Dev Team member MuscleNerd showed us a demo of RedSn0w running on an iPod Touch 2G earlier today on Qik. The video reveals that RedSn0w is a patch that keeps the iPod Touch from detecting the jailbreak and stopping it from booting. Absolutely brilliant! RedSn0w is still not ready for a public release but as I said before, I am pretty sure it will be released before the end of the month.
DevTeam
The RedSn0w Release Is Now Imminent
If you have followed this blog and the coverage of RedSn0w, I guess you'll be interested to learn about an update the Dev Team posted on its blog about RedSn0w.
Here is the news, in the Dev Team's own words:
Update 2: A picture is worth a 1000 words but a video might be better in this day of Photoshop and fake YouTube videos. So we’re thinking of doing what we did before Christmas for yellowsn0w — show a demo of the jailbreak on Musclenerd’s Qik account (announced via his twitter account over there on the right hand side). Since Qik provides a live chatroom right next to the video, we’ll probably be in there too right after the video’s over. Note: anybody posing as any devteam member on that chat right now is faking it. We won’t be on that chat except for a very specific time that we’ll announce. (We may possibly not even do the chat since it’s so ripe for abuse).
It's still not been officially said that RedSn0w is a jailbreak for the iPod Touch 2G but such screenshot kinda gives it away... If I had to make a guess on when RedSn0w will be released, I would say "before the end of the month". But hey, I'm right only 99% of the time...
RedSn0w Through Safari?
I read an article saying that there is a flaw on desktop Safari:
I have discovered that Apple's Safari browser is vulnerable to an attack that allows a malicious web site to read files on a user's hard drive without user intervention. This can be used to gain access to sensitive information stored on the user's computer, such as emails, passwords, or cookies that could be used to gain access to the user's accounts on some web sites. The vulnerability has been acknowledged by Apple.
Now this got me thinking.... RedSn0w.com = on the fly jailbreak?
Think about it. If their website accesses your iPod and does the things necessary either to jailbreak on the go or to prepare for a jailbreak (Chronic Dev said that the exploit is in some sort of file in 2.1.1); this could be interesting and true.
This is one of the only reasons I can think of for the RedSn0w domain.
I do not know if mobile Safari has the same weaknesses as desktop Safari; but it could . There are some Safari exploits that actually crash your iPod (try this to crash yours if you dare!) ; I had to connect mine to the power to get it to restart. But whatever the Dev Team has up their sleeves should be interesting.
RedSn0w Is The iPod Touch 2G Jailbreak
Let me toot my own horn for a second here... As usual, I was right... RedSn0w is indeed the future iPod Touch 2G jailbreak and the Dev Team is clearly working on it as we speak. Earlier today, the Dev Team published a post on their blog titles "Thermonuclear Pop":
Well it isn’t a British Thermonuclear Device. It isn’t an episode from “The Twilight Zone” And it certainly isn’t iPhone 3G related (right now) There is one other device… It fits in your pocket.. What can it be?If you're not convinced yet, I invite you to read some of the comments on their blog, especially this one, where MuscleNerd confirms RedSn0w is iPod Touch 2G related. Now the question is: when can we expect this ipt2g jailbreak? Only time (and the Dev Team) will tell...
RedSn0w Might Be The iPod Touch Jailbreak We Were Waiting For
If you follow the Dev Team on Twitter, you prbably saw this tweet that points to a website named www.RedSn0w.com. You can't help but noticing how close this domain name is to YellowSn0w, the iPhone 3G soft unlock...
Looking at it a little closer and doing a "who is" search for the 2 domain names (YS - RS) show that both domains are hosted on the save servers, which makes it very likely that RedSn0w was registered by a member of the Dev Team and most importantly, that RedSn0w is a new product from our favorite Apple hackers.
It doesn't require you to be some kind of psychic to figure out that an iPod Touch jailbreak is the only thing right now. We have the iPhone 2G and 3G jailbreak and unlock. We have the iPod Touch 1st gen jailbreak. All we need now is an iPod Touch 2nd generation jailbreak.
So what do you think? Am I right? Am I wrong? I look forward to reading your thoughts...
UPDATE: It seems I am on something here. After asking MuscleNerd, Pumpkin, and the Dev Team on Twitter to comment on my post, they all gave the same answer within minutes (see 1, 2, 3).
YellowSn0w Has Been Revised. Try It Again!
If there is one good thing about the Dev Team, it's that they work fast. Following a few issues with YellowSn0w, they have already updated it to version 0.9.4 and it supposedly fixes a bunch of issues. It is still in beta but it's much more stable than it was. So if you had issues unlocking your iPhone 3G using YellowSn0w, try again with the latest version.
It's still available in Cydia and you can still read this for the full iPhone 3G unclok tutorial.
Unlock Your iPhone 3G With Yellow Sn0w Guide & Tutorial
[digg-me]Below are instructions on how to unlock your iPhone 3G using Yellow Sn0w. Unlocking your iPhone 3G will make it possible for you to use any cellphone carrier.
