iPhone Unlocking Imminent?

Update 8/21: The iphone has been fully unlocked, but there is still some work to do before it becomes practical

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I just checked the iPhone dev wiki and saw this announcement:

We need help unlocking the radio. We can issue AT commands. Can you help? Join us on IRC!

This is pretty major. They’ve had to get through many layers of defenses to get to this point. It now remains to be seen what the defenses are like in the inner sanctum.

It already looks like it won’t be easy:

“We know how to unlock the phone. Unfortunately the commands needed gave “Permission Denied” errors. We did find a reference to a hardware register that causes “Permission Denied” error in the bootloader, but we cannot software patch the bootloader because it is signed. The only way I see around it is JTAG, which we currently know nothing about. Or possibly in DFU mode. I think we may just be better off accessing the radio through user mode.”

If they succeed, it will be possible to use the core phone features (ie not visual voicemail) with T- Mobile in the US, and other GSM carriers around the world. It remains to be seen whether you will be able to use it with other EDGE networks, and how quickly Apple plugs the holes.

If you think you can help, check this out:

<geohot[sleep]> first person to send me an ida db fully disasm of http://www.gofilego.com/?fileid=a812bf8b92dab591c29689aeba369e839acf5079 gets windows jailbreak w itunes working.

Join them on #iphone-dev on fusion.osx86.hu. Just don’t ask stupid questions, that’s what #iphone is for .

Update 8/21: The iphone has been fully unlocked, but there is still some work to do before it becomes practical