deep geek speak - how to unlock the iphone

as everyone knows, the whole goal of the iphone is to UNLOCK it, make it
work with any carrier, or even better, get skype into it and get rid of
ATT entirely. so below is some very deep geek speak, and please help
this project if you can!

-----

iPhone Partially Unlocked, Calls Without AT&T Contract

All problems with unlocking lie in the baseband, the radio chipset for
the iPhone. The chipset is an S-Gold2, and don't come in the chat and
give us links to PapaUtils, we can't use them. Now the iPhone only has
one lock, a network personalization lock. This lock means the
MCC(US=310) and the MNC(AT&T=410) must match the first six digits of the
SIM cards IMSI. This check is done in the baseband firmware itself. I'm
not really sure where yet, but that isn't really relevant. The only
thing standing in the way of an unlock is the baseband. All the other
sim checks are known and can be patched out. We even know the AT command
to do the unlock. It's 'AT+CLCK="PN",0,"xxxxxxxx"'. But good luck
finding those x's. They are called the NCK, or Network Control Key, and
are believed to be unique in everyones phone. Forget brute force(time
impractical) and the obvious entries. If you still think bruteforce is a
good idea, read this. Further, there is a limit of 3-10 unlock attempts
per phone, after which the firmware will "hard-lock" itself to AT&T. So
why can't we just patch the firmware? The firmware, located in the
ramdisk at /usr/local/standalone/firmware/ICE03.12.06_G.fls, is signed.
See here for what is known about the file. The sig is checked in the
baseband bootloader. The updater program, bbupdater, only checks a
checksum, which can be changed. The update will take, but then the phone
won't boot because the sigs don't match.

We worked two solid days on disasseming the radio fw. There are a few
backdoors, but none that would lead to an unlock. If you are *good* with
disassembling ARM, PM geohot for the idb. We've documented a lot of
functions pretty well. Although, this firmware is very difficult to work
through. I'm 90% sure the password check happens in the function called
pwdcheck, but I haven't found it yet. For all we know there could be a
simple algorithm to generate the NCKs that we've missed.

more here:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/breaking/...ed-calls-witho
ut-att-contract-279606.php

none wrote:
> as everyone knows, the whole goal of the iphone is to UNLOCK it, make it
> work with any carrier, or even better, get skype into it and get rid of
> ATT entirely. so below is some very deep geek speak, and please help
> this project if you can!
>
> -----
>
> iPhone Partially Unlocked, Calls Without AT&T Contract
>
> All problems with unlocking lie in the baseband, the radio chipset for
> the iPhone. The chipset is an S-Gold2, and don't come in the chat and
> give us links to PapaUtils, we can't use them. Now the iPhone only has
> one lock, a network personalization lock. This lock means the
> MCC(US=310) and the MNC(AT&T=410) must match the first six digits of the
> SIM cards IMSI. This check is done in the baseband firmware itself. I'm
> not really sure where yet, but that isn't really relevant. The only
> thing standing in the way of an unlock is the baseband. All the other
> sim checks are known and can be patched out. We even know the AT command
> to do the unlock. It's 'AT+CLCK="PN",0,"xxxxxxxx"'. But good luck
> finding those x's. They are called the NCK, or Network Control Key, and
> are believed to be unique in everyones phone. Forget brute force(time
> impractical) and the obvious entries. If you still think bruteforce is a
> good idea, read this. Further, there is a limit of 3-10 unlock attempts
> per phone, after which the firmware will "hard-lock" itself to AT&T. So
> why can't we just patch the firmware? The firmware, located in the
> ramdisk at /usr/local/standalone/firmware/ICE03.12.06_G.fls, is signed.
> See here for what is known about the file. The sig is checked in the
> baseband bootloader. The updater program, bbupdater, only checks a
> checksum, which can be changed. The update will take, but then the phone
> won't boot because the sigs don't match.
>
> We worked two solid days on disasseming the radio fw. There are a few
> backdoors, but none that would lead to an unlock. If you are *good* with
> disassembling ARM, PM geohot for the idb. We've documented a lot of
> functions pretty well. Although, this firmware is very difficult to work
> through. I'm 90% sure the password check happens in the function called
> pwdcheck, but I haven't found it yet. For all we know there could be a
> simple algorithm to generate the NCKs that we've missed.
>
> more here:
>
> http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/breaking/...ed-calls-witho
> ut-att-contract-279606.php

Why not just buy a unit thats more 'open', for less money? Why spend
hundreds/thousands of hours hacking a device from a manufacturer that
will just change the design enough to ruin all your work as soon as you
work it out?

The hardware isn't that cool, really. Its got a few physical design
defects (the screen-pad-not-really-a-digitizer-thingie will be more fun
than the battery) which would make me avoid.

According to my own apple support insider the actual support quality, in
the end, ends up being about the same as you'd get when dealing with a
'roaming' provider. Basically Apple knows nothing about the network,
and Cingular knows nothing about the phone... This is an asstastic
situation for everyone involved.

If you're not too busy, try fixing this iphone software bug...

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41032

<720 degree eye roll>

"balsofsteele@gmail.com" <balsofsteele@gmail.com> wrote:

> > more here:
> >
> > http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/breaking/...ed-calls-witho
> > ut-att-contract-279606.php
>
> Why not just buy a unit thats more 'open', for less money? Why spend
> hundreds/thousands of hours hacking a device from a manufacturer that
> will just change the design enough to ruin all your work as soon as you
> work it out?
>
> The hardware isn't that cool, really. Its got a few physical design
> defects (the screen-pad-not-really-a-digitizer-thingie will be more fun
> than the battery) which would make me avoid.
>
> According to my own apple support insider the actual support quality, in
> the end, ends up being about the same as you'd get when dealing with a
> 'roaming' provider. Basically Apple knows nothing about the network,
> and Cingular knows nothing about the phone... This is an asstastic
> situation for everyone involved.
>
> If you're not too busy, try fixing this iphone software bug...
>
> http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41032
>
> <720 degree eye roll>

well, the iPhone is enough of a modern marvel to do whatever it takes to
make it work on every carrier. It's easily the most popular cell phone
now, so we'll see how it develops. The Duke thing is a Duke problem, not
related to the iPhone.