Hackers saw through iPhone AT&T shackles

Hackers have succeeded in (partially) unlocking the iPhone so Apple's much-hyped device can be used on at least one network other than AT&T. Although the iPhone Development Project team has broken the shackles tying the device and AT&T directly, there are still limitations that mean customers can use pre-paid SIMs from …

[Anonymous Coward]

Link

Interesting. But when you go through to find out about the guy who got the phone to work in the UK some idiot has done there site Black writing on a dark blue back ground.... I have NO idea what it says (And a head ache)

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily a red herring

From what can be gathered from the posts at TUAW, O2 POS (Point of Sales, not Piece of S***) software systems only take the last 9 digits (with the first 10 or 11 locked by software). T-Mobile and Orange are unknown.

If Vodafone's system allowed an override of the first 11 digits to allow you to specify a complete 20-digit replacement USIM number for your mobile number (that's how you can have your SIM replaced and keep your number), you enter the full AT&T USIM number and it accepts it, you can associate it with your actual UK phone number.

After all, the subscriber details are dependent on the SIM card, its (U)SIM number's association with a mobile number in the provider's HLR (Home Location Register), and an account associated with both. If two of the three items stay the same, and your POS allows you to replace the third at will in its completeness without verifying the country code, then you should be golden.

[Dillon Pyron]

Do I really want a $600 phone?

I'm with AT&T. But I'm off contract (expired December 29). AT&T has been making me all sorts of offers to sign a new contract, including two iPhones, at the front of the line. Okay, now I can use my current SIM in an iPhone (maybe). But it's still a $600 iPhone. Yes, it's a nice phone (shut up Apple haters). But I've got an iPod for music and I don't normally surf the web on a phone. One of the primary places I use my iPod is on airplanes. Guess where you can't use an iPhone.

When the full function iPhone drops below $300, I'll think about it. When the emasculated iPhone 2 comes out at $300, I'll pass on it.

[Giles Jones]

$600 phone?

I've bought sim free phones costing a lot more than $600.

It's not a lot when you consider you can keep it for 6 months and then sell it if you fancy a change. You get a lot of your investment back.

Also you can use phones on planes, the restrictions were limited. Maybe not on all carriers but I certainly remember some of them lifting the restriction.

Those hacking the iPhone would be better contributing to OpenMoko.

[Anonymous Coward]

IPhone firmware upgrades...

Cool...hackers have now provided pay as you go service for the iPhone:

http://iphone.corank.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Red Herring

I'm pretty sure a SIM is hard coded with an IMSI which is associated with a specific country and network. Therefore you can't use any SIM on any network as it's the IMSI which is used to register your phone on a network. I'd guess it's for this reason that when you port your number to another network you have to have a new SIM from the recipient network. I'd imagine the POS only need the last 9 digits in order to uniquely identify a SIM that's been supplied by that network.

[Morely Dotes]

@ Anonymous (and stupid) Coward:

"some idiot has done there site Black writing on a dark blue back ground"

And apparently some other idiots can't be arsed to (1) highlight the text so it shows in high contrast in the Idiot's Choice browser, IE, or (2) use an alternative browser such as Lynx for Win32 (one assumes that the vast majority of idiots use Windows, since they have no clue that there even *are* other operating systems) which displays plain text only, without any color information from the site being processed.

Lastly: Get a grammer-checker. The word you wanted there is "their."

[Frank Bough]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghh!

"so Apple's much-hyped device"

EVERY FUCKING DAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Same Company

Cingular and ATT are the same company. Cingular was formed as a company made up of SBC Wireless/Bellsouth Mobility, the wireless divisions of the respective carriers. Later Cingular bought ATT's wireless division. Then SBC bought ATT and took the ATT moniker as the companies name. Then ATT bought Bellsouth. In doing so ATT accquired the controlling interest in Cingular, the wireless company owned by both SBC and Bellsouth. So all that has really been done is the individuals have enabled the use of the prepaid phones provided by the same carrier, which are still marketed under the Cingular GoPhone brand in most places as they have not been repackaged as ATT yet, as the non-prepaid service has.

[Anonymous Coward]

they may have got it working outside of AT&T after all

On reading that aritcle about the vodafone sucess for iphone, i read up about USIM's (not SIMS!!)..

