iBrick

G'day Shawn, just been listening to your interesting interview with the
very personable associate Dean Of Law at Alabama University, and there's
one little thing bugging me with the idea that the bricking of the
hacked iPhone's was not Apple's intention:

Why couldn't Apple have had the updater run a checksum on the iPhone and
modem firmware before updating? Unless I'm missing something important,
it seems to me it would have been piece of cake for Apple to do this,
and if it detects the firmware has been altered then tell the user
'Sorry, this iPhone cannot be updated because you've altered the
firmware'. Or better yet give the user the option of having the original
firmware restored, or to leave things as they are. I can imagine a third
option: proceed with the update regardless. But there would always be
some fool who would try that without knowing the expected results, so
I'm not sure that would be a good idea (maybe make it a hidden
feature?).

Anyway - the total absence of any sanity checking by the iPhone updater
suggests to me that Apple was only too happy to screw over people who
cracked the iPhone, and put a little fear in the water for those
considering it.

Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet