Word on the Streets, WP7’s Gonna Get Jailbroken
Thanks to some big secrets revealed in a Samsung application, Australian developer Chris Walshie is on the homestretch and is determined as hell to jailbreak WP7 demonstrating yesterday that he could run native code – not Silverlight / .NET — native unmanaged code on a WP7 phone. There are still some obstacles remaining between what he’s accomplished and you being able to sideload tethering, trojans, WEP cracking programs and porn wallpaper but thanks to this guy it’s become close enough that you can begin to taste it.
Read his blog post for the details, not quite my department.
I’m interested in this situation because I suspect it would be firmly within Microsoft’s interests not to let this happen as it is a chink in their armor of apparent security, should people begin to jailbreak these phones as they do iPhones. I don’t think this time around they want a custom rom free for all on XDA nor do they want piracy and security risks that come without a no-exceptions centralized software distribution system. An IT department, for instance, would prefer that those on their networks not be able to install packet sniffers, rogue wake-on-lan clients, warez, DoS apps, mac address spoofers and port scanners. So I think it may be a threat to XDA, this progress, this time around.
It also presents a threat to consumers, a more direct one that’s been demonstrated before. Let’s say you jailbreak your phone and next month Microsoft pumps out a service pack through their fancy centralized distribution system and your phone is snubbed and doesn’t get the great update or even worse the phone is bricked and not under warranty. Suppose you start sideloading software posted on XDA rather than the Marketplace, suppose you root it somehow and overclock the processor with a modified kernel. Could the jail be for your protection? Would you see it that way or would you want to make a run for it, if this man and XDA comes through, instead of leaving this WinMo XDA days behind you? And what sort of apps might be on your jailbroken wishlist?
Doug Simmons, via istartedsomething and bgr
[poll id=”48″]
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About The Author
Doug Simmons
Biographical info.. hmm. I have a history of not being able to strike the balance between what is "safe" to put into these forms and what is, in my mind at least, funny. Can't do it.
Oh Lord you have got to be kidding me Mark.
So I’m the fanboy who spent a small chunk of his Sunday reporting to people like you the progress in someone hacking something for the sake of people like you, spreading this information, information of zero significance to me as I have no stake in Windows but am nevertheless writing about the damn thing because it’s a significant development for our audience as this website has a substantial Microsoft audience, all the other writers are doing the Sunday thing which generally does not involve writing, I write the thing fairly well in spite of it being HBO night but oh no I stick a poll into it, have a little fun with the options and now you’re bitching like a little bitch that you are “Unable to answer such biased polls.”
Take a quick glance up a few inches — that’s a decent article written by the enemy in your eyes.
My interests include Android and trying, almost single handedly it’s become here, to keep this place from falling completely into the pit of being Surur and WMPU’s bitch, but this was significant news for you on the other side and I step out trying to offer something and you cut me down with this bullshit. Who the hell are you? What’s your problem? Are you a little sensitive about polls and political things in general because of your state managed to elect Rod Blagojevich (possibly with your help) and now you’re on guard for shit like I just pulled because I rigged the thing with crafty Googler trickery? Is it because in your neighborhood he was the governor while at the same damn time in my city he was a chump on Donald Trump’s show? Your guy I’m talking about which is pertinent because you give more than two shits about an embedded poll.
I’d wrap this up with what I have in mind but I am encouraged not to use the F word, you stupid piece of shit, you idiot. You fairy. What you’re here to do, like me, is to get informed and maybe help others get informed too while you’re at it, not piss me off over some horseshit like this.
Enjoy your news schmuck, it’s important for phone nerds like you to know that something like jailbreaking is about to become an activity in which you can engage. With any luck you might be able to figure out which of the poll’s three options is Yes and which is No yet you have one more option that might not have occurred to you, don’t vote! You turn to phone blogs, known for fanaticism, for scientific surveys and you whine when you sense sensationalism? What’s wrong with you asshole? And “The again what is expect” — learn English or learn how to type douchebag. If you must fuck with my Sunday night, do it with correct spelling.
