this guy loves his iPhone so much more than I do, but maybe I will be the only one who thinks its funny.

I tried to wait out this last post to see if I could get any information about the Apple approved SDK (Software Development Kit)  which would allow applications for the iPhone with Apple’s blessing.  Depending on the details of this implementation (which have not yet been released) the level of “openness” which Apple allows for applications will have a direct impact on the future of the iPhone hacking scene.   Rumors either way have been flying around both ways for Apple’s March 6th SDK Roadmap event, but one of two things will happen for sure:

1. Apple announces a platform which is sufficiently open, allowing people to do pretty much whatever they want with the phone, sans the ability to unlock the device.  This could deflect a significant amount of effort from making contraband applications, and force now rogue developers to make completely legit iPhone apps for their own selling pleasure, which could less the movement so focused and jail-breaking, (and thus unlocking the phone)  which could cut down on people’s ability to use the iPhone on other carriers.

2. Apple creates a sham of an SDK which does not really offer too much leeway in using the phone for innovative applications; major companies jump on the bandwagon to increase interpolitiy for their products, but individuals stick with hacking, jail-breaking, and unlocking iPhones for maximum control over the device.

As I mentioned before, there have been tons of conflicting (1) rumors (2),  but I feel like word on the street, coupled with Apple’s track record with control and the SDK constant delays, we are going to have one bum SDK on our hands as consumers.

Other companies  have attempted to crack down on the “illegal adding of functionality” to devices they own, such as Sony’s case with the PSP.  PSP can be hacked to play and amount of ROMs, full game dumps (copies) from a memory-stick, Youtube, movies files ect.  None of this functionality is provided by the manufacturer, but that doesn’t mean the device can’t handle it.  There is a over arching argument discussing that today we think we own things, but at the same time, the company that makes it can control what we do with their device.  What used to simply be unadvertised features has now become illegal use, from iPhones to DRM.  I guess that why I hacked my phone, because I am not going to let Apple tell me how to use something I physically own.

http://lifehacker.com/348653/install-os-x-on-your-hackintosh-pc-no-hacking-required

So whats next?

Well, since there are plenty of people who have made a pretty penny being third party developers to the iPhone, such as Zibri  www.ziphone.org , Geohotz (the seventeen year old kid who was the first to unlock an iPhone last year, he traded it for a sports car and three new (locked) iPhones) and countless others have had great successes with advertisements and donates by posting free guides for people to liberate their phones, so I doubt that these people will go away.   Zibri has announced that he is “full time” on the project, and his free hosted blog has gotten over 1 million hits in the past three weeks, so if he continues to be a front runner hacker for the iPhone, the advertising revenue alone could sustain someone for a long time.

But if Apple stumbles again with allowing people to do what they want with something they own, someone might just come out with a product that actually lets them do just that.

Google, with their “Android” platform, may just do that.  Along with the Open Handset Alliance, Google is creating a Linux based operating system which guarantees available API across multiple phones. Ok, so what does that mean? So lets just think about your PC (sorry for the proprietary example)  If you want to install some software, you just need to get a windows version of that program, and it doesn’t matter if its HP or Dell or Asus or whatever.  So the difference is with cell phones, there are no standardized operating systems (or they really have not fully caught on, there are a few, but they only work and certain devices, and generally cost money)  Google is making Android work across different types of phones, makes, carriers, ect, so people can make applications that work not only on Verizon or AT&T or whatever. This opens up tons of possibilities, perhaps the best of which is that it is a solid choice for developers to make software for, something which has not always the easiest thing to do. Check out early shots here

Android however, could and could not be all that it is cut out to be.  The thing to know about it, is that there could be tons of “forks” of the project, all which use separate pieces depending on how handset manufacturers behave, as a standardized system could make the hardware manufacturers turn into PC manufacturers, that is to say, all pretty much the same.  There is some technical stuff that I wont explain that limits the functionality to a degree (maybe the same kind of degree of the Apple SDK)  And when all cell phones become PCs (even with linux)  there will still be the iPhone sitting pretty.

For the sake of trying to create a whole picture within an embeddable media environment, I will start with how I started to hack my iPhone.  While its not particularly exciting, (except to maybe me) it probably will be a good place to start.

After I got my phone, for reasons unnecessary to explain here, I couldn’t activate it using iTunes due to some issues with my AT&T account.  This was a major bummer as I was about to fly cross country, and was hoping to put the new video features to the test on the long flight, and you can’t use the iPod features of the phone without activating the phone portion first.   I had read casually about iPhone hacking, and was vaguely sure that one could bypass activation by jail breaking, thus letting someone use the device as at least an iPod and a Wifi device.  Since I have never been one for waiting, and always willing to get overly caviler with new toys, I decided to give it a shot.  I found tons of pages dedicated to iPhone hacking, and decided this one looked simple http://iphone.unlock.no/ One of the great benefits of jail breaking an iPhone, is that it bypasses the activation for the phone.

