iPhone: the party's over; the hack is on

Stan Beer
Monday, 23 July 2007 18:17

Business IT - Technology

News that the iPhone can be hacked just like any other "computer" should come as no surprise. If you visit a malicious website using any known browser that interacts with any known operating system, you're likely to get hacked. The iPhone is a small computer and, as the New York Times reports, it took a serious security expert about one week to find a flaw that would allow him to gain complete control of someone else's iPhone.

The same article also points out that any smart mobile phone with computer like capabilities is just as vulnerable but the iPhone is flavor of the month and therefore a desirable target. It's the old argument that Macs are just as vulnerable as Windows PCs - they're just not as worth hacking.

In the case of the iPhone, however, Apple has more to worry about than malevolent hackers. Such is the popularity of the device, that potential users and technologists feel that trying to keep its systems closed and locked is an affront to the spirit of openness that pervades software technology.

Thus, a myriad of hackers are working round the clock not just to develop new ways to make iPhone owners' lives a misery by introducing unwanted viruses and ripping them off through various malwares. Many are working to help iPhone owners free themselves from the constraints of the self imposed restrictions of the device.

Software developers are working to free the iPhone from the constraints of forcing owners to being locked to a single carrier by enabling SIM cards from other carriers to work with what is arguably the best mobile all in one device on the planet. Others are working to unlock the restrictions that tie the iPhone's non-phone functions - music player, Wi-Fi Internet device - to the necessity of taking out a two year contract with one particular wireless carrier.

Still other developers are working to open up the iPhone to applications that don't require Apple's Safari browser to run. While others are trying to discover ways that would enable the iPhone to run popular applications, such as Skype, that haven't been approved by Apple, even though the device is obviously more than capable of running them.

In short, the development community doesn't want to see the iPhone go the way of the Mac - a computer that got a small slice of a market that it could have gotten a lot more of. Apple nearly went under because of the company's fanatical insistence of keeping everything closed on the Mac. Yet it was easily the best personal computer with the best operating system on the market.

Now Apple has come out with the mobile phone equivalent of the Mac. It is easily the best mobile computer, smartphone, handheld, whatever you want to call it on the market - at least a generation ahead of the competition. What a pity that Apple has chosen to lock iPhone down and restrict it to a select group of users that are prepared to be restricted to a single carrier, limited applications and a lock-out of a plethora of talented developers who would willingly make powerful applications available that could exploit the full power of the device.

So what we are left with is a ludicrous situation where with iPhone Apple is once again acting like a control freak. Users will get only the applications that Apple says they will get when Apple says they can get them and from Apple says they can get them from. Is it any wonder that the hack is on?