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Hackers offer to sell software to
use iPhone without AT&T
5 September, 2007
A band of hackers have claimed that
they will soon sell software allowing
Apple’s iPhone to be used with any
mobile phone carrier. At present,
iPhone and AT&T have an exclusive deal
in the United States.
Consumer response to Apple’s novel
phone has been somewhat low-key
because of the fact that AT&T was
iPhone’s only service provider in the
United States.
However, a group of anonymous hackers
has now promised on a website named
iPhoneSIMfree.com that they would sell
software that can open the
iPhone to other carriers in the next
few days. They have not indicated a
price.
The hackers have already presented
their program to an expert working for
CNN television, which announced that
the iPhone was freed from AT&T’s
monopoly “in just 2 minutes.”
The hacker group said “a core group of
six people on three continents worked
to unlock the iPhone as a hobby” and
that they are fans of Apple products
who thought the iPhone should be made
accessible to people who cannot use
AT&T.
Their website also claims that the
device - costing $500 to $600 and
which works as a mobile phone, music
and video player, and web browser –
can be manipulated without prying it
open or soldering.
Hackers around the world have got down
to unlocking iPhone codes since it was
launched in the United States in 2007.
In the fourth week of August 2007, a
17-year-old boy had unblocked an
iPhone, but he did so by opening the
unit. The new method apparently takes
advantage of the iPhone’s ability to
connect to iTunes and receive
downloads and updates from Apple.
Hackers in Lithuania had a few days
ago launched a website offering to
allow customers to unlock the iPhone
AT&T for about 990 litas ($390.)
Originally, iPhoneSIMfree.com had said
that it would sell its unlocking
software directly to end users, but in
an e-mail sent to “interested
customers” later, iPhoneSIMfree.com
changed its decision. The operation is
now calling itself a ‘wholesale only’
company that will make the unlock
available only to ‘resellers,’ leaving
end-users without the software they
were told was coming.
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