to try.

 

[maturola]

So, if breaking the phone is now legal, and everyone is allowed to do it, what happens to the jailbreak developers? If apple can't legally patch the jailbreak with each firmware update that means the dev teams have nothing to do, right?
Also, would apple have to sell them jail broken or offer an actual apple approved jailbreak? Instead of people doing it illegally each firmware update you should be able to update from apple and keep the jailbreak right?

What do people think. I find it funny for me as I have had 4 generations of iPhone and never hacked one. The ip4 was the first one I was going to try.

I think you got it all wrong, that doesn't mean that you can sue Apple because it patched something that breaks a jailbreak, that is their product they can update it as many times as they want.

What it means is that Apple (or any other entity) cannot sue or press charges if you (or he dev team, or anyone for that matter) root or jailbreak the device.

Nothing will change (as the dev team themselves said it just a couple of hours ago)

All the library of congress did today was to say that is no longer a grey area if you jailbreak or unlock your device. that act doesn't violate the DMCA - (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)

 

[dojoman]

Nothing will change. Everyone who wanted to JB was doing it before even it was legalized. Just like smoking pot. I was never attracted to JB because it's not safe and drain the battery.

 

[xraydoc]

The thing that may change is that Apple may not be able to deny warranty service if you brick it while trying to jailbreak it. Not sure about that yet, but since the activity is (now) legal, not sure if they can deny a warranty repair when your phone dies during legally sanctioned use.

 

[maturola]

The thing that may change is that Apple may not be able to deny warranty service it you brick it while trying to jailbreak it. Not sure about that yet, but since the activity is (now) legal, not sure if they can legally deny a warranty repair.

Nothing to do with that either, Warranty are against manufacture issues if you bricked it while messing with the phone that will no be cover...(now they have to prove that it was due to user miss usage and not a manufacture issue, but that have always been the case)

 

[XJ13sd]

Never said anything about suing apple, I was just curious if a team of non-apple employees was still needed to create the jailbreak, and can apple still release patches on each firmware to break the jailbreak? Just because the dev team says nothing will change doesn't make that so forever we may not need these dev teams anymore to jailbreak the phone which means their cool factor and everyone interviewing them and following them on Twitter may stop. It makes these guys infamous because it's illegal and they are **** in...with apple each time they find the holes in each patch. Well that's not going to be illegal anymore so jail breaking will no longer be the cool/ dangerous thing to do with your iphone anymore.

 

[Julien]

New law = status que

 

[Warbrain]

The thing that may change is that Apple may not be able to deny warranty service if you brick it while trying to jailbreak it. Not sure about that yet, but since the activity is (now) legal, not sure if they can deny a warranty repair when your phone dies during legally sanctioned use.

I imagine that they still could. You can modify appliances but can't get them replaced through warranty if the company doesn't want to. They don't forbid you from modifying them. All this really changes is the legality of whether or not you can modify the software, not the consumer/company relationship when it comes to warranties. That would be decided through court cases. Nothing will change right now.

Apple can continue to patch jailbreak holes because they can be classified as security holes. So yes, patches will break jailbreaks.

 

[rrandyy]

It is "legal" in the sense that it is not against the law. That doesn't mean apple or AT&T can't contract around it. That's the purpose of contracts.

 

[dave420]

we may not need these dev teams anymore to jailbreak the phone which means their cool factor and everyone interviewing them and following them on Twitter may stop. It makes these guys infamous because it's illegal and they are **** in...with apple each time they find the holes in each patch. Well that's not going to be illegal anymore so jail breaking will no longer be the cool/ dangerous thing to do with your iphone anymore.

As has been said, nothing will change. The devteam will still be needed to jailbreak the phone. Apple is within their right to make it as hard as they want to jailbreak the phone.
I never even considered that jailbreaking was illegal in the first place myself.
(I just want custom SMS sounds myself)

 

[maturola]

Never said anything about suing apple, I was just curious if a team of non-apple employees was still needed to create the jailbreak, and can apple still release patches on each firmware to break the jailbreak? Just because the dev team says nothing will change doesn't make that so forever we may not need these dev teams anymore to jailbreak the phone which means their cool factor and everyone interviewing them and following them on Twitter may stop. It makes these guys infamous because it's illegal and they are **** in...with apple each time they find the holes in each patch. Well that's not going to be illegal anymore so jail breaking will no longer be the cool/ dangerous thing to do with your iphone anymore.

Well...i guess i wasn't clear....
First....jailbreaking was never illegal ...(was king of a loop hole or a grey area ), not anymore.

second, Apple will still patched those call "holes" since those are programming defects or "bugs"

third when i said Sue apple, I didn't mean that you said you were going to sue it, but you did imply and ask again on your second post if apple would release fw to break the jailbreak..the answer is yes..this "new law" doesn't stop apple at all in that matter, and not they will not give root access to the user since the iPhone whole business model is a close system...only Apps certified and approved by apple can run in the device (that's how they made more of their money).