The short story of how to unlock the phone would be to simply go to a website, ( www.jailbreakme.com ) which would download an exploit to your phone found in the Safari browser which would install a program onto your phone called installer.app, a sort of voluntary, awesome Trojan horse of third party applications, all which would be installed through this one “security hole” in the browser.  Simple enough.  Within 5 minutes, I had hacked my phone, started installing applications, and put a bunch of movies and music on my phone.  Since I had not set up a calling plan yet, I couldn’t make any calls, but at least I could start to play with it.

Three days later, the phone thing got sorted out.  Since phones have to be activated to get them legitimately on ATT network, one has to activate the phone through iTunes and sign up for the plan and service agreements ect.   As I put my phone through iTunes, it said there was an update available for my phone, and that it needed to install before activation could continue.  Not thinking, I simply said yes, went and got some lunch, and came back to my iPhone fully activated synced, and without any of the really cool applications I just added.  I realized I had invertinly upgraded my phone, negating all hacks, and essentially sending my phone back to it’s orginal state.  And unfortunaly, Apple had patched the way the hackers had accessed my phone, so I was left with an unhackable device.

Oh no!  I had returned to a locked state, and I felt I had betrayed  those anonymous phone hackers who helped me in my pre-activation days. I felt like I had to continue to use these third party apps on my phone, if not only because of the extreme added fuctionality of new applications,but also for the point of sticking it to Apple and getting my full worth out out of a device which is much more than what it is marketed as.

Alas, scouring through the pages and pages of unlock documentation, I found I was able to downgrade the firmware for my phone which would allow me to go back to my rehacked goodness.  I followed the first three steps with haste, to only find out that my phone rebooted with without any cell service what so ever.  Panicing, I reinstalled the most up to data Apple drivers on my phone, only to find now that in addition to lacking cell service, my phone refused to come out of it’s un activated state. My worst fears had come true.  I had bricked my iPhone.

I felt sick to my stomach. Not only had I received a very nice toy for the holidays, but I had manages to break it within the first three days, and I was getting on a long plane flight with a completely non functioning iPhone.

Once a got home, the following days served to be a really educational experience about the concept of free software, and the power of dedicated people working together with open tools.  Not only was I able to eventually find a completely reverse engineered fix to fix my phone, but continue to figure out ways to hack Apple’s repeated efforts to lock down the phone.  At any given time, there are perhaps a dozen groups working on ways to unlock the phone, people of all ages and walks of life, some trying risky hardware modifications, while other work on strictly software based hacks.  Some people do it for massive black market financial gain, while other work on a strictly “free” basis.

In part three, I hope to go over both who, what and why these people are, so stay tuned.  And I am sorry for the sob story…

I found this article about a man who was contacted by Microsoft to put “balance” to wikipedia’s entries.

http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/01/an_interesting_offer.html

The content is a bit technical, but in this next link discusses the concept of credibility in individuals seeking exposure for their contributions:

http://jellis.org/work/group2005/papers/forteBruckmanIncentivesGroup.pdf

In several interviews, a user explains how they try to get their articles on the main page “Did you know?” so more people can put it on their watchlist, and hopefully look at the editing history to find their name. Then people can search other articles produced by the same author. This makes the author feel respected in the Wikipedia world. But since it can be edited by anyone, essentially anyone can post forms of advertisements on pages whether it is an opinion of a product or a link near the bottom of the page. The article “Shh… it’s Not Advertising, It’s Wikipedia!” shares various stories of how it can be easy to make this happen.

http://www.johnon.com/437/wikipedia-advertising.html

This graph also clues that people are already interested in visiting websites can could potentially have served as an advertisement on wikipedia since people are going to immediately after viewing an article:

Continuing my original log from last week, I decided to go with my initial idea of video chatting as a rising revolution. After reading several articles and blogs I found this piece from the New York Times. It is about a venture company named Toxbox based in California. The company is seeking to push video chatting and video conferencing to the next level. Many companies such as AOL, Yahoo, and Skype already offer video chatting but require both users to download the application in order for the interaction to work; Toxbox is simply a streaming site that allows live chat between users, no programs needed only a camera and a browser. Chief executive Serge Faguet said,

“Video communication has never really taken off, despite the fact that people talk about it as a part of the future,”

But the 21 year old Russian founder of the company believes the answer is in accessibility and ease. Many investors, after their success with the Youtube epidemic, believe this company is the next huge step in internet communication, Toxbox looks to do for video chatting what Youtube did for video watching.

