Hackers claimed to have figured out a way to bypass Apple’s technical restrictions and install unauthorized applications on the company’s latest iPad upon its release last Friday.
Apple forbids installing applications it has not approved, but hackershave found ways to “jailbreak” devices, or modify the code to allowunauthorized programs from alternative application stores such as Cydia.
There are three different methods to jailbreak the latest Apple iOS 5.1software, and videos and screenshots posted over the weekend showed thehacks, according to the Dev-Team,which developed the first jailbreak tool.
Stefan Esser, who goes by the Twitter screen name “@i0n1c” posted avideo on Friday of the latest iPad after it had been successfullyjailbroken. Also on Friday, “@musclenerd” postedscreenshots of a new, jailbroken iPad.
Another hacking team, PaulGriffen (@phoenixdev) and GrantPaul (@chpwn), posted screenshots of their hackedthird-generation iPads.
In January, the tool Absinthe A5 was released, which could jailbreakboth the iPhone 4S and iPad runningsoftware versions just before iOS5.1. It took about 10 months to develop due to the difficulty thehacking group GreenPois0nfound in trying to find a way to exploit the A5 processor.
While jailbreaking an Apple device is legal, the company discouragesthe practice. If technicians at Apple’s store detect a device has beenjailbroken, they will refuse to work on it, saying the tampering voidsthe warranty.
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