Bitchkoma
07-29-2009, 07:24 AM
iPhone Jailbreaking Could Crash Cellphone Towers, Apple Claims (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/jailbreak/)
[offsite:3lxi3irq]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.
By tinkering with this code, “a local or international hacker could potentially initiate commands (such as a denial of service attack) that could crash the tower software, rendering the tower entirely inoperable to process calls or transmit data,” Apple wrote the government. “Taking control of the BBP software would be much the equivalent of getting inside the firewall of a corporate computer — to potentially catastrophic result.[/offsite:3lxi3irq]
Hah. Really? Apple blowing things out of proportion (to maintain their proprietary lock-in) or actual threat. Wait, what threat? So there'll be a 3-5 mile radius of people who can't seem to get full bar on their cell. Wow, such a threat.
[offsite:3lxi3irq]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.
By tinkering with this code, “a local or international hacker could potentially initiate commands (such as a denial of service attack) that could crash the tower software, rendering the tower entirely inoperable to process calls or transmit data,” Apple wrote the government. “Taking control of the BBP software would be much the equivalent of getting inside the firewall of a corporate computer — to potentially catastrophic result.[/offsite:3lxi3irq]
Hah. Really? Apple blowing things out of proportion (to maintain their proprietary lock-in) or actual threat. Wait, what threat? So there'll be a 3-5 mile radius of people who can't seem to get full bar on their cell. Wow, such a threat.