iPhone 3GS Unlocked and Jailbroken

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Cell Phones, Handhelds, Mods / Hacks, Software

The iPhone 3GS can finally be unlocked and jailbroken. This past Friday, George Hotz released his Purplera1n iPhone 3GS jailbreak tool. Of course, once the iPhone 3GS was jailbroken, it was only a matter of time before unlocking was possible.

According to George:

“Normally I don’t make tools for the general public, and rather wait for the dev team to do it. But guys, whats up with waiting until 3.1? That isn’t how the game is played. We release, Apple fixes, we find new holes. It isn’t worth waiting because you might have the “last” hole in the iPhone. What last hole…this isn’t golf. I’ll find a new one next week.”

Click to continue reading iPhone 3GS Unlocked and Jailbroken

Read More | On The iPhone

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (1)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story

The Internet’s Riskiest Search Terms

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Google, Internet

Using sources such as Google Zeitgeist and Yahoo 2008 Year in Review, McAfee analyzed search terms to come up with list of the 10 riskiest. Shane Keats and team analyzed over 2,600 items and say that hackers look for “crowds” at sites like MySpace or users who are about to take an online action such as downloading an MP3.

1. Word Unscrambler
2. Lyrics
3. MySpace
4. Free Music Downloads
5. Phelps, Weber-Gale, Jones and Lezak Wins 4x 100m Relay
6. Free Music
7. Game Cheats
8. Printable Fill in Puzzles
9. Free Ringtones
10. Solitaire

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (0)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story

Monster Database Hacked

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Mods / Hacks

Looking for a job on Monster? Then you may be at risk of security theft. Apparently their database was hacked into worldwide and data such as user IDs and passwords, email addresses, names, phone numbers and some basic demographic data was accessed. The site suggests that you change your password and has a security page with more guidelines. They do not ever contact you by email, so if you see one that looks Monster related, delete it quickly as it may be a phishing scheme. We would suggest that you never post a resume online as this is way more info than you should put out there.

Read More | Monster

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (1)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story

Electronic Traffic Signs Hacked

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Editorial, Mods / Hacks, Transportation

We were surprised when we learned that electronic road signs are easily hackable. This is because the usually locked access panel is often left unprotected. Even more surprising is that the site iHacked tells you exactly how it is done with step by step instructions. They then caution,

*** WARNING - YOU SHOULD NEVER TAMPER WITH THESE SIGNS ***

Hmm. Isn’t that a bit like posting details on how to build a bomb and then saying that it is for informational use only?

Read More | iHacked

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (0)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story

History Hacker debuts tonight on The History Channel

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Design, Home Entertainment, Mods / Hacks

Yeah, we know that tonight many televisions are going to be tuned in to the first National Debate between Obama and McCain, but that’s what DVRs are for, right? We mention it because we know you’ll want to catch History Hacker, which makes its debut tonight at 9 PM on The History Channel. Why should you care? Well, it stars my pal Bre Pettis, and the dude is a serious, true, hardware hacker. In the show, Bre aims to teach us about big tech advances from the past, recreating them with materials in his own lab. According to him:

It’s an hour long, so I have time to get into some projects to break down some of the principles that Tesla pioneered and fought for in the war of the currents. I make a neon bulb, AC generator from a bike and muck about with an old telephone magneto. I also go check out the power plant in the basement of the New Yorker and the space systems lab at MIT to see how the principles that Tesla pioneered are being used today.

See? Told you, he is the real deal. Seriously, set your TiVos.

Read More | History Hacker - Day Of

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (0)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story

Pacmba Chomps Down

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Household, Mods / Hacks, Video Games, Videos, Wireless / WiFi

What do you get when you cross a Roomba with Pac-man? In Ron Tajima’s case, you get a Pacmba (don’t ask us how to pronounce it.) He took his droid vacuum, tacked on a board with 448 LEDs, and added a Bluetooth remote with circuit driver. Of course, he had to have something for the little guy to chomp on. This is Ron’s second foray into hacking his Roomba. We cannot wait to see what he will come up with next.

Read More | BotJunkie

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (13)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story

SuTree: Online community learning

Posted by Sparky Categories: Internet, Misc. Tech, Mods / Hacks, Science, Videos

SuTree is a new community based education site aimed at bringing together e-learning content creators and their community. Much like a video oriented Instructables, SuTree allows users to create and share videos helping users learn anything from how to make cheesecake, to how to speak a foreign language. The recent boom of online knowledge silos is a fantastic boon for the entire world - sites like SuTree, Wikipedia, MAKE, and Etsy are helping everyone learn new things and share their knowledge using the power of the internet with the power of user-created content.

Go internet!

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (0)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story

Apple Slaps Unlocked iPhone Users on the Wrist

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Apple, Cell Phones, Editorial, Handhelds, Portable Audio / Video

Apple has announced that its new update will kill unlocked iPhones. Last week, Steve Jobs cried foul as he said that the warranty would be voided, which we are pretty sure most hackers, such as George Hotz, knew about when they performed the operation. Of course, the obvious solution here is to skip the update, but then those users will not get WiFi Tunes. Perhaps Apple should think of this as a quiet demonstration of folks who want to save a bit of cash rather than a direct attack on AT&T. Think amnesty, Apple.

Read More | Yahoo Tech

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (1)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story

Teen Unlocks iPhone

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Apple, Cell Phones, Handhelds, Internet, Mods / Hacks, Portable Audio / Video, Videos

George Hotz decided to spend some time this summer unlocking an iPhone, so that he use it on his own network, T-Mobile. Partially inspired because his friend had just gotten one, the change of service fee, and the $20.00 monthly fee from AT&T for using an iPhone, he soldered two wires together and replaced the SIM card, although we are sure that the project is more complicated than he makes it sound in this CNBC video. It took about 500 hours to complete with the aid of four others online.

Being the kind fellow that he is, rather than selling his idea, he has posted it for free on his website, just in case you want to give it a try. Although he planned on selling one hacked iPhone on eBay, complications arose so he traded it for a Nissan 350Z and three 8GB iPhones. George left this weekend to attend the Rochester Institute of Technology where he will major in neuroscience or what he calls “hacking the brain.”

Read More | cell phone digest

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (0)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story

Ken Levine on Hacking in BioShock: “It’s a Little Out There.”

Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Action, Adventure, First Person Shooters, PC, Puzzle, Take2, Xbox 360

Everybody loves BioShock.  From the whale-like moans of the Big Daddy to the thrill of smashing a frozen Splicer into little bits, the game is quality.  However, one aspect of the game that isn’t thrilling everyone is its hacking mechanism; if you want to break into a safe or turn enemy turrets into your own mechanized defense force, you first must succeed at a hacking minigame that plays a lot like the Lucasfilm Games classic, Pipe Dream.  Well, as it turns out, BioShock’s own big daddy, Ken Levine, is also not in love with the mechanic.  Shacknews sat down with Levine for an interview and got his take on it.

It’s a little out there. That’s why it was important that you could bypass it in two ways; you can buy it out or you can use the hack tools—or you can just ignore it. There’s only one hack you have to do in the game.

But I think if we could go back and do it again, we would have maybe rethought that a little bit. I think it was more a function of our limitations at the beginning of the project when we had a very limited budget, and then we zoomed in so many other areas that we sort of forgot to go back to that area.

The purely non-spoiler interview, linked below, goes on to cover all things BioShock and is well worth reading.

Read More | Shacknews

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (0)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story