iPhone hacker gets put in his place after holding jailbroken iPhones for ransom

IntoMobile — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:09:16 +0000

Despite app discovery services like Chorus for iPhone, the AppStore is a really tough place to eek out a living. That may have prompted one Dutch teen to find a new way to make money from the iPhone – hold them for ransom! That’s what happened yesterday when some T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) iPhone users in the Netherlands found a hacked message on their jailbroken iPhones. The message asked the user to secure their iPhone by paying $4.95 for instructions to remove the message prompt. The hacker didn’t disable the iPhones in any way, but he essentially wanted a ransom for peace of mind (and not seeing an annoying pop-up message at boot). It was an interesting (not ethical, or commendable, but interesting for sure) money-making scheme for all of a day, before the hacker got shut down.

The jailbroken iPhone community comprises no more than a small minority of all iPhone owners out there, but with many millions of iPhones spread around the world, that’s still a sizable community. Seeing as how most of those jailbroken iPhones are still going about their day with the default SSH password, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to make money from jailbroken iPhones.

This is what the hacker posted to his website:

“Dear iPhone user,

Your iPhone is not secure. That’s the reason your visiting this page, isn’t it? Well you can pay me $4,95 at my paypal account PureInfinity92@mailinator.com, and I’ll mail you very easy instructions on how to secure your iPhone. You can also contact me at PureInfinity92@gmail.com

If you don’t pay, it’s fine by me. But remember, the way I got access to your iPhone can be used by thousands of others. And they can send text messages from your number (like I did..), use it to call (or record your calls), and actually whatever they want, even use it for their hacking activities! I can assure you, I have no intention of harming you or whatever, but, some hackers do! It’s just my advise to secure your phone (: Have a nice day!”

The good news is that PayPal suspended his account with haste, making sure that the ill-intentioned teen couldn’t make any money from his scam. The hacker then posted a follow-up to his site, apologizing for his scam and offering his instructions to remove the message (and secure jailbroken iPhones) for free.

The lesson here? Change your jailbroken iPhone’s SSH password. Find out how to do that here.

[Via: ZDNet]

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IntoMobile — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:37:04 +0000

A really great post has found its way to reddit from Jamie Zawinski, who’s a big name in developer circles (known as jwz), about his rough ride in trying to get a free tip calculator into the webOS App Catalog. Since I’ve been playing with Bell’s Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre for the last week and trying out homebrew applications, it really caught my eye. Here’s The Short Version of this particular programmer’s complaints, but I encourage you to read the whole thing if you’re packing a Palm Pre or developing on webOS.

Inability to natively install applications from outside the market
Requirement of a verified PayPal account and potential fees, even for free apps
Forfeiting rights to post submitted applications anywhere other than the App Catalog

Let me preface my reply by saying that I’m not a developer, and don’t pretend to fully empathize with their wide-ranging plights and challenges when dealing with manufacturers, carriers, and end-users. However, a lot of this post raised some flags.

If you don’t want to play by Palm’s rules to get into the App Catalog (however reasonable/unreasonable they may be), don’t whine when your only option left is homebrew; making apps “off the grid” is not a bad starting spot for someone learning the webOS platform. Palm is in dire financial traits, and they need to harness their app market in order to stay in business – that entails some level of quality control, dealing with PayPal, code tweaks, and all that jazz that might come off as personal affronts to the more quixotic developers out there. How do you think Elevation Partners would feel if, when asking about third-party software strategy, Palm said “Developers can do whatever the hell they want! Woo, open source!” and cracked open a Bud? Instead, Palm saw what a financially successful player, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), was doing right (taking control of the application stream) and doing wrong (making draconian app submission decisions) and built their strategy around that. Sure, it might not be the supposed open-source programming Nirvana found in Maemo 5 or even Android, but it’s a balanced approach that helps everyone win at least a little. If you’re writing free apps and you don’t want to jump through the hoops, homebrew is not that complicated for end users.

Enter dev mode
Get Quick Install and your recovery ROM (Sprint, Bell)
Install fileCoaster

There, you’re set. You have a second on-device app store that Palm doesn’t control. Go nuts. Is that really an insurmountable barrier for entry? Will an app really have that many fewer eyeballs on it than if it were in the App Catalog? And if the software is free anyway, why would the creator care?

If developers want to support the webOS ecosystem with a free app, or make a buck with a premium one, they should be ready to make some compromises, including small code changes for the sake of QA. It’s not like Palm is turning into a bunch of Nazis; they aren’t taking shots at the homebrew scene, like Apple does with jailbreakers – in fact, Palm encourages the homebrew scene. The exclusive rights to the code is simply Palm’s way of ensuring the official market remains valuable. Why would anyone use the App Catalog if the homebrew scene had all of the same apps plus others that didn’t make it though the hoops? Sure, end users would get their apps, and devs could do whatever they wanted, but Palm wouldn’t get their cut, which ultimately is bad news for the whole platform and anyone developing on it.

As for the $99 annual developer fee, someone has to handle the submissions; even if your app is free, that someone answering the e-mails has to get paid. If you can’t be bothered to manage a ubiquitous and widely-accepted payment method like PayPal to handle that tiny bit of bureaucracy, then why should they be bothered to look at your submission? The thing that probably set me off most on jwz’s post was the insinuation that Palm was dead because they’re abusing webOS developers like a bunch of naughty puppies. First off, the phone has been out three months, and as I’m sure you can imagine, it takes a lot of manpower to make an app store ready for primetime – calling the time of death at this point is ridiculous. Secondly, this is the harshest amount of discontent I’ve heard from a webOS developer so far, and I’m tempted to think the majority are still willing to stick with Palm through the official App Catalog launch. Let’s hear from other developers who have tried their hand at the submission process, and see who has been satisfied (or at least understanding), and who has been pushed to another mobile platform. Feel free to comment with your own personal experiences.

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iPhone hacker gets put in his place after holding jailbroken iPhones for ransom

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