Saurik live chat: Learn about Apple's new signature server

This is terrible news. For those of us with 3Gs devices, it sounds like we won't be jailbreaking anytime soon, if ever.

As soon as ATT gets a decent Android device, I'm going to seriously consider selling my iphone. I love my iphone, but I'm sick of Apples policies.

OMG, The GOOGLE-GIRL IS BACK! And she is worried;)

After reading the chat tex, I know understand clearly that my newly purchased iPhone 3GS will not be jailbroken as I don't have ECID signature with Cydia :(

So all I have to do is wait and pray that the DevTeam or someone else comes with a magic answer.

I'm supposed to read that whole text chat to figure out why I should care about this to read the text chat?

In other words, this isn't anything anyone cares about.

Do you think greenpois0n will kill redsn0w?

Transcript of everything that has occured so far:
Erica: Hi everyone. We're still getting set up and we'll start in just a few minutes.
4:16
Erica: And I think we're good to go.
4:17
Erica: I want to welcome everybody to our chat today. Today, we have the pleasure of talking with Jay Freeman. You might know him better as "saurik". He is the developer of Cydia and the godfather of the jailbreak world.
4:17
Jay Freeman (saurik): Hello!
4:17
Erica: We have several TUAWians who will be hopefully showing up to join in the chat as well. In addition to me, we should be seeing Mike Jones, Megan Lavey, and Josh Carr
4:18
Megan Lavey: I'm here! Good afternoon, Erica and Jay!

4:18
Michael Jones: Good afternoon everyone!
4:18
Erica: The big motivating factor for today's chat is Apple's new signing server. Jay, can you offer a brief overview of what it is, and what it means to iPhone users?
4:19
4:19
Jay Freeman (saurik): Gladly. In order for things like jailbreaking to work (or any homebrew development in a hostile environment), bugs need to be found and exploited in the software that runs on the device.
4:20
Jay Freeman (saurik): Unfortunately, hackers tend to have the fundamental advantage in such wars: software is released, and it must "stand the test of time": users may choose to simply never update their devices, and wait for exploits to be uncovered.
4:21
Jay Freeman (saurik):

Apple's response to this problem has been to make their new devices, the 3G[S] and the craazy new iPod (the larger sizes of the third generation iPod Touch), verify that, when the device is "restored" (when it is erased and the software is put back onto it) that software is considered "secure".
4:22
Jay Freeman (saurik):

This happens by having iTunes contact the Apple firmware signature server, gs.apple.com, sending it information about the device in question and the software that you are trying to load. In fact, every single individual file being sent to the device goes through this process (although one request to Apple's server can ask for multiple signatures at once).
4:23
Jay Freeman (saurik): So, to answer the question that some people have been asking in the "comments" section of this chat: yes, in order to restore your new i-devices, you will need to have an internet connection at the time of the restoration.
4:24
Jay Freeman (saurik): The device then has algorithms in it to verify the validity of that signature.
4:25
Jay Freeman (saurik): However, the way Apple implemented this allows for something called a "replay attack": where you take a recording of Apple signing the software, and then "reply" that process to the device, which gets confused and accepts the signature. Nothing about the process includes, for example, the current time, which could be used to verify "is this an original, or a recording".
4:26
Erica: Apple has always been proprietary about controlling the iPhone family of devices. How does this new step compare to previous moves on Apple's part, and how does it affect people who want to downgrade or jailbreak? And, is there any legal or ethical questions about your replay attack approach?
4:28
Jay Freeman (saurik): This next step is right in line with that their previous work in this area, and is in essence the next logical step to protecting the device. This method should, were it implemented correctly, keep users from not only downgrading their device to older firmwares but also keep users from being able to maintain a device on an older version by simply never upgrading: if anything happens to the device and the software has to be reloaded, for any reason, the user will be forced to use currently "ok" versions of the firmware.
4:29
Jay Freeman (saurik): To answer the question about "legal or ethical questions" about the replay attack, I will first state that I am not a lawyer, but will say that I do not believe there to be any issues regarding this technique.
4:30
Erica: I understand that you have set up a server that mimics Apple's. Can you tell us more about this?

Transcript, please. Not all of us can hear.