After jailbreaking the iPad in early April, the noted hacker Geohot went on a small hiatus.
Today, however, the hacker has posted again to his blog, showing off a picture of the iPhone jailbroken, with access to Cydia, the app store available to users with jailbroken devices.
That being said, it does not look like he will be releasing the jailbreak software anytime soon.
Says Geohot: “Got one of these in the mail today and figured I’d give it a shot.
As far as a release goes, it probably won’t happen from me. limera1n is little more than a raindrop on a website; it was never mentioned by me previous to this post. pwned4life is a complete invention of some blogger in a basement somewhere. When I said pwned for life, I was referring to the original iPhone, 3G, and Touch; which of course are, by the aptly named PwnageTool.
Again, please don’t ask for release dates. Every person that does makes me want to release a little bit less.”
For those with the new device, and in need of a jailbreak, your best bet is waiting on Comex’s Spirit tool, which should be released once the iOS 4.0.1 is launched.
Result for: blogger
On August 26th, 27-year-old Kevin Cogill was arrested on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws. FBI agents say Coghill had nine unreleased Guns N’ Roses songs on his site in June.
The blogger allegedly had been streaming songs from the still unreleased new Guns N’ Roses album “Chinese Democracy” on his site for some time.
In November, Coghill pleaded guilty to one federal count of copyright infringement, a charge that carries up to one year in prison and a large fine. Federal prosecutors today have said they are pushing for a six month sentence for Coghill based on the “calculation of damages based on the illegal activity of as many as 1,310 websites that disseminated the music after Cogill released it.”
The government has said the damages amount to $371,622 USD, basing each infringement on iTune’s 99 cents per track cost. The RIAA, always one to create phantom numbers, believes the infringement amounts to a “$2.2 million loss based on a $6.39 legitimate wholesale value.” These numbers of course imply that every person who downloaded the tracks would have purchased them legally had they not been available illegally, which we all know is not true at all. The government’s almost 400,000 “conservative figure” was based on the following:
“This number is based on a sample of 30 out of 1,310 unauthorized web sites that offered the leaked songs to the public between June 19, 2008 and November 21, 2008. Of the 1,310 web sites identified as having unauthorized copies of the music that defendant streamed, 30 of those contained information showing the number of downloads from their sites. It is most likely that this number represents the number of downloads of the group of 9 leaked songs, for a total of 152,784 downloads of individual songs (16,976 x 9), tt is, however, not possible to say at this time whether the figure represents the group of 9 songs or individual songs. Giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt, the government will assume that the 16,976 figure represents downloads of individual songs.”
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Result for: blogger
Why doesn’t the RIAA want you to see their lawyers in action? That’s the question being asked by bloggers and journalists around the US and across the world as the recording industry group fights to deny The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University permission to record and stream a hearing in one of their infamous P2P copyright infringement cases.
Leaving aside the lawyers’ arguments about courtroom rules, their basic issue with Judge Nancy Gertner’s decision allowing the recording and distribution is an alleged bias by the Berkman Center. In an appeal filed last week they point out that the center’s website isn’t impartial and includes information that they consider prejudicial against the labels and their lawsuit.
Even though it’s true that the video would only be available from the Berkman Center’s website at the time of the hearing, what the RIAA fails to mention is that it will subsequently be available for anyone to use in part or in full. The RIAA could even use it themselves.
It’s an odd position given the RIAA’s previous statements that the P2P lawsuits are intended to call attention to their rights and remedies as copyright holders rather than simply punishing individuals. And yet when given the chance to reach the exact demographic they’re targetting it becomes a problem.
