Shulou(Shulou.com)05/31 Report--

­(original title: hacker: these stupid functions of iPhone force me to break out of prison Apple: good boy, greeting is my strong point! )

­in 2007, when the first generation of iPhone appeared, Lei Feng (official account: Lei Feng) found that it was just a mobile phone that could not receive MMS, no Chinese input method, or even copy and paste function, and its evaluation could only be three words: weak! Bang! Yes!

Today, iPhone not only has a dazzling app store, but also has admiring features such as screencap and GIF animations.

­during this decade, the transformation of iPhone is closely related to the efforts of a group of hackers who tirelessly share jailbreak features for a large number of iPhone users, and it is because of their existence that we have today's iPhone.

­Hacker: I can't stand the stupid function of Apple. I want to come out and make trouble to make the world a better place!

­"when the original iPhone came out, it was essentially a small Internet tablet, but it just happened to have some lame mobile phone features."

­this is what Jay Freeman, founder of iPhone jailbreak site Cydia, said of the first generation of iPhone.

­dissatisfied with Apple's mobile world, hackers, represented by Jay Freeman, have shown their talents and developed a lot of new features for Apple phones over the past decade.

­on July 9, 2007, less than a month after the original iPhone was officially released, the first jailbreak tool was released.

­although the jailbreak tools at that time were so simple that they could only be used to change ringtones, wallpapers, etc. But at that time, prison break represented a spirit of freedom, meaning to resist the control of big companies.

This has also spawned the wildest era of jailbreak, with many amateur developers devoting themselves to studying jailbreak vulnerabilities in order to break the "wall" set up by Apple and give iPhone users a phone that really belongs to them.

­in the years to come, these hackers demonstrated the potential to build iPhone into a dynamic, diverse ecosystem, not just a device that can make phone calls, surf the Internet, and improve productivity by introducing innovations that are not entirely legal.

At the same time, they also show that developers are willing to invest a lot of energy on this platform.

­Lei Feng also found that the jailbreak function launched by Cydia in February 2008 already provides users with more permissions than the current App Store. Users can download not only applications, games and programs, but also the tuning tool. For example, you can redesign the layout of the home screen, download the ad blocker, and have more control over the memory card.

­Cydia had impressive revenue in its heyday. In 2011, Cydia had nearly 45 million weekly users and annual revenue of nearly $250000.

But this seemingly huge figure can't hide the awkward fact that with the development of iOS, the number of users who need to break out of prison is declining.

­Apple: now that you have almost all the functions you should have, what are you messing about with?

­in the past two years, as Apple has paid more and more attention to jailbreak vulnerabilities, the speed of plugging vulnerabilities has also been accelerating.

­Apple has a system vulnerability reward program for hackers and invites hackers to meet with senior executives at Apple headquarters every year. If hackers find vulnerabilities in Apple's own operating system, they will receive a reward of up to $200000.

Last year, Lei Feng made a special report on this. Chinese hackers confirmed that Apple headquarters held a "Hongmen Banquet" to collect iOS loopholes, the price "can not be said", and the domestic Pangu team, 360Nirvana team, Tencent Keen Security Lab and so on were invited.

­"in the good old days, a jailbreak program was valid for many months. Now, as soon as a public jailbreak tool appears, the relevant loopholes will be plugged immediately." 'The era of prison break is basically over, 'says Jay Freeman.

­Last year, Ivan Krstic, Apple's head of security, introduced iOS's defenses, pointing out that to break out now, you need to find "five to 10 different vulnerabilities to defeat the platform security mechanism," which makes it more and more difficult.

More importantly, Apple has incorporated the best ideas of escapees into iOS.

­in these 10 years of development, although Apple is very unhappy with the behavior of the escapees, trying to prevent them from escaping in any way, and even invoking copyright law to declare it illegal in 2009, it has never prosecuted any escapees.

­it has been reported in the news that Apple's own employees have even sneaked into a hacker group to spy on how the "enemy" makes fun functions.

Times have changed, and many hackers joined private security companies or were "recruited" by Apple.

­with Apple's growing emphasis on vulnerabilities, jailbreaking now requires not a single bug, but a series of hard-to-find bug.

­these bug have become too precious-even submitting it to Apple can give the discoverer a reward of thousands of dollars. As a result, not many developers are willing to use these vulnerabilities for jailbreak.

­as jailbreak becomes more and more difficult and developers and users continue to decline, the jailbreak community has gradually collapsed and gone into decline.

­"I will stop all public iOS research," Todesco, the jailbreak developer of iOS 10.2, announced the end of his jailbreak career in January.

­when hackers are "greeted", will iPhone get better and better?

Over the past decade, jailbreak developers have demonstrated the craving for App Store and the power of iPhone earlier than Apple through sites like Cydia.

Some even say that it was the escapees who pushed Jobs to open iPhone to developers in 2008.

­Ten years ago, the iPhone was a simple tool that people could use to make phone calls, surf the Internet, and increase productivity.

Today, it has become a vibrant mobile ecosystem, providing a stage for developers to realize their dreams.

­after so many years of games between Apple's ecology and the open prison break circle, Apple iOS continues to improve its functions and security standards, and the iOS system is getting better and closer to the operating system we want. Lei Feng.com feels that jailbreak plays an important role.

Now, with the continuous improvement and opening of iOS, the "chivalrous and righteous" act of prison break has gradually moved away from the vision of "iPhone people".

­Freeman no longer advises people to try to escape. He said in a recent interview that this is dangerous because the phone after the prison break has a higher risk of being hacked, and now the prison break has done more harm than good.

­"what are the benefits of escaping from prison now?" He asked.

­"you used to get very cool features for jailbreak, and that's why you bought iPhone. Now, all you get from jailbreak is gadgets." Freeman said.

But in the future, as fewer and fewer people want to escape, jailbreak developers will become less and less interested in making interesting apps, and as fewer and fewer people break out, will the ecosystem disappear eventually? I don't know if this is good or bad for Apple. (Guo Jia)

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