The iPhone, Steve Jobs and an army of blind hackers

Posted by Chris Soghoian
With Steve Jobs' recent announcement of his intention to fight off the independent iPhone developers, the question that must be asked is how will Apple try to defeat the hackers: Frequent and disruptive software updates, or lawsuits? Will Apple risk losing its most frequently (ab)used legal tool, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to try to punish the developers of the iPhone unlocking tools?

The wait is over. After being teased over the past few weeks with rumors that Apple would turn a blind eye to iPhone hacking or *gasp* even encourage it, the news is in and it ain't good for the hackers.

At the official U.K. launch of the iPhone Tuesday, CEO Steve Jobs made it clear that Apple will fight attempts to use the popular device on unauthorized networks. "It's a cat-and-mouse game," said Jobs. "We try to stay ahead. People will try to break in, and it's our job to stop them breaking in."


anySIM iPhone unlocker
(Credit: iPhone Dev Team/Hackintosh)

For the loose-knit community of iPhone developers, the last few months have been an around-the-clock hacking session. As a result, programmers have released a plethora of applications. Some, including an instant-messaging tool, a general purpose application installer and even a Nintendo game emulator, can be seen simply as developers releasing applications that Apple just didn't get around to writing itself. Other hacks, such as the much hyped iPhone Dev Team's anySIM unlocking tool, or the numerous free-ringtone tutorials that have been floating around the Net, can be more accurately described as a developer-lead attack upon Apple's revenue streams.
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