If you’re an iPhone owner, particularly if you’ve jailbroken your phone, you probably saw the news this morning of the first ever iPhone worm to appear in the wild. The good news is that it’s just a proof-of-concept virus written by white-hat hacker Ashley Towns to spread awareness about the default password vulnerability that we’ve all known was a potential security hole for ages now. This only effects iPhone users who have jailbroken their phone and have installed SSH (and keep it running on their device, as it does by default). While the worm does ‘infect’ your iPhone with with an annoying wallpaper change, that is about the extent of it.


For more info on protecting yourself from this and future woms/virii that exploit this vulnerability check out this great YouTube video by D7 [below]. If you don’t know who he is you will probably want to subscribe. He has a plethora of helpful iPhone videos on YouTube! In addition to changing the default password I’d also suggest you get the SBSettings module ‘SSH Toggle’, this way you only have to run SSH when you actually need to use it (which isn’t very often for most users).

Thanks for the video D7!

Just a few weeks ago, Snow Leopard started shipping. Those with a new Mac who was promised to have the “upgrade package at $9.95″, it came a few days later (You can’t blame them, they said it’ll only be available in September). Just before that even happened, though, developers and hackers alike found a glaring mistake by Apple: the Flash Player included in Snow Leopard was an obsolete version. While mayhem and hell hasn’t exactly broken out, Apple has swiftly provided OS X Update 10.6.1, now available through Software Update. My update is at a tiny size of 9.8MB, but if you’re going to install it on multiple computers, or Software Update doesn’t give you that option yet, you can always download the package here (DIRECT LINK) at a whopping 71.47MB.

According to Apple’s site, the updates are as follows:

• Improves compatibility with some Sierra Wireless 3G modems
• Addresses an issue in which some printer compatibility drivers might not appear properly in the Add Printer browser
• Addresses an issue that might cause DVD playback to stop unexpectedly
• Addresses an issue that might make it difficult to remove an item from the Dock
• Resolves an issue in which the Command-Option-T keyboard shortcut would sometimes bring up the special characters menu in applications such as Mail and TextEdit
• Addresses instances in which auto account setup in Mail might not work
• Resolves issues when sending mail with certain SMTP servers
• Addresses an issue in which Motion 4 could become unresponsive
• Includes an update to Adobe Flash Player plug-in version 10.0.32.18

All Snow Leopard users are advised to update as soon as possible to fix the gaping hole Apple has left. But for iPhone 3GS users, that’s another thing.

As you guys might have known, the iPhone OS 3.1 is out. The iPhone Dev Team has reminded us that the iPhones might never be unlocked again if you update it, because the baseband might not be jailbreakable. And reports around the Internet have confirmed that the iPhone cannot be restored to 3.0 anymore. So while iPhone 2G and 3G users have to wait patiently, here’s something to do for your iPhone 3GS if you haven’t done it yet. Get the iBSS and iBEC files now before you update to 3.1.

It’s important because this is a security procedure. It was mentioned in one of the earlier posts, and if you still haven’t done it yet, the wonderful guys at Modmyi.com have come up with a very useful guide:

3G[S] Users Capture Your iBSS and iBEC BEFORE 3.1 [Reminder]

For the rest of the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPod touch users, why not grab yourself a cup of coffee and wait? Jailbreak should be on the way, and so is the unlock. Go, Dev Team!

It’s been very long since Gadget Cracker has updated anything at all. We’re very sorry for this. In any case, if you haven’t heard about it in other sites, the Apple Rock n’ Roll event is coming up! You can count on Engadget updating frequently here. There are plenty of rumors flying around this time, with none confirmed yet. Here’s a few that we’ve gathered over the course of the last few weeks. Again, nothing is actually confirmed, so please do not shoot us if we’re incorrect!

• This event will solely revolve around a music theme, i.e. there will not be any updates on Mac or the Apple TV, as speculated earlier.
• The iPod touch and iPod nano will be getting built-in cameras. So far, photos seem to show only that of the iPod touch, and the camera is located just beside the WiFi patch on the top-left corner of the back of the device. (this is further supported by some of Belkin’s casings for the iPod touch leaked out early)
• The iPod touch will have a 64GB model.
• The iPod classic range will be discontinued, effectively killing off Apple’s HDD-based music players.
• The App Store will be getting an upgrade in view of the 65000+ applications the App Store has.
• The new iPod range will not be available so soon, in view of some defects. (aww.)

Whatever it is, the event will start at 9am PDT, so check the Engadget link above! The event will start at GMT 1700hrs. Remember to count in the DST hour if you’re affected by the areas. (UPDATE2: You could always refer here, though.) Let’s hope this will be interesting…

EDIT: I almost forgot about this, but the iPhone OS 3.1 will be coming out soon, and it doesn’t seem that far-fetched to say that it might coincide with the event. Needless to say, the iPhone Dev Team has posted here that jailbreakers who have jailbroken their iPhones should NOT update to 3.1, or you will risk losing your unlock forever. Heads up!

"I knew that!", says the navigator.

Let’s face it: we’re all waiting for the day when our iPhones and iPod touches start identifying the hunk beside that bar or that chick walking on the street by just taking her photo with a camera. While that won’t be possible in the near future (though the Twitter app above allows a bit of room for that), there’s of course the augmented reality (AR) apps in the up-and-coming iPhone OS 3.1, slated to arrive this September.