Before you go any further, make sure to READ EVERY SINGLE WORD OF THIS TUTORIAL. If you think you're too cool for school, then go directly to the instructions but please, do not complain if you mess up your iPhone during the process, which is very unlikely to happen anyways...
First things first. In order to be able for you to use Yellow Sn0w to unlock your iPhone 3G, you have to be on a jailbroken iPhone that runs the latest firmware 2.2 with the latest baseband 02.28.00. To find out what firmware you're on, go to Settings > General > About and look for "Modem Firmware". It should say 02.28.00.
If you have not jailbroken your iPhone yet, you have to now in order to unlock. To jailbreak your iPhone, follow the QuickPwn 2.2 guide that I wrote a few weeks ago.
If you have already jailbroken your iPhone using PwnageTool to preserve your baseband, sorry but you have to restore and rejailbreak again in order to have the latest 02.28.00 baseband.
If you have updated to the latest firmware 2.2 with its latest 02.28.00 baseband, then you're good to go.
So from now on, I assume that you are on a clean firmware 2.2 with firmware 02.28.00 and that your iPhone is jailbroken.
1. Go to Cydia and install this new source: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ (note that snow is spelled with a zero, not an "o"). To install a new source in Cydia, go to Manage > Sources > Edit > Add, then type in the source http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ and tap "Add Source".
2. Once the source has been added, tap "Return To Cydia", then tap "Done".
3. Now tap "apt9.yellowsn0w.com from the list of sources "Entered By Users".
4. Select Yellow Sn0w, then tap install nad confirm.
5. Once the installation had been successfully completed, return to Cydia.
6. Hard reset your iPhone. To do this, hold the home and power buttons simultaneously for a few seconds until the phone shuts off by itself (ignore the "slide to power off" message)
7. Insert whatever SIM card you want! Wait a few seconds and you should be good.
8. Done!
See, that wasn't too hard at all. Users that are already familiar with Cydia and sources shouldn't have any problem at all. But first time jailbreakers might be a little lost, which is why I detailed this tutorial a lot.
Now there are a few known issues with Yellow Sn0w and I highly recommend you either read my previous post about it, or go directly to the Dev Team's blog.
Troubleshooting:
1) If you are on tmobile USA you should disable 3G in Settings or sbsettings. 2) YellowSn0w does not work with a SIM PIN. You must disable your SIM card pin lock.
At any rate, I would really appreciate it if you could digg this post, then write a comment, then go to the Dev Team's blog to thank them for their great work.
iPhone 3G Unlock Is Now Available
Yellow Sn0w, the soft unlock created by the Dev Team is now available from Cydia or Installer. Instead of rewording what the Dev Team has to say about it, I will simply copy/paste their entire post from their blog.
I don't like copy/pasting large amounts of texts from other sites, but in this case, I find it really necessary. I really recommend you go over to the Dev Team's blog, read the post from there, and write a nice thank you comment.
For those of you that don't care about the fine prints, here are the repos for Yellow Sn0w. Cydia source: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ Installer repo: http://i.yellowsn0w.com/
I will be writing a guide wrote an iPhone 3G unlock tutorial on how to unlock the iPhone 3G using YellowSn0w.
Again, please make sure to visit the Dev Team's blog and thanks these guys for spending New Year's Eve behind a computer screen so everyone can have an unlocked iPhone.
From the Dev Team Blog:
BASICS
The unlock works exclusively with baseband 02.28.00. This baseband is provided by the latest firmware update (2.2) from Apple. You’ll need to upgrade to this release using iTunes and then use QuickPwn to activate etc. There are plenty of tutorials about this on iclarified, bigboss, and other established tutorial sites. Because it works on 02.28.00, it is available to everyone on the planet. This means we don’t need to unnecessarily expose holes in earlier basebands, which is an important concern. The application is a small daemon that is launched on boot. It injects the payload at boot and also whenever there is a baseband reset. You won’t notice anything about it other than that your third-party sim now works. It’s a small program and unobtrusive. There is no GUI (this is by design). You can add the application using the sources outlined below (coming soon). There are Cydia and Installer sources available, so use whichever you are comfortable using. yellowsn0w is completely removable through Cydia, the command line, and iTunes.DETAILS
There is a known issue with SIM cards that have STK (SIM Toolkit) application menus. These menus are usually items such as “top up” “get credit” “lotto numbers” etc. These menu items confuse the application sometimes. Removing and reinserting the SIM once after reboot (give it about 10 secs 60 seconds (with v0.9.1) after you see the slide to unlock widget) fixes this issue. We’re working on a better fix. For those of you using SIM cards without STK menus, the application has some optional arguments that will make the unlock much faster for you. So either experiment on your own (use “yellowsn0w -h” for usage) or wait for a customization writeup. After you install yellowsn0w via Cydia, you should return to the Cydia main menu then reboot your iPhone with the 3rd party SIM installed. Wait for the slide to unlock screen, then wait 10 or 15 secs more. If you don’t see your carrier name pop up, then remove your SIM, reinsert it, and wait 10 secs more. This is the step we’ll be working on eliminating next.RANDOM
