There are two sets of combatants in the long war of attrition called the iPhone Unlock Conflict. The newest battle is over the latest firmware, 3.0, and it’s starting to show how these two parties, the Dev Team and the Unofficial QuickPwn Hackers, are entering a new stage of conflict.
Jailbreaking, for those not in the know, is the process of unlocking the iPhone’s filesystem in order to install third-party apps not officially supported by the App Store. You can also SSH into jailbroken iPhones and use them just as you would any other terminal. This is completely different from the iPhone unlock procedure which unlocks the iPhone from a particular carrier and allows the use of unofficial SIM cards.
Because jailbreaking is comparatively trivial, the Dev Team was able to jailbreak 3.0 almost immediately as were a number of non-affiliated parties. However, there was no official or unofficial method out there to jailbreak 3.0 until last night and it was produced by a Russian hacker with no Dev Team Affiliation. However, this method could potentially upset the delicate carrier unlock procedures the Dev Team released last January. It is on that point that the Dev Team takes umbrage.