To put it simply in the context of the iPhone, it combines the usage of the camera, the all-new magnetometer (a.k.a compass), GPS and an Internet connection to give you real-time information on what you see. For instance, you can point at one location and that will give you the nearest road. There are many uses for it, and the possibility is endless.

According to the LA Times post here:

Apple told Acrossair, developer of the Nearest Tube train finder, that the app will be approved for distribution after Apple releases version 3.1 of the iPhone software, which the developer expects will land in early September.

Augmented reality apps can only be used by iPhone 3GS users, though. Boo.

And the iPhone Dev Team has answered: redsn0w 0.8 now officially supports jailbreaking of the iPhone 3GS. saurik has also updated the MobileSubstrate and WinterBoard packages for use with the 3GS, according to the iPhone Dev Team’s post here. However, the same old warning applies to all 3GS users to obtain the iBEC and iBSS files. They are now looking for more holes to exploit considering 3.1 would probably have a fix, and that would mean (temporarily) bad news for soon-to-be owners of the 3GS. To quote the Dev Team, “For those of you without 3GS phones, it’s a race against the clock to use this particular hole. There’s nothing we can do about that, but we will always be looking for new holes.”

ultrasn0w 0.8 has also been released which will support the iPhone 3GS. However, it is crucial that you do not upgrade to anything beyond 3.0, including the 3.1 beta software. Quoth the Dev Team: “Apple has gotten very serious with the latest baseband — they’ve removed 180 (!) commands in an effort to cut down their exposure to holes. So please always stay away from stock Apple IPSWs and instead use our tools as we release them. These tools let you update your firmware without updating your baseband.”

And good news for those using Linux: redsn0w has also been released for you guys as well. (: Get your redsn0w while it’s, er, cold! And obtain ultrasn0w by adding repo666.ultrasnow.com to the list of repositories in Cydia.

After the long and grueling wait, iPhone 3GS users can finally rejoice: the jailbreak for the iPhone 3GS has been released first by geohot with his software, purplera1n, which only runs on Windows for now (with the Mac version coming later). He was originally in the Dev Team before he got kicked out. According to his blog post dated today,

Normally I don’t make tools for the general public, and rather wait for the dev team to do it. But guys, whats up with waiting until 3.1? That isn’t how the game is played. We release, Apple fixes, we find new holes. It isn’t worth waiting because you might have the “last” hole in the iPhone. What last hole…this isn’t golf. I’ll find a new one next week. Also your purplera1nyday files ensure that you can always get back to a jailbroken state, so if you have it it’s just a matter of tools.

The iPhone Dev Team is still keeping mum on this issue. Whatever it is, the jailbreak program is posted here. Either that, or you can get the file from the official site. Apparently, it is “it’s smaller than C++ hello world” and there will be no need for the IPSW files. Kudos to you, geohot!

[UPDATE] According to saurik (one of the iPhone Dev Team members) in his few tweets, “The PurpleRa1n 3GS jailbreak (like the unofficial 3.0 beta QuickPwn jailbreaks) is missing critical patches required for WinterBoard (etc.)” He continued: “ADDITIONALLY, WinterBoard /will/ need work on the 3GS (new instructions), but I can’t even begin looking at that until we get fixed patches.”

So hold your horses folks! It’s better if the iPhone Dev Team makes an official release and we wait until 3.1 comes out. That’s when other developers will start developing and modifying code for the 3GS for several programs that might have compatibility issues with the 3GS.

Yep, you heard it all right. According to the iPhone Dev-Team website, they are holding the jailbreak back from its release until 3.1 is coming out. According to them in their blog post here, 3.0 is really buggy and bugfixes should be out real soon, so if Apple mends the hole in the exploit they found in 3GS, then the effort would be futile in the first place:

We can jailbreak the 3GS right now. But making our jailbreak public at this point in time would benefit relatively few people. It would in fact be detrimental to many more people than it would help. So we feel it’s best to keep our version of the jailbreak out of Apple’s sights for the time being.

In the meantime for eager iPhone 3GS users, geohot posted in his blog about the new security Apple has put into the iPhone 3GS:

Apple has added a new layer of security to the iPhone 3GS. I mentioned it several posts earlier; it’s the ECID field. When iTunes starts the restore process, they contact Apple servers to generate signatures just for your device. It’s important you get these signatures for your phone before a new version of the software comes out.

So to obtain these signatures, the great guys at iClarified have posted two guides as to how to obtain the ECID of your iPhone 3GS: one for the Mac and one for the Windows. Make sure you do this before you upgrade it next, or otherwise your iPhone 3GS might be permanently unjailbreakable!

Other than that, why not make yourself a cup of coffee and do some work whilst waiting for Apple’s 3.0.1 release?

[UPDATE: 2ND JULY]

The iPhone Dev Team has found another way to obtain the exact same thing you’re looking for, and more when using purplera1n with a simple restore thru iTunes, if you’re using the 3GS of course. Apparently, the team at Apple has stored those extremely valuable information into the temporary folder. If you’re using the Mac, the folder would be at /tmp/, and it will be at %TEMP% for Windows. Not really the smartest thing to do, but hey, at least we benefit from it. Better not complain!

The great folks at ModMyi.com has already come up with a nice guide to obtain these files here, though this only applies to the Mac. We’ll be updating the post again once we find another guide for the Windows!

[UPDATE 2]

Thanks to GC reader DR, some searching and sniffing around was done and apparently purplera1n provides only the iBSS when you input the ECID. The restore method can be used to obtain both the iBSS and iBEC for future use.