After reading the article that was written in October of 2007 (Toxbox Article) I decided to try the site out for myself and see if the EASE was really there. From the beginning the site seemed laid out fairly well, objects were obvious, animation was at a minimum and I was not bombarded by a plethora of advertisements. I quickly created an account with 3 short question and it allowed me to sync my contacts from Google and aim accounts alike. I then decided to put the tool itself to the test. I invited my friend who is equipped with camera enabled computer to have a chat with me through this site. It could not have gotten easier all I had to do was direct him to an address that toxbox provided me and bam! he appeared. This program seemed revolutionary until one problem occurred, the quality was horrible. The sound constantly echoed, image was foggy and pixely; he immediately signed off and opted to use macs ichat video conference which was as smooth as butter. No glitches or flaws just a perfect stream.

My feeling on the Toxbox are mixed, I believe in the direction of the company as ease being one of the deciding factors in creating a video chatting culture similar to that of AIM, however, the technology does not seem to be there yet. Toxbox believes everyone has the internet and everyone has browsers, so just as Youtube is accessed by a click of the button so can video chatting. The company was just established less than a year ago and is currently in beta phase. There offices are based in California sharing offices with Youtube; what makes me thinking is this another revolution google will get there hands on.

1. to”Jailbreak” your phone

To jailbreak your phone is to gain root access to allow the execution of programs on the device.  Normally, an out of the box iPhone has no mechanism to create and run your own applications from the iPhone.  When the phone was first announced, Apple said that one could write programs using the Safari Browser and regular old HTML, but these sites turned out to be nothing more than customized websites which were optimized for the iPhone, and could not interact with any of the phone’s hardware, such as Camera, or settings, ect.  Each firmware (read: update) needs to be re-jailbroken, as the exploits from the previous versions are always patched up, and called security updates

2. to “unlock” your phone

To unlock a phone means to use it on another cell carrier other than the default it is tied to.  I am sure many of you have had an old cell phone, switched from T-Mobile to AT&T or something, and found your old phone couldn’t work on your new network.  In reality however, it physically CAN, but your network actually “locks” the phone so it arbitrarily only works on their specific network (with the exception of Sprint and Verizon Phones, they use a different cell technologies, so these phones are actually different from AT&T phones) Unlocking the iPhone allows use on the T-Mobile network, in addition to many other cell carriers around the world that are not AT&T.  One point of confusion is that in order to unlock your phone, one needs to Jailbreak it first, so they can run the script that lets any cell carrier’s SIM card be used.

Now, that is out of the way (but if I still lose you, check this Wired: iPhone Hacking Terms Explained)

Now, why would someone want to “hack” a shiny new iPhone? Well, the first obvious reason would be because you didn’t have AT&T, and don’t want to have to pay the absorbent fee associated with canceling your old cell service, or you are just hellbent on undermining Steve Jobs’ innovative business model for the iPhone (See this, it is a great read Wired: The Untold History of the iPhone )

But for most people, they want the ability to have the full capacity of what their little pocket computer is capable of.  Why would Apple just not provide a way for people to make applications for something they own?  In a way, they will be shortly, with the iPhone SDK (software developer kit) however it looks increasingly likely that Apple is looking to serve as gatekeeper for which applications are allowed to be mass distributed to the public.  It is this control of the functionality which leads people to hack their phones, both steeped in practicality and the idea that you don’t truly own something which you can’t control what you can and can not do with it.  Some of this retoric borders on sounding a bit like the DRM which is placed on mp3s and such, prevent people from fully manipulating its use, even if the file is “bought.”

Part 2 will be more of my own experiences with hacking this device, and looking at what I have found while doing it.

Other fun links:

Wired: The History of Hacking the iPhone <—- little out of date, but gives a good idea whats going on

www.ziphone.com <—- IMHO, the best current way of hacking an iPhone, tutorials included

Also I would like to do more research on websites who use different methods of advertising to simply fund their own space, such as craigslist and uloop who allow companies like apartments.com to post, and how low the bar is for success. This is considering that facebook, who used to be very mild on advertising, has exploded in popularity due to addition of applications that can use college students’ information for advertising purposes. Wikipedia.com is probably the best example because it relies on people to donate money to the organization, but who exactly is donating? And are the articles that are posted serve as a clue to what kind of exposure the giant encyclopedia website is giving?