You now know about this thing because of me. Tonight I was your information daddy. Remember that every time you do something related to what I just passed along as you disrespected the guy who let you in on something you’d otherwise not find out about for at least another sixteen hours.
I don’t mean to be out of line or anything but Mark, a thank you would be nice.
Sundays… back to HBO. Don’t fucking interrupt my HBO nights.
The poll is written in such a biased way that I am unable to answer.
The again, what is expect of Doug Simmons: the fanboy who hates everything but Android.
yea i dont like doug sim…eeer…android either!
Aw come on, give Doug a break. He’s working the “breaking news” desk tonight. No different than having Fox or CNN forced on you in an airport or lounge, depending on your political affiliation.
I don’t really have any interest in sideloading any apps, even if they do appear to be better. This guinnea pig is pretty much beaten down at this point. Bought enough coffee to give quite a few developers a good buzz. But I might be interested in a few tweaks, if they did not seriously impact performance. Like allowing custom ringtones and alerts (allegedly coming soon), changing the battery icon to a digital/pct. display, providing haptic feedback for the keyboard, not allowing the device to wakeup showing the lock screen (potentially getting stuck on and draining battery) for any alert (the sound and vibration are quite enough) and adding character count to the messaging app. And I would love to see the file structure, even if i couldn’t change anything. More curious with folder sizes, caches, etc.
Thanks for getting my back Salil. Thought we had history.
Street Slide is nothing more than cheating off your friend’s paper then jazzing up yours with a thesaurus. Without Google’s ideas you’d have very little. Google keeps Microsoft on its toes and fully informed of what the people would like.
Damn. And you, Salil? You?
whine*
In other news, the picture I went with was from the best prison movie of all time.
Thank you Doug 🙂 I found the fact that you wrote the article to be interesting. I never gave a crap about the polls being “biased”, everyone likes having fun with polls. no harm no foul in this case.
I don’t like the way the poll is worded.
Also, if anything, Windows Phone 7 got its influence from iOS not Android.
@Mark: i hate to break it to you but windows phone is a by-product from Microsoft after research into all their competitors, not just iOS or Android, but also symbian, meego, and blackberry. And as for Doug’s reporting, I believe he’s doing his job well. As much as I know he is an android person at heart, it’s good that he has provided insight into windows phone as well, and that he reported it with a clear mind, not throwing it off. As for the poll, fair enough, it could of been worded differently, but it still gets the point across. Lay off him… at least he is continuously around reporting, even after or the lackluster messages he has to put up with… And no I’m not Android fan, I’m definitely a windows phone person, but appreciate Doug’s contributions as it allows everyone to see that whilst windows phone has started a great new canvas, there is still plenty to be done, and I believe this is the same with all mobile OS, regardless of age (yes, this includes iOS and Android).
How about changing the option “faster than you can say” to “it’s my device I’ve paid for it and I pay for it’s service and I’ll do whatever I want with it” or just “flashing is fun”?
@soundman
Fair enought. I wouldn’t be be so critical of Doug in the future.
@everybody Doug is obviously biased to Android, this is true. If he were not, Mobility would be so far in the M$/Apple (mostly M$) camp that it would be really easy to miss the point that Mobility is about technology, not just WP.
I don’t see how an article about the inevitable jailbreaking of WP with a poll that actually includes “WP and badass” as an option is bias toward anything. Who thinks WP will not be jail broken? It’s going to happen.
Doug is right, the real question is, how is M$ going to respond. Traditionally M$ has embraced XDA but that was because they realized how much help they needed to convince people to still buy a platform they gave up on years ago.
I personally think they should focus on making WP so complete and viable “as is” so people won’t want to risk not being able to update their phones or bricking them in the process. I don’t think they should spend a bunch of time fighting the writing on the wall.
Just roll out consistent updates that require a non-jailbroken phone that people will want. Continue to offer significant OS customization with each roll out and use XDA as a tool to gauge what people really seem to desire from the OS.
