July 29th, 2009
Apple: Won't somebody please think of the cellphone towers?
I know that Apple (and the carriers) dislikes people jailbreaking iPhones because it cuts into revenues, but now Apple is raising the spectre of terrorism to try to prevent users from legally jailbreaking the handset:
The company’s filing explained that jailbreaking could allow hackers to altering the iPhone’s BBP — the “baseband processor” software, which enables a connection to cell phone towers.
By tinkering with this code, “a local or international hacker could potentially initiate commands (such as a denial of service attack) that could crash the tower software, rendering the tower entirely inoperable to process calls or transmit data,” Apple wrote the government. “Taking control of the BBP software would be much the equivalent of getting inside the firewall of a corporate computer — to potentially catastrophic result.
The filing that Apple made to the Copyright Office can be found here.
To me, this sounds like a movie plot threat FUD. If cellphone towers are really this susceptible to being messed about with, the solution is to tighten up security. After all, making jailbreaking illegal isn’t going to stop those with malicious intentions.
If the iPhone really poses that much of a threat then perhaps they should be withdrawn from sale until Apple can make the jailbreak-proof.
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
Want to get in touch? Got a tip? Feel free to drop me a note! I ALWAYS respect anonymity. I'm also on Twitter (@the_pc_doc)
Right to Reply: Should any industry representatives wish to comment on any posts on Hardware 2.0, I will be happy to publish their reply verbatim on this blog.
Subscribe to Hardware 2.0 via Email alerts or RSS.
