7/5/2009

Teen Releases First Jailbreak App for iPhone 3GS

Filed under: — Aviran

The first jailbreak application for Apple’s new iPhone 3GS has been made available just two weeks after the iPhone debuted. George Hotz, a 19-year-old Google employee originally from New Jersey, created the application.

Jailbreaking the iPhone 3GS allows a user to install any programs directly onto the iPhone, including applications that are not from Apple.

Hotz, at the age of 16, was credited with being part of the team that unlocked the first-generation iPhone. The unlock, announced in a blog post, allowed users to operate the first-generation iPhone with any SIM card. Hotz traded his unlocked iPhone for three regular iPhones and a Nissan 350Z.

“Normally I don’t make tools for the general public, and would rather wait for the development team to do it. But guys, what’s up with waiting until 3.1? That isn’t how the game is played,” Hotz wrote in his blog Friday. “We release, Apple fixes, and we find new holes.”

In his blog post, Hotz provides a step-by-step explanation of what users need to do to jailbreak the iPhone 3GS and teases that a jailbreak for the Mac OS is coming soon.

British spy chief’s cover blown on Facebook

Filed under: — Aviran

The wife of the new head of Britain’s spy agency has posted pictures of her husband, family and friends on Internet networking site Facebook, details which could compromise security, a newspaper said on Sunday.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service in November. The SIS, popularly known as MI6, is Britain’s global intelligence-gathering organization.

In what the Mail on Sunday called an “extraordinary lapse,” the new spy chief’s wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, posted family pictures and exposed details of where the couple live and take their holidays and who their friends and relatives are.

The details could be viewed by any of the many millions of Facebook users around the world, but were swiftly removed once authorities were alerted by the newspaper’s enquiries.

Bluetooth Big Brother tracks festival-goers

Filed under: — Aviran

Researchers are using Bluetooth technology to observe the meanderings of tens of thousands of festival-goers at a top European rock festival, hoping their findings will launch a new generation of tracking devices.

The team from the University of Ghent in Belgium believes the research could yield new satellite navigation applications for the retail and security sectors.

“We have installed 36 Bluetooth scanners across the site and along a few surrounding roads, as well as bus stops,” the university’s Nico Van de Weghe said on Friday of the project at the Werchter festival, northeast of Brussels this weekend.

Within a radius of 30 meters, the scanners track mobile phones equipped with Bluetooth, a type of short-range wireless technology which allows different devices to connect with one another, often to transfer files.

But the masses flocking to see Coldplay, Kings of Leon or Metallica need not worry about their privacy, Van de Weghe said.

The researchers will only track the devices’ MAC address — a number that identifies each device on a network — which cannot be traced to phone numbers or personal details.

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