The application is version 0.9 0.9.1. This is considered beta software, you use it at your own risk. You know the score. The application is released on a non-commerical basis. Please do not accept pirates and scummy ripoffs of this software. We license this software for single use and in a non-commerical environment (meaning you can’t charge for it). The techniques and methods used are not to be used by third party companies. We are watching you Jody…we won’t be so forgiving this time. Direct linking to the repository URLs is prohibited, please only link to this post. We will be checking referers. Happy 2009 and enjoy!The iPhone 3G is used all over the world with all sorts of SIM cards, and we almost certainly will see untested and unexpected situations. If the soft unlock doesn’t work for you on day 1 (literally day 1, of 2009!) then please don’t panic or be impatient. This is new territory for everyone, so enjoy the ride as much as you can :)
RELEASE INFO
Cydia source: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ Installer repo: http://i.yellowsn0w.com/UPDATES
Soon you’ll see yellowsn0w 0.9.1 in the repos. It uses a much longer delay to let your SIM card initialize. If you have problems with 0.9.0, try this one and wait a full minute after you see homescreen, then reinsert sim card. We need both success and failure reports to tune this across the world, so please be patient (but please also report result!) If you are in the U.S. and are trying this with T-Mobile, you must turn off the 3G switch in Settings. Also if you are good with the command line, you can make it much easier by adding the line <string>-q</string> right after the /usr/bin/yellowsn0w line in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.iphone-dev.yellowsn0w.plist (that’s and advanced tip, hopefully someone will make a boosprefs type of tool for it) No PIN support yet. Remember how we said this was beta? Well we’re still working out the flow for SIMs with PINs enabled. Please disable any PIN you may have on that SIM before trying yellowsn0w, for now. The unlock will silently quit on anything other than baseband 02.28.00. It detects the wrong version and just quits to avoid any damage. Please double check your Modem Firmware setting in Settings->General->About.Mobile Crunch Interview With Dev Team Member Pytey
Mobile Crunch published a nice interview with Pytey, one of the preeminent Dev Team members. Interviews with Dev Team members are very rare and I suggest that you have a look at it if you're remotely interested in jailbreaking and unlocking your iPhone. The interview obviously evolves a lot around the awaited Yellow Sn0w, supposed to be available today.
Here is my favorite part of the interview:
However, Apple places restrictions on what you can run on the device. They impose draconian restrictions on the type of application that you can run, they don’t allow applications to run in the background and they even restrict the applications by subject matter or if they compete with their own applications. If I buy a device I want to be able to do what I want with it, if that involves gambling or looking at an application that involves porn then so be it. The real estate agent who sold me my house doesn’t knock on my door every month to check what pictures I have hanging on the walls, so why should Apple have this right?
Earlier this month, I published a translation of another interview with Pytey.
Breaking News: iPhone 3G Unlock Will Work For All Basebands
Earlier today, the Dev Team published a post on the blog with some strange binary codes that won't mean anything to anyone that doesn't speak geek fluently (I don't!). I completely disregarded this post as I thought it was a pre-message for tonight's release of yellow sn0w, the new unlocking tool that will be available sometimes today through Cydia.
However, a tweet from twitter user Yellow Sn0w got me all excited when it said that it will be safe to use yellow sn0w on any firmware. Tweeting back and forth with him, I was directed to a blog post of his that actually explains the full meaning of the binary codes posted by the Dev Team.
Here is his explanation:
In binary that message translates to vtaber 61060174. vtaber translates to "ignore" and the 61060174 means post# 61060174 on the iPhone DevTeam blog. http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/61060174/the-man-from-delmonte-he-say-yes
Hoping that this is true...
Hacking The iPhone 3G… The Dev Team Way
Dev Team members PlanetBeing, MuscleNerd, and Pytey were speaking last week at the 25c3 conference in Germany to present how they hacked the iPhone. It's a very "geeky" video but it's worth your time if that's your cup of tea.
Some interesting facts is that at least 180 people with Apple corporate IPs update their phones using the Dev Team’s software on a regular basis. No doubt these guys at Apple are working on countering the jailbreak and unlock tools.
Successful iPhone 3G Unlock
iPhone 2G jailbreak - checked iPhone 3G jailbreak - checked iPhone 2G Unlock - checked iPhone 3G Unlock - NOW CHECKED!
Earlier this week, I told you that the Dev Team was going to release its iPhone 3G soft unlock on New Year's Eve and today, MuscleNerd, leading member of our favorite hackers team broadcast live on Qik, showing the first "public" iPhone 3G soft unlock.
The live broadcast was about 4 minutes long and was not about fluff and BS. MuscleNerd went straight to the point switching SIM cards, running the unlock tool and showing the newly unlocked iPhone successfully operate under T-Mobile.
If you look at the video below, you will see that MuscleNerd is actually performing the unlock running some code directly from his computer but you won't have to do that once the 3G unlock becomes available to the public on December 31st. Indeed, you will be able to download and easily install the unlock method directly from Cydia.