The
iPhone Dev Team keeps closing up on their
total unlocking target: they just announced that they have reverse-engineered the software which controls the iPhone's radio communications. The team has now a new way to search for the key to make the JesusPhone work with other carriers. Jump for all the naughty bits. Here is how this works: the iPhone's radio communications are handled by the Infineon S-Gold2, an ARM-based chip which also controls the JesusPhone's multimedia abilities. Its low-level functions are handled by the Nucleus Real Time Operating System which, according to iPhone Dev rebel forces, is one of the fronts that could give them a chance to try to "access or disable the lock from within the system." By reverse engineering and documenting Nucleus, hackers have reached another milestone towards freeing the phone from the AT&T network. From here, one of their objectives is to be able to manipulate the baseband's memory, so they can also change communication parameters.
Unlocking the iPhone is still not going to be an easy task, however. This work also shows that the iPhone has two layers now that need to be explored to achieve the total unlocking. First, the one running in the main CPU, the main operating system (Mac OS X). Second, Nucleus running on a secondary chip controlling the access to the baseband's memory. In other words: two doors, two locks, but also one more front to ..... this Pandora's Box open.
The
iPhone Dev Team is saying that total unlocking is the priority
Número Uno for most of its members and they are all working around the clock to achieve it. We still don't know how the
new iPhone firmware update will affect them, but their
determination seems unlimited.
