Unlocking the hottest phone in the market, the iPhone, seems to be highest goal attainable right now. The dream is not without its pitfalls however. iphoneunlocking.com of UniquePhones, was about to release its remote software unlocking services today when it received a phone call from the law firm representing AT&T. It promptly halted the release in consideration of the development.

 

The law firm informed UniquePhones of the legal boundaries the software would be breaching if it is released. Issues such as copyright infringement and illegal software dissemination were discussed. UniquePhones is now getting its own legal advice and considering whether this is a warning from AT&T or a direct threat for legal action.

For now they are also considering how the law will apply to the obvious problem of a worldwide release. They are also discussing what to do with the software if it is legally banned since it won't be long before their version will be obsolete in relation to future releases from other developers. As it stands however, UniquePhones will hold off the release until further notice.

Nothing is more annoying than an unwanted wake-up call in the middle of the night. This seems to be exactly the case with UniquePhone's announcement to deliver the promised software unlock for the iPhone.

An update on their iPhone Unlocking site says that a Silicon Valley law firm called them in the middle of the night to "slow down" the release of the software to users everywhere, even after their bold announcement of saying that they already have the software ready and good to go. Already this has caused a lot of clamor everywhere about the veracity of the company's promise to deliver the goods. Apparently, AT&T isn't the only one annoyed with this news.

A press release was already issued shortly after, explaining the hold on the software release until an assessment regarding the potential legal action it may cause. So until any new developments come up, anyone who wants their iPhone unlocked for whatever reason will just have to either look for a different alternative or just hold on to their hats and hope for the best.

The more the merrier, we say (unless it's dinner guests). For the readers who've been keeping up on the matter of iPhone hacks, we'll be reporting on two recently found methods of unlocking your mobile:

The first way is a Do-It-Yourself hardware hack by George Hotz, and will have iPhone owners opening up their mobile. Before you get cracking, remember to have these items handy before heading over to George's blog (here) for the full instructions:

• An iPhone
• Some trusty case opener tools
• A soldering iron
• Fine pitch wire
• An unlock switch

You will also need to download several programming binaries to go along with the hardware hack - we've provided for them here. The tools below include certain software that you might need from Steps 5-8 of the hack (again, check Hotz's site for specific instructions). Now, before you get all gung-ho about this, keep in mind that this hack involves plenty of soldering, and will most likely brick your iPhone if you're not absolutely careful. You have been warned. George is hoping to have a simplified hack method ready by next week - hopefully, it won't be hardware-based.

Download: iPhone Hack Binaries (George Hotz)

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The software-based hack is available for reading in the Full Article

Earlier, we updated on the iPhone getting close to being hacked. Now, it seems that the dream itself has finally come into realization, with the combined efforts of a team in hackint0sh.org and a 28-year-old hacker from Macedonia named Senad (also known as Deepdark) enabling the usage of European sims on Apple's latest gadget instead of the supplied AT&T one.

This means full functionality - ingoing calls, outgoing calls, sending and receiving text messages, edge internet - the whole shebang.

And despite the fact that the iPhone itself is an extremely complicated device, it seems that the process of unlocking it from AT&T is actually pretty simple. Using only a standard sim card reader/writer and the software required, iPhone users can finally swap out the AT&T sim with a European one.

You can check out the entire article for more info about this hack, as well as Deepdark's thoughts about hacking the iPhone in the read link we've supplied below.

According to gadget news site Gizmodo, the iPhone Dev Team is making steady progress towards their goal of freeing the Apple iPhone from its AT&T network lock.

The team has announced that the software that controls the phone's radio communications has finally been reverse-engineered. Gizmodo noted, however, that total unlocking is still quite a ways away.

Apparently, the work done on reverse-engineering the software has revealed that the iPhone has two layers that need to be explored further to fully unlock it. The first layer is the phone's main operating system, Mac OS X.

The second layer is the Nucleus Real Time Operating System which runs on a secondary chip and controls access to the baseband's memory. According to the iPhone Dev Team, the latter is one of the fronts that they could possibly use to "access or disable the lock from within the system."

 

And in the world of gadgets, (wind?)breaking news has just hit recently about presumably the first class action lawsuit ever filed against AT&T and Apple, which is related to the newly launched iPhone. The suit, filed by one called Trujillo, iterates that the iPhone's battery has a limited lifespan and requires annual replacement.

Or at least that's what we think he tried to say when he claimed, "The battery enclosed in the iPhone can only be charged approximately 300 times before it will be in need of replacement, necessitating a new battery annually for owners of the iPhone," stating one claim earlier that unbeknownst to himself, the "iPhone is a sealed unit with it's battery soldered on the inside of the device" rendering the battery permanent, unless replaced by a licensed Apple technician.

