iOS 7 Jailbreak Rumors: Hacker P0sixninja Prepares For Something 'Bigger Than Jailbreak;' Is It A Bootrom Exploit?
OS hacker Joshua Hill, commonly known as
p0sixninja,
took to his Twitter page on Tuesday to announce that he has many
amazing things to offer in coming days and urged his followers to think
of more than just a jailbreak.
“I got a lot of amazing things coming to you all soon. Think bigger than jailbreak,” p0sixninja
tweeted.
Prior to this tidbit, the hacker
tweeted on
Sunday, saying that he has been working overtime “on a bunch of stuff
lately,” and that “good things are coming.” However, he did not reveal
anything about what he meant by “stuff.”
P0sixninja, who was a member of the Chronic Dev Team and helped develop a number of popular jailbreak tools, such as
Greenpois0n and
Absinthe, said in March that he had
found enough exploits, which could be necessary in developing a new jailbreak solution.
“Well, so far it looks like the next jailbreak might be created
entirely by me… Evad3rs haven't gone anywhere, I've just discovered all
the needed exploits on my own over the past few months,” p0sixninja
said.
However, as the hacker
himself clarified,
the next jailbreak does not necessarily mean an iOS 6.1.3 jailbreak.
The hacker said he would unleash his exploits for a future iOS version
like "7.0.x or maybe even 7.1.x" jailbreak. Now, with p0sixninja’s
latest statement, it is safe to assume that he has made some significant
progress in this regard.
But, as the hacker says he is working on something “bigger than
jailbreak,” speculations have been made around a number of key aspects,
and the most significant one among them is the discovery of a bootrom
exploit.
“If I had to guess what p0sixninja is working on, that’s bigger than a
jailbreak, I’d say it could be a bootrom exploit,” Cody Lee of
iDownloadBlog
wrote.
A bootrom exploit is a low-level exploit that can jailbreak any
suitable iOS device regardless of the firmware. The bootrom, which is
also called "SecureROM" by Apple, is the first significant code that
runs on an Apple device. Finding exploits in the bootrom level is
considered to be a big achievement for a hacker since Apple will not be
able to fix it without a hardware revision,
according to the iPhone Wiki.
The most recent bootrom exploit was
Geohot’s limera1n hack,
which supported the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 4G, iPod touch 3G,
Apple TV 2G and the first-generation iPad. The limera1n exploit made
the devices permanently vulnerable to a tethered jailbreak.
Meanwhile, users should note that discovery of a bootrom exploit is
just a speculation as p0sixninja is yet to confirm the development.
Given the fact that
Apple patched the exploits that
helped create evasi0n, the iOS 6.x untethered jailbreak tool, and that
iOS 7 is on its way, some big news for the jailbreak community is always
welcome. And a new bootrom exploit rightly fits into that “bigger than
jailbreak” slot.