I also did;t imply that just because the dev team said something it was a fact or a unchangeable true, It was a comment to express that I (me, personally) agree with what he said..and that nothing will change.

 

[BeyondtheTech]

Does that mean that the Dev Team can use (and subsequently release) a program embedded with code made by Apple to perform a jailbreak or unlock?

 

[drewc1138]

Never said anything about suing apple, I was just curious if a team of non-apple employees was still needed to create the jailbreak, and can apple still release patches on each firmware to break the jailbreak? Just because the dev team says nothing will change doesn't make that so forever we may not need these dev teams anymore to jailbreak the phone which means their cool factor and everyone interviewing them and following them on Twitter may stop. It makes these guys infamous because it's illegal and they are **** in...with apple each time they find the holes in each patch. Well that's not going to be illegal anymore so jail breaking will no longer be the cool/ dangerous thing to do with your iphone anymore.

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't follow Saurik or Comex on Twitter because I think they're some kind of rebel hero. I follow them because they're the ones with info on jailbreaking.

 

[Warbrain]

Does that mean that the Dev Team can use (and subsequently release) a program embedded with code made by Apple to perform a jailbreak or unlock?

No, they'll need to continue reverse engineering the OS. If they release a program with code made by Apple they're breaking the law unless Apple gives the right to include that code. Apple isn't going to encourage jailbreaking.

Nothing has really changed with this. All it has done is confirmed jailbreaking to be reverse engineering. Apple can still deny you warranty repairs for a jailbroken iPhone, Apple can still close the holes under the guise of security updates, and Apple can still hate that their OS can be jailbroken.

 

[maturola]

Does that mean that the Dev Team can use (and subsequently release) a program embedded with code made by Apple to perform a jailbreak or unlock?

no, copying someone else close code without a licenses is illegal.

I know thise seen like a big deal to a lot of people, but it really isn't those of us who jailbreak and root hardware devices even before the iphone (PS2, Xbox original, Samsung blackjack, etc) knew all alone that this was not hurtful or illegal, we just got a nice comfirmation today, but work wise nothing will change.

 

[XJ13sd]

Right I'm sure nothing will change today. But let's say it's legal and apple through their own means or court whatever does have/ are willing to replace/fix a phone with problems due to jailbreaking, wouldn't apple want an official way to jailbreak the phone that would not cause as many issues as these illegal ones, also a jailbreak theta they can work on and debug themselves causing less issues for consumers. Yes no. Just speculating where this legality of jail breaking might take us.
So legally they can still patch the jailbreak with each firmware update. Do you guys see them doing this or just letting it go.

I see these jailbreak dev teams dead within the next 3 generations of phones as it becomes increasingly easy with more options to jailbreak. Just like the POT example actually. It used to be like oh who has the best how can I get it and the person with the best harvest( dev team) was the man. Now in California(where I live) and many more states you can walk into one of hundreds of stores all with high grade marijuana it's not uncommon or illegal anymore so it's very readily available. I think as jail breaking becomes more mainstream now that it's legal, it won't be as hard or difficult to make that happen, albeit it will take a few years.

 

[iSaxon]

Nothing will change. Everyone who wanted to JB was doing it before even it was legalized. Just like smoking pot. I was never attracted to JB because it's not safe and drain the battery.

I got past the fact that it was unsafe and Jailbroke my iPhone 3GS. Battery drained so fast afterwards. It still seems like it does once I took the JB off. I'm never going to JB any new device...

 

[Block]

The new rule changes absolutely nothing. It just made explicit what was already happening. Basically they cannot sue you for jailbreaking your iPhone, but they can deny you service and/or void your warranty for violating their EULA.

 

[Warbrain]

Right I'm sure nothing will change today. But let's say it's legal and apple through their own means or court whatever does have/ are willing to replace/fix a phone with problems due to jailbreaking, wouldn't apple want an official way to jailbreak the phone that would not cause as many issues as these illegal ones, also a jailbreak theta they can work on and debug themselves causing less issues for consumers. Yes no. Just speculating where this legality of jail breaking might take us.
So legally they can still patch the jailbreak with each firmware update. Do you guys see them doing this or just letting it go.

I see these jailbreak dev teams dead within the next 3 generations of phones as it becomes increasingly easy with more options to jailbreak. Just like the POT example actually. It used to be like oh who has the best how can I get it and the person with the best harvest( dev team) was the man. Now in California(where I live) and many more states you can walk into one of hundreds of stores all with high grade marijuana it's not uncommon or illegal anymore so it's very readily available. I think as jail breaking becomes more mainstream now that it's legal, it won't be as hard or difficult to make that happen, albeit it will take a few years.

There's no guarantee that more people are going to enter the jailbreak arena. And there is absolutely no way that Apple will create their own jailbreak method because that goes against their own values and vision of the device and OS. The legality of jailbreaking affects the end user more than anything at this point. All it did is put jailbreaking on the same level as being able to use your VCR to record a TV show.

 

[maturola]

Right I'm sure nothing will change today. But let's say it's legal and apple throwouldn't apple want an official way to jailbreak the phone that would not cause as many issues as these illegal ones, also a jailbreak theta they can work on and debug themselves causing less issues for consumers. .