Earlier, Apple has disclosed the fact that the battery would hold 80% of its original charge after 400 consecutive charge and discharge cycles.

The information provided by the company actually breaks the plaintiff's claim in two halves. Firstly, the battery will last longer than 300 charges. And secondly, after the battery does break the 400-charge-discharge limit, it is still usable and does not warrant (or necessitate) an immediate replacement.

Image courtesy of fazed of icanhascheezburger.

Hacking the iPhone's EDGE connection for your laptop's net-surfing pleasure? Nate True over at the cre.ations blog points this out as an interesting proposition with the srelay application, which when properly uploaded into your iPhone, turns it into a SOCKS server. Before interested readers can get cracking, however, the hack requires that owners run their iPhone through the Jailbreak app, and have had the phone tethered to their PC.

The instructions should be available in the read link, although readers are warned that using the iPhone's EDGE connection for their laptop may get them into hot water with AT&T terms of service agreement. Furthermore, the instructions that will be provided for were done using Windows only - the author has yet to test them on a Mac. And definitely no word if this may conflict with the previously detected Vodafone exploit.

To give you an idea of how the whole hack will look, we'll also provide for this similar YouTube video we picked up, posted by buzzert1.

There's a bit of controversy surrounding a TUAW report that a British iPhone user was able to get an AT&T SIM to adopt a local Vodafone number, enabling him to use the iPhone outside the US with an American SIM.

Apparently, the user was excited about the iPhone and got it even though he could only use it with AT&T activated by iASign. Realizing the futility of having his US number in the UK, he went to the Vodafone store and had the people there add the phone to his account. Amazingly, the Vodafone-enabled AT&T SIM worked great on the iPhone. The screen flashed AT&T but the number was localized and SMS was working well.

According to TUAW, users in IRC have been discussing how this could have happened and if there was any truth in it. Most chatters say that it shouldn't have worked because of regional and technical restrictions. Apple has not commented on the topic so far.

TUAW reports that they tried to have the same procedure done in Canada but the Rogers store there would not touch the SIM. We'll keep you posted for more on this issue and other exploits as they come.

With the release of the iPhone, a lot of people have been trying to find a way to crack the AT&T lock on the product. The iPhone Dev Wiki hackers have been able to partially unlock the iPhone using a new application called iASign.

This program doesn't fully unlock the iPhone for use with all service providers, but the hack will allow you to use any existing Cingular/AT&T Pre-paid/MVNA SIM in the phone to place calls.

Currently, the hackers working on this project have been gearing up for a final assault on the unit with the ultimate goal of completely cracking the iPhone and giving it full functionality regardless of the network.

Certain issues have been blocking their attempts. The main problem of cracking the iPhone lies in the baseband or the radio chipset for the iPhone. The iPhone only has one lock which is a network personalization lock which is located in the baseband firmware itself.

The AT command to do the unlock is 'AT+CLCK="PN",0,"xxxxxxxx"'. The big problem is finding out what those x's are. Brute force is out of the question since there is a limit of 3-10 unlock attempts per phone, after which the firmware will "hard-lock" itself to AT&T.

Patching the firmware at /usr/local/standalone/firmware/ICE03.12.06_G.fls is difficult as well, considering that it's signed. The signature is checked in the baseband bootloader while the updater program, bbupdater, only checks a checksum, which can be changed. The update will take, but then the phone will refuse to boot because the signatures don't match.

The hackers have already worked two solid days in their attempt to disassemble the radio fw and have found a few backdoors. So far, none of these lead to an unlock, s the hunt is still on for a way to crack the code.

The chairman of a House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet Rep. Edward J. Markey is very upset by the fact that the iPhone has a US$ 175 termination fee. He said that the phone essentially becomes a very expensive paperweight if owners decide to discontinue their AT&T plan.

To put things into perspective, he was quoted at saying that the phone has "Hotel California service. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leaveÂ?you're stuck with your iPhone and you can't take it anywhere." This entire argument started from a hearing regarding the cellphone industry's wish to pre-empt states from regulating wireless phone companies.

So far the state public utility commissions have no authority over the pricing of wireless plans but have control over the terms and conditions of wireless service agreements. Be that as it may a law professor at Columbia University Timothy Wu had another take on the entire system saying that our current cellular phone industry is a "spectrum- based oligopoly" and that we, as consumers, have already given up our property rights.

He gave a very good example on this: "Imagine buying a television that stopped working if you decided to switch to satellite or a toaster that died if you switched from Potomac Power to ConEd." Now it's time to ask yourself, is this the way we want things to be run? Or do we want more from the system.