Cellphone Hacks

537 Articles

IPhone Dev Team Releases Jailbreak Video

July 11, 2008 by 2 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R63lKICiWfg&hl=en&fs=1]
The iPhone dev team, notorious for jailbreaking the iPhone has just released a video of the iPhone 3G hacked. Keep up to date with it and watch for a release on their blog. This is a major update to the PwnageTool which is already available for previous versions of the iPhone.

They have added a lot of new features such as: canned web searches, custom installer configuration, and custom root partitions. They promise to release it soon, but state that it will not be this weekend. You can get a the high resolution version of the video from our mirror.

Neo FreeRunner Software Review

July 10, 2008 by 3 Comments


A first look from Ars Technica at the newly released Neo FreeRunner phone by OpenMoko reveals some interesting information. There are three different software stacks available to use; the Neo FreeRunner will ship with the GTK-based stack, referred to as om2007.2. It offers conventional smartphone applications, but most importantly, it includes “full root access to a Busybox shell with all of the standard scripting tools like sed and awk”. The ASU stack is what OpenMoko developers are currently working on; there are promises of a more user-friendly experience. The FSO stack, also currently in development, aims to resolve the issues brought up by having different software stacks for the same phone. Since none of the stacks are considered “fully functional”, OpenMoko may have a difficult time attracting a mainstream audience. Hackers may be hampered by the lack of available documentation, although there are resources for OpenMoko enthusiasts, if you just search hard enough. The final conclusion? While OpenMoko may be difficult to use, it compares favorably to competitors such as Google’s Android platform, which is less flexible.

IPhone: 2.0 Firmware Jailbroken, 3G Taken Apart

July 10, 2008 by 6 Comments


Oh, iPhone Dev Team, you are a hoot. It isn’t that you managed to jailbreak the iPhone 2.0 firmware on the day of its release, although we can’t help but smirk at that. It isn’t even that you revealed your handiwork in a playful way. We simply love that you expertly work us into a frenzy for the new jailbreak installer with few casual images and some aloof words. Now give us the installer before we get too antsy, please.

Not to be outshined, though, iFixit has posted a full iPhone 3G teardown, stripping away the sleek casing to feast on the goodness inside. They found some interesting changes from the last model: the glass screen, for example, is no longer glued to the LCD, which will no doubt make repairs less expensive. The battery is also unsoldered, meaning you won’t have to send the phone in for repair if the only battery needs maintenance.

LED Serial Debugging For Cell Phone Hacking

June 28, 2008 by 4 Comments


[Barry] needed some way to get serial output to help debug his efforts to port Linux to the HTC TytnII (Windows mobile Pocket PC phone). He wrote some code to send serial output via one of the LEDs on the phone and rigged up an AVR to pic up the output and provide a USB interface to the computer. It runs at about 200bps – perfect for the quick debug session.

Openmoko FreeRunner Now Available

June 25, 2008 by 6 Comments

Openmoko began selling Neo 1973 phones direct to developers last July. The phone is an open source project designed to ease development on mobile platforms. The Neo 1973 has since sold out, but a new Linux phone intended for the mass market has been released, the FreeRunner for ~$399. The screen is 640×480 with 3D acceleration and a 500MHz Samsung processor. The new phone has WiFi and 2.5G GSM support. It has some truly unique features like USB host mode support. You can find the differences between the two phones here. This new phone release should help strengthen the community since average users were discouraged from purchasing the original. Pictures of the phone’s internals and a component diagram can be found on the Openmoko wiki. We wish more manufacturers would explicitly tell us how to get console access.

[via Slashdot]

IPhone 2.0 Adds Secure Wipe

June 25, 2008 by 6 Comments


AppleInsider is reporting that iPhone Software v2.0 will add a secure wipe feature. The screenshot above shows the text “This will take about an hour.” added to the normal erase feature. This time is used to overwrite data to the disk multiple times. The need for secure phone erasure came to light after a researcher was able to recover personal information from a refurbished iPhone using forensic tools. Since then, a few people have published techniques for obliterating personal data using either the GUI or the more thorough command line method. Remote wipe has also been added to the new firmware in case the phone is stolen. We’re happy to see security being made easily accessible to nontechnical users and expect that remote wipe will become standard on laptops in the future.