"Jailbreaking" was a term that I reserved for 'Jessie James' and the 'Hole in the wall Gang', and to be honest, it was only when I read a BBC article on it, did I realised that for anyone under the age of thirty, the term actually means unlocking the manufacturers operating systems on electronic items such as iPhones, XBoxes, DVD player, iPods, Android phones etc .... in other words 'hacking'.
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| 'Jailbreaking' was tougher in those days |
Once it clicked, I was able to relate it to such innocent activities as making your DVD player 'zone free' by using certain control button codes (something lots of us have done), to rooting your ROM on an Android phone and replacing the stock operating system (OS) with a customised one (warning can go wrong, and voids phone warranties). At a hardcore level this involves breaking into the products and directly altering the programming to perform functions that it wasn't designed to do, and the borders of legality and illegality are a bit blurry at some points, but eventually it is clearly illegal (damaging the systems of other people via 'Malware'), however its hard to police, as in the main its a one machine change.
Once it clicked, I was able to relate it to such innocent activities as making your DVD player 'zone free' by using certain control button codes (something lots of us have done), to rooting your ROM on an Android phone and replacing the stock operating system (OS) with a customised one (warning can go wrong, and voids phone warranties). At a hardcore level this involves breaking into the products and directly altering the programming to perform functions that it wasn't designed to do, and the borders of legality and illegality are a bit blurry at some points, but eventually it is clearly illegal (damaging the systems of other people via 'Malware'), however its hard to police, as in the main its a one machine change.
The funny part of this is that in the main, these jailbreakers are young (15 - 17), and go mainstream when they get to their early twenty's .... in fact so much are they in demand by I.T. companies that some of the most infamous of the jailbreakers now work at companies such as Facebook, and Apple, or have opened their own software companies. And when the 'Jailbreakers' converged on London last month to talk about their activities at a conference called MyGreatFest, they were being headhunted by the same companies whose OS's they break free.
NB: If you came here looking for a hack tip, well I don't like to disappoint so here's a genuine jailbreak code change:
If you want to enable your iPhones and iPads panoramic camera's i.e. allow the camera to take a series of images, and then merge them into a panoramic view (only for devices with iOS5 firmware). Then this secret functionality can be unlocked by you switching the 'EnableFirebreak' in the file 'com.apple.mobileslideshow.plist' value to 'yes' ..... of course this requires you to 'jailbreak' which as discussed above most definitely voids your product warranty.
