iPhone PWNED

So this is the story....  Instead of the normal iJailbreak or Ziphone hacks, the iPhone Dev Team is releasing (update: may be a week late) a full firmware hack that allows you to use itunes to upload and download any software you want to your iPhone (even a full OS?).  You could also change the processor speed up to 667 from 400Mhz if you wanted to.  In the future, you could also back up your iPhone with all of the hacked apps, settings, videos, songs, etc.  Then do a full restore at a later point.  You can also do interesting things with the bootloader as you can see from the video.

The creators think this will be unbreakable by Apple and they show it running on iPhone OS 1.2 (2.0Beta)

Here is a quick rundown... interview with the developers:

theiphoneproject: What does PWN accomplish for the users?

The Devs: Full independence from Apple’s vision on what the iPhone (and iPod Touch) can and cannot do. Currently it will allow you to restore to a jailbroken and unlocked state, and if you can figure it out - some extra cool stuff like Installer, Cydia, and other applications. You will eventually be able to backup your entire phone and restore to a state exactly the way you like it, restore straight to jailbroken state with installer, or even potentially install other OSes like linux (see iphonelinux.org) to your phone.

theiphoneproject: Why should I use this instead of ZiPhone? (or any other method in that case)

The Devs: Because it is the first time you can fully take control over your device. Previous solutions such as ZiPhone rely on exploits to break into an existing installation of iPhone OS, and install stuff into your device that way. Those approaches are fundamentally different from ours, in that they attempt to correct what Apple’s restricted in the OS after the fact, and only have limited power in what they can do to it. Our approach takes full control of the lowest layers of Apple’s device, and allows a much safer kind of jailbreak, that uses Apple’s tried and tested restore mechanism. It will also allow much more when hackers realize all the new possibilities this method opens up and start taking advantage of them.

theiphoneproject: Can you give us an overview of the process?

The Devs: In all honesty, it’s quite simple. This is the first release of Pwnage, and the process of building an IPSW is thus far only supported on Mac OS X. The first thing to do is make sure you have the Official IPSW of the firmware you are running (eg. If you are running 1.1.4, download 1.1.4). Now open the Pwnage tool, and click “Browse .ipsw” and browse to the firmware file that you just downloaded. Next you click the “iPwner” button, and watch as PWNAGE patches the iPhone bootlader, making it possible to circumvent any code signing checks. After this, your iPhone will reboot. As the iPhone reboots, exit the Pwnage app, and reopen it.

Here is where the magic happens, once the phone has rebooted, click on “IPSW Builder,” and you are presented with a list of the building options (jailbreak, unlock, etc..) including the all new “BootNeuter,” the ultimate iPhone unlocking solution. Once you have customized your IPSW, hit OK and let Pwnage build the restore file. Next we head to iTunes, option+click on the restore button, and navigate to the custom ipsw that you just created,. Hit OK and we’re done! iTunes will restore the iPhone to the state of your choosing (Be it jailbroken, unlocked etc…).

Credits: asap18, bgm, Bugout, bushing, chris, dinopio, drudge, Fred_, ghost_000, gray, kroo, MuscleNerd, netkas, np101137, planetbeing, pr3d4t0r, pumpkin, pytey, roxfan, sam, Turbo, w___, wizdaz, Zf.

Special thanks: Geohot, cmw