Hack Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Use iFaith v1.4 to downgrade to iOS 5.0

by Michael Grothaus (Dec 5th, 2011)

The jailbreakers among you are probably anxiously awaiting the first untethered iOS 5 jailbreak promised by pod2g and MuscleNerd. However, if you've upgraded to iOS 5.0.1, you'll be out of luck because the first untethered jailbreak will be for iOS 5.0 only. Nothing later. In iOS 4 and ...

Developer builds Siri proxy server

by Kelly Hodgkins (Nov 21st, 2011)

Last week, a bunch of hackers cracked open the Siri protocol and explained how the service sends information back and forth to Apple's server. Now, another developer, known only by his twitter handle @plamoni, created a proxy server to extend the functionality of Siri on your phone. The proxy ...

iOS 5.0.1 For iPhone, iPad, iPod touch can be jailbroken with Redsn0w

by Michael Grothaus (Nov 11th, 2011)

For the jailbreakers among you, you'll be happy to hear that iOS 5.0.1 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch can indeed be jailbroken with Redsn0w. RedmondPie has tested and confirmed that Apple's latest version of iOS 5 can be tether-jailbreaked by using the latest version of Redsn0w. Redmond does ...

Auto-complete keyboard found in iOS 5

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Nov 10th, 2011)

It seems iOS 5 is full of hidden "gems" (aka features Apple didn't deem worthy of making publicly available yet), like the earlier panorama camera stitching feature. This time, hacker Sonny Dickson found an Android-like word suggestion bar tucked away in iOS 5. Personally I'm not a huge fan of ...

Security researcher Charlie Miller finds serious bug in iOS

by Mike Schramm (Nov 7th, 2011)

Security expert and Mac hacker Charlie Miller has uncovered an issue in iOS that would allow an app, downloaded from the App Store, to install and run malicious code on a device from a remote computer. The flaw, which Miller reportedly did upload to the App Store and got past Apple's security ...

Video of Myriad's Alien Dalvik 2.0 on an iPad

by Michael Grothaus (Oct 10th, 2011)

Engadget got a sneak preview of Myriad's Alien Dalvik 2.0 running on an iPad. Alien Dalvik is a small bit of custom code that allows almost any non-Android device to run unaltered Android apps. Version 2.0 of the software allows Android apps to run on iOS. Interestingly, Alien Dalvik 2.0 runs ...

F-Secure reports Mac trojan poses as PDF

by Mike Schramm (Sep 23rd, 2011)

Security firm F-Secure has unearthed a troubling trojan for Macs that hides itself as a PDF, only waiting until the file is opened up and displaying some Chinese characters before it dives into your Mac's hard drive and sets up a backdoor control. Currently, according to F-Secure, the backdoor ...

JailbreakMe's Comex goes to work for Apple

by Chris Rawson (Aug 25th, 2011)

Nicholas Allegra, aka Comex, aka the young man behind JailbreakMe.com, has been offered an internship with Apple, according to his recent Twitter update. "It's been really, really fun, but it's also been a while and I've been getting bored. So, the week after next I will be starting an internship ...

Ten-Year-Old Hacker presents iOS game exploit at DefCon

by Kelly Hodgkins (Aug 8th, 2011)

A 10-year-old hacker who goes by the name CyFi uncovered a new exploit in iOS and Android games. The time-based exploit lets you advance in a game by adjusting the clock on your phone or tablet. The California girl discovered the flaw while playing an unnamed farming game. Tired of waiting ...

Charlie Miller discusses iOS security and MacBook battery hacking with Tom's Hardware

by Kelly Hodgkins (Aug 4th, 2011)

Charlie Miller is a household name for those interested in Mac and iOS security. He was the first to hack the iPhone back in 2007, is a Pwn2Own veteran, and recently uncovered a battery firmware hack he'll discuss at the upcoming Black Hat 2011 Conference. Miller recently sat down with Tom's ...

Hack adds NFC payment to your iPhone

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jul 29th, 2011)

Apple is rumored to be adding NFC support to the iPhone at some point in the future, but here's a way you can add wireless payments to your iPhone right now. You don't have to solder an NFC chipset, install any applications or even apply a sticker, all you have to do is pop off the back of the ...

Hackinations: Making any OS X app full-screenable in Lion

by Erica Sadun (Jul 25th, 2011)

Today, Steve Sande begged me to add a full-screen button to Colloquy. He offered me chocolate and kittens, neither of which is particularly good for me. But he's a good guy and I like him and his wife so I went ahead and figured this out. [Editor's note: Actually, she was offered chocolate-covered ...

Creepy profit-tracking Wario controlled by Mac

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jul 20th, 2011)

Tiburciod likes to keep track of sales of his game so he wrote a script that checks every minute for a new transaction. Instead of a simple alert, he and his daughter Helena grabbed a Wario character, a bike bell, a few spare LEDs and a smoke maker from a model train. He assembled them all ...

iPad as Kinect part 2: Air Touches

by Erica Sadun (Jul 12th, 2011)

What can you do with an iPad 2 with its onboard cameras and it's fairly able CPU? Quite a lot, it turns out. When TUAW first looked at Greg Hartstein's Air Touch project, it required a completely dark room and could only handle a single measure of distance based on lighting levels. Things have ...

Apple servers hacked by Anonymous

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jul 4th, 2011)

According to Anonymous' twitter account, the hacking group used a SQL injection exploit to pull down the usernames and passwords of several accounts from an Apple-run server (abs.apple.com). The passwords appear encrypted so there is little threat that others can abuse this account information. ...