App Store and Jailbroken iPhones Update

A short and inconclusive follow-up to yesterday’s post about the banning of certain Apple IDs from the iTunes App Store: a number of bloggers have hypothesised that this is a trial run for a mass rejection of all jailbroken iPhones.

However, I’ve seen no reports of anyone receiving this message other than the two individuals previously cited. So it seems likely that Apple is targeting people known to be engaged in “breaking the rules” by exploit hunting and actively hacking, rather than going after the many people who’ve simply taken more or less passive advantage of the availability of jailbreaking.

After all, Apple has a commercial relationship with the companies that do sell applications through the App Store. The company is probably not eager to jeopardize those relationships by depriving them of the opportunity to sell to all those owners of jailbroken iPhones, especially if they perceive a threat in the launching of the WAC.

Here are a few other commentaries on the issue:

• Spanner Spencer: Apple blocking jailbroken iPhones from App Store?  http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/iPhone+news/news.asp?c=18507
• Ed Sutherland: Apple Bans iPhone Hackers From App Store?
• Abi (SEO blog and technology): Apple Bans Jailbroken iPhone Users From App Store
•  Andrew (fonehome): Apple bans jailbroken iPhones from App Store http://www.fonehome.co.uk/2010/02/apple-bans-jailbroken-iphones-from-app-store/

David Harley FBCS CITP CISSP
Mac Virus
Small Blue-Green World
AVIEN Chief Operations Officer
ESET Research Fellow & Director of Malware Intelligence

Also blogging at:
http://www.eset.com/threat-center/blog
http://avien.net/blog/
http://smallbluegreenblog.wordpress.com/
http://blogs.securiteam.com
http://blog.isc2.org/
http://dharley.wordpress.com

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