Charlie Miller is a big name when it comes to finding bugs in Apple products. He is the man who found vulnerability in Mobile Safari in 2007, shortly after the first iPhone was released. Later in 2008, he won Pwn2Own contest by finding critical bug in Apple MacBook Air. In year 2011, Apple booted him out of its developer programs after he exposed a security hole in iOS that let applications grab unsigned code from third-party servers. He is also the author of iOS Hacker's Handbook. And yet, this is just an overview of Miller's accomplishments.
Now when this well known security researcher says that he predicts that iPhone 5 and iPad 2 will not be jailbroken in year 2013, many would be disappointed.
My 2013 prediction: iPhone 5 and iPad 2 will not be jailbroken this year.
— Charlie Miller (@0xcharlie) December 31, 2012
Charlie Miller tweeted that he predicts that iPhone 5 and iPad 2 will not be jailbroken in year 2013. This is a bit of sad news when someone like Charlie predicts so. But on the other side, there are jailbreak developers who may prove Charlie Miller wrong, at least this time. These jailbreak developers are those who have helped millions of Apple iDevice users free their device from the restrictive jail of Apple. Every time a new device or new iOS is released, everyone starts awaiting a jailbreak. And every time, these lovely jailbreak devs does their awesome (and not very easy) job to find exploits and release a jailbreak.
There has been time when Apple's security was easy to break and jailbreaks were released soon after a new iOS version is released. The cat and mouse game between Apple and these jailbreak devs has never stopped. Every time Apple puts better security in their products and every time jailbreak developers breaks it, sooner or later.
This time, the cat (Apple) seems to be winning as there is no jailbreak yet for latest iOS 6 and newly released iPhone 5 and latest iPad including iPad Mini. And even if that wasn't enough, Charlie Miller predicts that there won't be any jailbreak for these devices. This really seems disappointing but the good news is that Charlie Miller will be proven wrong and once again, the cat will be chased by the mouse.
In reply to Charlie Miller's prediction tweet, well known jailbreak developer and the founder of iPhone Dev Team @MuscleNerd tweeted that he disagree with Miller.
@0xcharlie I wholeheartedly disagree :)
— MuscleNerd (@MuscleNerd) January 1, 2013
While Charlie still believes that there won't be any jailbreak, jailbreak developers are ready to release the jailbreak! According to some recent tweets from pod2g and planetbeing, both renowned jailbreak developers and researchers, it is confirmed that the jailbreak for iOS 6.0.1 is ready and it will cover iPhone 5 too.
@justlsd @musclenerd same as last week, there won't be one.
— Charlie Miller (@0xcharlie) January 15, 2013
Made some nice progress today with @pod2g. I think I'll try to reward myself with a nap. :)
— planetbeing (@planetbeing) January 19, 2013
yeah @planetbeing looks like we made some #awesomesauce lately :D
— Nikias Bassen (@pimskeks) January 23, 2013
Come on Apple. Release that 6.1 now! /cc @planetbeing @pimskeks @musclenerd
— pod2g (@pod2g) January 23, 2013
All the above tweets suggests that something big is coming up soon, jailbreak devs are not losing the race and soon it will be proven that Apple has been defeated again, while Charlie Miller is proven wrong. The critical exploits needed for the jailbreak were found and being worked on already by @MuscleNerd, @pod2g, @planerbeing and @pimskeks and they are waiting for Apple to release iOS 6.1. The reason behind waiting for iOS 6.1 release is that if they release jailbreak before it, Apple will fix it soon in iOS 6.1. Once iOS 6.1 gets released, it will be easy for the jailbreak devs to implement the jailbreak in iOS 6.1 too.
On the other hand, Apple has not yet released iOS 6.1 and it is still in Beta. It is supposed to be released by the end of this month and if it it does, it won't take long before the iOS 6 jailbreak is finally released. And yes, it is also possible that Apple is also finding the bugs that the jailbreak devs have found and may patch them in the final iOS 6.1 release.
Actually, the iPhone 5 and iPadMini were already jailbroken by @chpwn and @phoenixdev. This jailbreak was labelled as "failbreak" as they decided not to release this jailbreak to public, as it would burn an important exploit that could be useful in future.
Also to be noted, pod2g, MuscleNerd, planetbeing and pimskeks have founded a team that will be known as @evad3rs, a very meaningful name indeed.
We (+ @musclenerd @planetbeing @pimskeks) are the @evad3rs. We don't take any donations ATM, please don't be fooled at donating to others.
— pod2g (@pod2g) January 24, 2013
The current scenario clearly suggests that the cat and mouse chase in not going to stop and there will be no winner unless. Apple will keep releasing new hardware and software, and jailbreak developers and security researchers will keep finding bugs in them, which will eventually be patched by Apple in the next update, and the game continues...
Now let us hope that iOS 6 jailbreak is released soon, for all device including iPhone 5.