No, Apple will not give root access to user, as long as they own the AppStore.

edit:also there is no such as thing as "these illegals ones" (never were and now it's official)

 

[XJ13sd]

Right you follow them on twitter because they are the ones doing the jailbreak I'm saying that like with my POT analogy, within a few years so many people will be creating these jailbreaks that it will no longer be a select few that everyone follows. Also many people did not jailbreak strictly because it was illegal, or whatever but that is what most people thought. With this news we will see a jump in people actually breaking their phones and surge in people developing hacks. Eventually like marijuana again, it will need to be regulated and controlled, which I think, although a few years off apple will take control of.

 

[vant]

So legally they can still patch the jailbreak with each firmware update. Do you guys see them doing this or just letting it go.

I don't think you understand how the Dev Team works. They take bugs/holes and abuse it to allow root access to the device. Apple will always fix these bugs/holes as they are a security issue.

Apple will never release a 'jailbroken' update. There will always be a need for a Dev Team.

This new 4.0 jailbreak (spirit2 by comex) is using a unknown flaw from 3.x that was not fixed. We were lucky, it is not becoming easier. Once spirit2 is released, this flaw will be fixed for the next 4.x update and the games will begin again.

 

[moussekateer]

Right I'm sure nothing will change today. But let's say it's legal and apple through their own means or court whatever does have/ are willing to replace/fix a phone with problems due to jailbreaking, wouldn't apple want an official way to jailbreak the phone that would not cause as many issues as these illegal ones, also a jailbreak theta they can work on and debug themselves causing less issues for consumers. Yes no. Just speculating where this legality of jail breaking might take us.
So legally they can still patch the jailbreak with each firmware update. Do you guys see them doing this or just letting it go.

I see these jailbreak dev teams dead within the next 3 generations of phones as it becomes increasingly easy with more options to jailbreak. Just like the POT example actually. It used to be like oh who has the best how can I get it and the person with the best harvest( dev team) was the man. Now in California(where I live) and many more states you can walk into one of hundreds of stores all with high grade marijuana it's not uncommon or illegal anymore so it's very readily available. I think as jail breaking becomes more mainstream now that it's legal, it won't be as hard or difficult to make that happen, albeit it will take a few years.

You couldn't be more wrong. Apple will still continue to aggressively protect their phones and patch jailbreaks. The dev team will always be needed to find exploits and use them to jailbreak phones. If anything it's getting harder to jailbreak phones as Apple uses stricter measures (the baseband in the iPhone 4 now needs fresh SHSH blobs per RESTORE not per firmware) and there are less exploits to find. Jailbreaking is not mainstream, and even if it were how would that make it easier to jailbreak? It'd be the same clever hackers working on it, it's not like you or I would suddenly start developing jailbreaks.

I got past the fact that it was unsafe and Jailbroke my iPhone 3GS. Battery drained so fast afterwards. It still seems like it does once I took the JB off. I'm never going to JB any new device...

Battery issues only occur when you start installing programs that run in the background, which is obvious. As for safety there's nothing unsafe about jailbreaking. It's only if you go out of your way to start looking for dodgy programs.

 

[XJ13sd]

No guarantee is right. But no guarantee that it won't and no guarantee it won't. I think more people are going to be willing to jailbreak now. And I absolutely agree about apple and the AppStore until breaking becomes fairly mainstream and it affects apples revenue, then we may see an unlocked AppStore.

 

[drewc1138]

Right I'm sure nothing will change today. But let's say it's legal and apple through their own means or court whatever does have/ are willing to replace/fix a phone with problems due to jailbreaking, wouldn't apple want an official way to jailbreak the phone that would not cause as many issues as these illegal ones, also a jailbreak theta they can work on and debug themselves causing less issues for consumers. Yes no. Just speculating where this legality of jail breaking might take us.
So legally they can still patch the jailbreak with each firmware update. Do you guys see them doing this or just letting it go.

I see these jailbreak dev teams dead within the next 3 generations of phones as it becomes increasingly easy with more options to jailbreak. Just like the POT example actually. It used to be like oh who has the best how can I get it and the person with the best harvest( dev team) was the man. Now in California(where I live) and many more states you can walk into one of hundreds of stores all with high grade marijuana it's not uncommon or illegal anymore so it's very readily available. I think as jail breaking becomes more mainstream now that it's legal, it won't be as hard or difficult to make that happen, albeit it will take a few years.

Even if there was an "official" rooting tool, if it hinders your ability to root the device in any way, there will always be a jailbreaking community.

Using your pot reference...and I'm no expert in what all has gone on with that...if the government did a blanket legalization of marijuana, it would most certainly be regulated. This means that there would be certain things that producers would not be allowed to put into the cannabis. Do you think that dealers would say, "Well, it's legal now, there's no point in us selling pot anymore"? No...they'd constantly look for ways to change it.

I seem like I'm rambling, but it makes sense to me.