What he says he did may actually be possible. The USIM is actually a global standard 3rd gen identity module. from what I can find out about it, its serial number itself does not tie it to a specific network. This could indicate that a USIM could be used globally by any network (including UMTS in EU, WCDMA in JP and US). Good news is its designed inherently to be backwards compatible with GSM handsets. To me, this means vodafone could easily adopt the identity number into its 3g network, which when inserted into a 2.5g GSM handset, would fail back onto the GSM network, giving instant connectivity for the iphone to your home account.

If this scenario is true, there is a very legal and very open loophole in getting the iphone connected to your local operator, as long as they operate both a 2/2.5g network and a 3g network.

[heystoopid]

Say

Say , when playing around with telephone sim cards cards you could get arrested on trumped up terrorism charges and become the local new "Federal Election Political Football" , thus allowing the Aussie Federal 9 to 5 Coppers(800 understaffed and climbing at last count hence the nickname) and the blow in ever self wanking "Rozzer" and unwanted tourist , from the UK to trample over all your "Magna Carta" common law rights ! , which is what is currently happening in Down Under now!

I can't wait for the more usable versatile network unlocked Linux powered equivalent to hit the assault beaches, as it would make Iphony look like an overpriced defective by design bad P..O...S...., which it is by the way !

[Simn Lovatt]

SIM swappage...

Vodafone's system (in fact, all networks) know which SIM cards are available on their network. This is a basic security measure to stop people registering PAYT SIM's from other networks onto their network!

As soon as you try to perform a SIM-swap and use a SIM number that the network doesn't recognise it would be rejected.

I've pointed this out on What Mobile's iPhone discussion. SSN = SIM Serial Number, by the way :)

Vodafone 8944100,

H3 89442000.

AT&T 890111

So when your network operative enters 890111xxxxx into their SIM swap program it would be cross checked with the network's database of SIM's on the network and reject it as a foreign SIM.

Morely Dotes:

It's "grammar" not "grammer" - If you want to be picky ;)

[Daniel Ballado-Torres]

OpenMoko

"Those hacking the iPhone would be better contributing to OpenMoko."

Ahhh ... I think around the same lines with those dudes working on Mono, .GNU and the such ... why do they boost *PROPIETARY* frameworks?? I have no sympathy for them, I prefer the OpenSource J2EE appservers over them.

Then again, I might just hack an iPhone ... with an axe. ;)

[Alan Donaly]

Link turn off style

In FF you turn off style in IE you can say use my style

easy to set really or you can just "view source" things

like this < > are formatting don't read those. I have to

turn off style every so often when some dork makes

the page too wide. Quite right about stick to open source

make your own these proprietary things are designed

to screw people out of money not be efficient. Although

I like Johansen's hacking of DRM shackles on hardware

it makes the people who design them look like the

commercial coprophagic cheap whores they are.

[Anonymous Coward]

iphone???

I dont understand what they really gain from locking their phones to one distinct provider. Dont they know that there are lots of people that want the different phones and are more willing to pay someone extra for a hacked phone then to change their service provider. They could make more money if they just offered it to everyone. Some people who are leary of the unlocked versions will just, in the end, do without. They could be losing millions/billions in this maket if they think that at&t is giving them enough extra for all the "new" signups that come their way they are wrong. They would make more if they just sold it and offered it to all people of all networks.

[Erlang Lacod]

busy hacking what ?

If the rumours are true there seems little point in bothering to hack imported iPhones in the UK.anymore as the iPhone could be about to be offered on the O2 network.

[myxiplx]

Full functionality?

I'm skeptical of the claims of full functionality on any network. I thought one of the reasons the iPhone is tied to AT&T is that they had to make network changes to support some of the new features, such as on demand voicemail?

I think what's meant is that the iphone is unlocked and you can access everything in the menus. Whether all those features are fully working is another matter.

And if it's true that the more advanced features don't work with other networks, hacking the iphone is destined to remain a geek hobby, and not something that apple and AT&T are going to be loosing sleep over.

[Cannop]

Losers

What is this iphone thing then? I cant seem to find any info on it anywhere?

And myxipix

"and not something that apple and AT&T are going to be loosing sleep over" ........

It's losing. One o.

[ian]

Ha ha ha

"Lastly: Get a grammer-checker. "

Ha ha. Pass me the Alanis Morissette dictionary.