New tool jailbreaks Microsoft Surface slabs in 20 SECONDS Microsoft was quick to brush off the debugging hack that allows locked-down Windows RT Surface slabs to run any unauthorised desktop software. But now the exploit has been packaged into a slick jailbreaking tool that can unlock a Redmond fondleslab in seconds. A programmer going by the name of Netham45 has released RT …
Netham45 reckons you can jailbreak a slab in about 20 seconds just by running the runExploit.bat file on the tablet and pressing a button
Even more damning will be that improving/fixing this particular security issue will probably be harder for the end user than running the hack in the first place...
I would agree with you, Silverburn.
IF.
1. You didn't need a remote debugger session to the WinRT tablet running to perform this hack.
2. You didn't need to rerun this hack (with remote debugger) EVERY. TIME. YOU. BOOT.
This is not any kind of practical jailbreak and even if it were, what are you going to run on it? Paint.net? Wow.
This FAIL is for you.
"Consider that new iOS versions / iDevices are often jailbroken on day one..."
Yeah, not lately, though. There was news in some places a few days ago that there was a nearly finished untethered one for iOS 6:
http://www.redmondpie.com/ios-6-jailbreak-for-iphone-5-untethered-is-ready-on-ios-6.0.2-still-needs-some-work-done-on-ios-6.1/
Really annoying, browsing on my iPad has adverts for now, and I don't have all my nice Cydia-installed command line tools. I probably shouldn't have upgraded it to see just how rubbish Apple Maps really was :)
@Silverburn - if it was easy, it wouldn't need to be done programmatically. The list of instructions to follow is actually way beyond most device owners. Most of them won't even know what the VS debugger is, let alone how to conduct a remote session. Then configuring trust levels in memory... yeah, SOOOOO easy.
And next time you boot, do it again? And again? Within 24 hours of the iPhone 4's release, you could jailbreak it by opening a website.
This is a whole different bucket of cod.
"...The list of instructions to follow is actually way beyond most device owners. Most of them won't even know what the VS debugger is, let alone how to conduct a remote session. Then configuring trust levels in memory... yeah, SOOOOO easy. ..."
Whoever adopted such a position needs to get a brain and have it installed. It's right up there with some of the most dim-witted conceptual positions ever.
Complex instructions can be translated into scripts. It takes a few days or perhaps a week or two. It's inevitable.
Then ANYONE can 'click-click'.
Duh.
"iPhone 5 iOS6 Jailbreak
Really? the iPhone 5 running the latest iOS6 hasn't been reliably jailbroken yet and some think it might take 6 months."
Have you ever considered doing a bit of research before making a statement like that?
Even if it were true, why bother? How would it 'improve' a phone?
Hypothetically. Only.
It's MY computer; ought I need to "jailbreak" it to install and run programs of my choice?
It is my (hypothetical) computer isn't it? If not, what did I actually buy for my hypothetical $500 or more? Was it merely a one-time, periodically renewable, license to purchase programs, for additional (hypothetical) dollars, from Microsoft's store?
While cryptographic signing of software and secure boot are not bad by themselves, they are not likely to be infallible, as key compromises related to SSL show; and Microsoft has not given strong reason over the last 30 or so years to trust them. More than Microsoft I blame hardware manufacturers for not simply providing the software to generate and replace the platform key, sign software, and maintain the internal key database. Most people would forget or never use it, but it is true equally that most people do not use the BIOS, either with or without a password.
> I'm sure they'd be right on this, if it weren't for the fact that there is already a KB article on the MS web site detailing how to sideload non-signed apps.
And this requires MS Volume licencing and an Enterprise server that is set up as a repository. It is true that a corporate can obtain licences to create their own app store, for RT this may involve having to upgrade the Office RT licences as well because the one that comes with Surface do not allow corporate or commercial use.
So it is not quite what most mean by 'sideloading'.
Let me get this straight. the Surface is locked down, someone has released an exploit, and people are moving to rubbish the quality of the exploit as it must be run each reboot, but not one single whine about the fact the Surface is locked down to signed apps...?
You can tell this isn't about an iPad can't you.
Not really. More importantly, you can tell that microsofts marketing strategy is working. After all they have 1 platform for people that want to get work done, and 1 platform for people that just want stuff to work while they're browsing the net, reading email, playing games, etc. and only occasionally need to do anything office productivity like.