It has been sort of an interesting topic, as with each new software update, Apple has closed down the points of entry for the hacks, and the community at large is forced to find a new way to gain access to the device.  Ultimatly, Apple is planning on releasing an SDK (Software Development Kit) later this month so people can create “legal”(read: sanctioned) applications for the phone.  However, most people within the community feel that this will be a rather strict control as to allowing only certain applications to make it through the vetting process, ones which do not negatively undermind the iPhone’s revolutionary business model (Apple gets a cut of your monthy cellular fee).   Even not considering the internal sub-group politics, (which I am sure are hilarious)there are many interesting debates concerning how users 1) use their device 2)what they can and can not do with them 3)who controls content which is able to appear on these devices.  Plus, it brings to light many other issues concerning technology ownership in general. (some die hards say you only own a device/computer/tech stuff untill you open it up and modify it for your own specific use)

There are plenty of other places to take this, so I think I just need to get started to understand some of the groups that create these hacks, and in turn, the people who use them.

The image of the couples dancing about (Part 1: 06:17) reminded me of how the internet is one of the best examples of this self-directing automatic system. There is much debate about what will happen when regulation and politics increasing become involved with the internet. Will von Hayek’s theory come to play here – will control over the internet lead to tyranny and the end of freedom?

In modern society, the internet is one of the best outlets for individual to speak their mind, make use of their freedom of speech, learn new things, and exist in this world. It helps to create a dialogue with others which often is not physically possible. It leads to a different type of existence in this world that was not present before (i.e. “internet personality”).

In a sense, life on the internet is a seperate society from the physical world we live in. It’s kind of bizarre as you think about how people become celebrities from the internet, people create entirely new personas, and how people can “visit” new places (www.vLES.com, google satellite) etc etc. This world is a very different world from that of our parents – where we can exist in this world in a way we never could before or have that completely taken away from us.

Trying to connect these ideas to New Media, I found an interesting example involving viewer’s freedoms when it comes to television and choosing what information they would like to receive. In the book “The Constitutional Parameters Private Right to Censor,” Patrick M. Garry seems to think that there’s a “continuing onslaught of new media technologies that will keep shoving unwanted speech toward unwilling listeners [and therefore] a private right to censor may be needed” (65). A VOD, or video on demand technology, promises to be more effective than the V-CHIP in giving television viewers more control in what they watch by letting them choose what shows they receive on their sets so that it is more of an interactive experience than a passive experience. Hence this freedom could be considered a negative liberty, since it involves individuals protecting themselves, independent of the government, to fulfil their own desires.

It seems that new media is allowing for the development of technologies in which their is more of a pull to receive information that one wants as opposed to a push of information that is offensive. Because new technologies are providing more autonomy for users, perhaps we are moving into an era of increased negative liberty so that individuals are a step closer, at least when utilizing their various new media, to be free to indulge in fulfilling whatever they want and nothing else?

“Where freedom is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media anymore, it is ferociously defended – and exercised daily – on the Net.”

Although the date of the article is given as 1997, it’s blatantly obvious that this quote was taken from a pre-9/11 context. Since September 11th, the mainstream media has become completely saturated with a discourse of freedom. Such an abstract term as freedom is difficult to pin down to a single definition, but it’s obvious that the term can be warped to suit the need of whoever’s using it. The primary dictionary definition is simply “the condition of being free from restraints”, and although some political definitions are given afterwards (such as the distinction of being free rather than a slave), are equally vague. The link I’ve posted with the “NMRS” del.icio.us tag details a few of the current administration’s definitions of freedom (http://empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/2005/02/brothers-in-arms-osamic-vision-of.html) . Unfortunately, the “free’m”, as W likes to call it, that we’re supposedly trying to provide to the Middle East through military action is freedom that we don’t necessarily get here in America.

The Trap’s definition of freedom is somewhat different. Theirs is the dark, consumerist freedom based on game theory and free market economics, which we’ve discussed already. Given that the idealistic version of freedom that the government lauds is often crippled in America (take, for example, demonstrations in which protesters are forced to stand in designated “Free Speech Zones”, herded like animals into small pens), perhaps the fragmented, perverse version of freedom presented in “The Trap” is really all we have. The one zone that brings this idea into question is the realm of new media, namely the Internet. Whether or not the blogosphere is truly a public forum is up for debate, given a few aspects of its nature (the tendency to overestimate its capabilities as a tool of democracy, the ability to ignore content one doesn’t want, and the individualizing nature of working at a computer). However, it certainly seems that there’s a modicum more freedom on the Internet. I find it difficult to believe that a spontaneous protest could erupt concerning the ideals mentioned in the link I posted, however, on the Internet, the idea can be posted with little fear of punishment.

However, it’s important to note that this freedom isn’t a freedom of anonymity. With a little work, anyone can discover who’s behind a blog post or YouTube video – including the government. It’s wise to question exactly how much freedom we have on the Internet, and what exactly this freedom is, compared to other commonly used definitions.