Apple: Jailbroken iPhones can crash telco networks
The nation’s cellphone networks could suffer “potentially catastrophic” cyberattacks by iPhone-wielding hackers at home and abroad if iPhone owners are permitted to legally jailbreak their shiny wireless devices — that’s what Apple claims.
The Copyright Office is considering a request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to legalize the widespread practice of jailbreaking, in which iPhone owners hack their devices to accept software that hasn’t been approved for distribution through the iPhone App Store. Apple made the claim in comments filed last week (.pdf) with the agency.
The company’s filing explained that jailbreaking could allow hackers to altering the iPhone’s BBP — the “baseband processor” software, which enables a connection to cell phone towers.L33tdawg: While Apple does have a point (being able to run code at the baseband level is a bad thing) they're forgetting that the REAL problem is that the iPhone and iPhone 3G are vulnerable at the HARDWARE level - i.e. legal or otherwise, there's nothing stopping would be 'bad guys' from modifying the baseband. The flaw is within the chips and silicon. So who's fault is this?