I suspect that if windows 8 had only come out in RT flavour with no "pro" versions available people would have been more eager to break into it and bypass the security properly.
Correct on both counts. However, the second needs correction:
They release a locked down OS which can't run anything that's not signed and obtained from a known source, attempting thereby to create a monopoly on the distribution of software to run on the OS.
They are doing this in a somewhat mature market to which they are a newcomer (or failed entrant, if we consider the smartphone to be part of it), completely ignoring that they became big partly by providing an OS platform for which a large number of vendors could write and sell programs. I should have sold my MS shares years ago, but don't have a great deal and kept it, hoping they would manage to do something sensible.
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It clearly explains Microsoft's present difficulties with Windows8 in tablets and mobile market. It also explains why the PC as a computing device is in decline. The trouble is now Microsoft has lost its stranglehold like they had with PCs on hardware manufacturers. When PCs were the only computing device, not toeing the line and disobeying Microsoft's orders resulted in putting the insurgents out of business. Without Windows licenses, the whole inventory of PCs would become nothing but scraps of plastic and metal without any chance of ever hitting the retail stores. For the hardware manufacturers it was a "You will comply!" single alternative.
Now with tablets and smartphones and especially with that pesky free Android, OEMs can happily sell their kit and keep all the money for themselves. They are not stupid anymore to allow Microsoft to saddle them. It was an easy choice for Samsung to decline being chained at the rear of the Microsoft's wagon and instead chose to make mountains of cash selling Android devices.
Microsoft will not disappear but at least in the consumer space, they can safely kiss goodbye the market dominance. They will have to compete like everybody else, which after all is not that bad for us.
For the moment, I strongly believe Microsoft's next step will be to send their lawyers to serve Samsung with a patent infringement lawsuit. However, this will not be of any help since manufacturers and consumers now know there is life after Windows and only a few of them will be recaptured and brought back into Redmond camp.
The problem here is that the desktop is losing relevance in the world of 2013 and beyond.
Devices like the iPad, Surface, Asus Transformer, and internet connected TVs are already supplanting the desktop/laptop in the home, and making inroads into the business world too.
Far, far, too early to signal the death knell of the desktop as we know it, but I do think the traditional laptop is definitely on its way out, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if at the home/office, we all end up with smart docks which we can slip out phones into to provide a more "desktop" like environment, such as the one you can already get for the Galaxy Note II.
Requiring crypto signature from reputable (uncompromised) source good.
Making source the only place you can get those apps (which have to paid for) bad.
Yes figuring out how how to safeguard your customers while granting access to all valid suppliers (IE potential competitors) in a fair way is a tough problem.
Isn't that what MS executives get paid humougous amounts of cash and stock options to solve?
Unless you run your slate permanently once broken this does not seem a practical jailbreak.
But this is Jailbreak 0.1. The goalposts have only started to move. Thumbs up for 1st effort.
Isn't that what MS executives get paid humougous amounts of cash and stock options to solve?
No. They get paid humongous amounts of cash and stock options to make Microsoft the dominant brand in whatever market they want to enter. Granting access to valid suppliers in a fair way (actually, doing anything in a fair way) is just plain not on the list. What may be on the list is allowing others beside themselves to punt software on their precious device, but if that might decrease their dominance, then guess which of these conflicting goals will be given the ol' heave-ho?
all this negativity towards MS will wind down.
MS is now one of the most ethical companies : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/17/microsoft-most-ethical-company_n_837003.html
And the make good kit like WP8 in the 920:http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/12/31/12-awards-the-nokia-lumia-920-won-in-2012/
and the surface / surface pro.
I don't like iPads but I don't run my mouth about how they suck because they are a well built device.
"The RT Jailbreak tool will not permanently alter the machine, but since it is only changing a kernel variable in RAM, it must be run after rebooting or powering up the tablet if one wishes to continue using any unauthorised software."
How long before the batch file is not put into a startup folder and doesn't even require the user to click or do anything?
The article mentions that running to rooting script opens the OS to malware.
Duh - the malware authors could copy-and-paste the rooting script into the top of their malware. Does the user have to crank a handle for twenty seconds while the rooting script runs?
The duh-obvious implication here is that this OS is not as secure as they claimed, because arbitrary malware (written next month) can be executed on the stock OS - simply by incorporating the rooting script into the malware. Duh.
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