Apple beginning to ban jailbreakers from the App Store? [Update]

**Update: After a solid 8 hours have gone buy, I haven’t seen anywhere else on the net where random jailbreakers have been banned from the App Store. It appears for now, Apple is targeting the hackers who find exploits in the iPhone OS and then release new versions of jailbreak software for the rest of us. Are end users safe? For now it looks like it. But if Apple is moving to block exploit seekers, trickling down to the common user could be a very real possibility.

I’m not exactly sure what Apple’s rationale is here. Sure they’re going to remove the source of a small number of app pirates’ tools, but the reality of the situation is that Apple should be thanking these people. The community will always find exploits and be one step ahead of any overbearing organization — period! Not to mention, denying an iPhone from iTunes and the App Store isn’t too much of a big deal anyway. If those pirates are as ruthless as Apple claims them to be, they’ll have no problem getting pirated apps by other means and then installing them onto their banned iPhones after the fact.

See kids, it’s a simple game of cat & mouse. Only in this case, the mouse will never be caught.

***Resume normal reading

Consider the proverbial s*** this close from hitting the fan…

Jailbreaking an iPhone or iPod Touch isn’t exactly rocket science. So what motivates someone to do such a thing? For most, it is Apple’s continuous stubbornness and asinine policies that artificially limit the iPhone platform by failing to include such basic tasks as background processes, tethering, bluetooth sharing, unlocks and so on. And end user who purchases a phone has every right to modify it as they see fit…right? Wrong. Because of the BS “non-circumvention clause” in the DMCA, something as simple and harmless as jailbreaking an iPhone could soon be illegal if Apple has their way.

With that said, Apple has been pushing for some time now to outlaw jailbreaking. Thankfully we have consumer watch groups such as the EFF who realize the gross affront this is to consumers. In regards to outlawing jailbreaking, talk from Cupertino has been relatively quiet for several months now on the whole issue after it peaked early last summer. However, new developments being highlighted by a few iPhone jailbreakers and jailbreak software developers are signaling a wave of change that isn’t in the consumers’ best interest.

Two more prominent iPhone developers in the jailbreak scene — “Sherif_Hashim” (responsible for finding recent 3.1.3 exploit) and “iH8sn0wday” (Sn0wbreeze) have reported that their respective email accounts tying them to the App Store have apparently been banned. When either user tries opening up the App Store, they’re met with a message stating:

“Your Apple ID was banned for security reasons”

Security reasons? It’s worth noting that the entire time Apple has been trying to outlaw jailbreaking, they’ve rationalized their stance with technologically retarded government officials by saying that piracy is a massive problem in the App Store and categorizing anyone and everyone who jailbreaks as app pirates. Being that the massive jailbreaking population is talked about daily in some form or another, when a technologically deficient person or group looks at the possible number of active jailbreaking users, the false guise of massive piracy seems like a legitimate issue.

But as we all know, if you looked at all jailbreakers and picked out the ones who pirate apps, the number would more than likely end up being quite low. As touched on at the beginning of the article, most people jailbreak for purely functional reasons (ie: background processes, unlock, and UI changes). Not to mention, the endless pursuit to stop pirates won’t work. For a perfect example of how not to handle pirates — look at the music industry.

If Apple is in fact starting to go around banning jailbreakers, their already busy law team is going to start living in their offices there at Apple HQ. Banning a massive chunk of the iPhone user base and labeling them pirates when all they’re doing is trying to is change the UI of their phone or god forbid, listen to last.fm and read an email at the same fucking time is one of the worst possible decisions ever.

But for now, we must stress this hasn’t been “confirmed” yet. So far, the only two people (that we know of) that have received this message are the two jailbreak devs noted above. If and when casual jailbreakers start getting banned, be sure that I’ll update this post and let all of you know.

In the meantime, is anyone else experiencing an App Store ban? Stay tuned…

**In closing, I’d like to cut down the arguement “if you don’t like it, don’t buy into it”. Just because you buy a particular device or service doesn’t give the provider of said product/service the right or legal grounds to prohibit you, the person who purchased it, from modifying your own property how you see fit. If you buy a good, you own it. If “you bought it, you support it” argument was applied to all things in life, it would be a sick, sad world to live in. Common sense has to come in at some point, does it not?

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Microsoft restricting Xbox 360 units from Army because the sale wouldn’t give them enough money?

If there were anything that would make Uncle Sam angry, blatant ignorance and greed when lives are at stake is probably up near the top. Now keep the upcoming text light hearted as this hasn’t been confirmed in any way by Microsoft (as if they’d admit blocking the military…).

The military is growing increasingly digital these days. With that growing reliance on digital services and applications naturally comes the increased need for more and more personal computers. You typical military spec computer is easily $1,000+. Much like the rest of the country is pinching pennies in tight times, so is the Army, as they’re looking for ways to increase “digital presence” without busting the bank. Welcome to the wonderful world of the Xbox 360.

Argue if you want, but the Xbox 360 with it’s cheap hardware, massive online gameplay and options for scenarios, and rather robust library of war games means it’s a pretty good fit as a training tool for the fine men and women training our country. Common sense also makes a might appearance. It’s simple actually. Why should the Army spend upwards of $1,000 on training computers for each and ever soldier if an Xbox 360 can be had for significantly less and be used for multiple soldiers? It’s basic math.

That wonderful plan was killed however by the most unlikely of people — Microsoft. According to Roger Smith, CTO for PEO STRI (the Army command responsible for purchasing training equipment), Microsoft refused to sell him or the Army any consoles. No direct reason was given. Roger however speculates the denials happened because of one of three reasons:

* Microsoft was afraid that the military would buy up lots of Xbox 360s, but would buy only one game for each of them, so MS wouldn’t make much money off of the games.
* that a big military purchase would create a shortage of Xbox 360s.
* that if the Xbox became an Army training device, it would taint its reputation. Microsoft was concerned that “do we want the Xbox 360 to be seen as having the flavor of a weapon? Do we want Mom and Dad knowing that their kid is buying the same game console as the military trains the SEALs and Rangers on?” Smith told me during an interview for Training & Simulation Journal.

The above are Almost valid reasons until you think about the fact it’s the US Army asking for a tool that could help soldiers *not* die on the battlefield. Microsoft PR of course claimed to have absolutely no knowledge of the incident. All in all, if the account by Roger Smith is in fact 100% correct (and there isn’t any real reason to doubt him), I can guarantee that Microsoft’s PR is going to be dealing with a PR shit storm.

To be fair, Microsoft’s side of the story followed soon after:

has multiple avenues to pursue building simulations. They can team up with a professional Xbox 360 publisher and development studio that have the expertise to assist them with development of a complex simulation. In fact, the Army has successfully done this in the past by working with publishers such as Ubisoft (’America’s Army’) and THQ (’Full Spectrum Warrior’). Or, if the Army prefers to build a simulation without engaging game development professionals, Microsoft has also enabled independent developers to create games for the Xbox 360 using the XNA Game Studio development tools, and deploy and play them on retail Xbox 360 consoles using an XNA Premium Creator’s Club membership.

As you can see, Microsoft skirted around the million dollar question: Did they block the military from buying up a large quantity of Xbox 360s?

Unfortunately for Microsoft, the certain truckload of cash they’d have made on a mass Army purchase of Xbox’s is now “of little interest” to Smith and the Army in general anymore. Though Smith does mention that if Microsoft were to ever broach the subject again, he’d be more than willing to reopen talks.

Disappointed in Microsoft’s stance? Do you think it was all because of the money?

Gizmodo > DangerRoom