What can I say, that remark set my phone off while the lady and I were watching HBO’s Boardwalk Empire (it’s like the Sopranos, except it’s on the air), some Sancarre fired up. I wait all week for that. Any other hour of the week I would have responded with half as many paragraphs and obscenities. I couldn’t interrupt watching it, can’t do that, so it festered in my head for the next forty minutes.
Made an effort on that post, thought it might spark a discussion about XDA’s history of legal issues with Microsoft and whatever else, maybe start making a list kind of like a top 25 apps list except for nonexistent apps you wish you could get your hands on were someone like this guy I wrote about able to give everyone full unbridled control over their phones. That list would be intriguing to me. I think one of us who doesn’t make my polling mistakes should reattempt that as there are already enough top ten apps lists. A top ten non-existent app list, there’s a good idea for you.
And I wanted to see if I had it in me to write an article that was helpful and not inflammatory or antagonistic toward WP7, the fanatics behind which are the most rabid of any I’ve ever seen, in the interests of the site and its audience.
Instead the thread gets tripped up off the bat and derailed with a complaint about bias in a stupid poll. Was that article really what you expect from an Android fanboy Mark? Were you just trolling my ass? Since when did anyone care about blog polls in the first place? Besides, I didn’t just say the PROUDLY thing, I said Nah, WP7’s badass enough the way it is. Maybe he misinterpreted badass as being derogatory, which it’s not. Should we recruit a poll guy who writes polls with answer options as No and Yes? Would that be helpful? I don’t understand the complaint itself let alone why it was filed.
Oh Mark, please be as critical of me as you want, just not between 9 and 10pm EST on Sunday. Don’t make me have to turn my phone off. Strangely I think some good content came out of this, even though it was the opposite content of what I had intended to evoke, so keep it coming.
But seriously, Sundays are for almost every site the slow day both traffic wise and content wise. I want to see what happens if we keep the post volume high on Sundays, if that would lift the Sunday traffic, possibly stealing some readers from other sites if we’re the only game in town, relatively speaking, on Sundays, as they scroll through their All Feeds list in their Google Readers seeing a bunch of articles from us popping up along the way down. I think Sundays could be an opportunity. And again, this was somewhat of a hot item that needed posting, I sent it out to the other guys, no one wanted it, so I said Fine I’ll take one for the team and ran it like a gentleman, subsequently noting how dirty I felt and that I needed a shower.
As you can see, I’m a very sensitive fellow. Got delicate feathers.
I appreciate the empathy on your postscript. Drives me nuts. I’d let someone kick me in the balls really hard if it would make that problem disappear somehow.
Hoh shit, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen venom spit like what came out of Doug Simmons’ fingers. That was some ol’ “you disgust me with every fiber of your being, you punk MFer” type venom. I agree that it is absolutely ludicrous to say that the posting was evidence of some bias (it’s like the right wing always claiming liberal bias on everything), but damn Doug, calm the kcuf down.
P.S. That “Surur and WMPU’s bitch” comment was hilarious. I feel you on that.
Ohhh I misspelled whine. Thought you were calling me out for whining. My apologies, misunderstood, and thanks.
@Doug Simmons:
Yo Doug! In all seriousness, thanks for taking the time out…not just on sunday’s but all the time! This Android vs WM/WP7 is getting as bad as the Crips & Bloods! Hopefully we can all just get the most out of our phones, whatever OS they run!
Doug, just keeping you on your toes and totally informed about where you, sometimes, slip up and I honestly thought you would just thank me (in your heart), amend your mistake and delete my post, reason why I made it small and perfectly deletable, if there’s any word like that, not that it matters as long as you get the point I’m trying to drive home. Phew!! Am I beginning to compose sentences like you? Talking of history!!
😛
On the Jail breaking issue, I am a little more on the wait and see how fast the the updates come from M$. Flashing Roms on the 3-6.X devices has a pretty good history of flexibility and recovery without inplications from Mother M$.
WM7, patience is the right direction for me for now but in 6 months who knows. The phone has been in my hot little hands for less than a week.
Doug, thanks for the artical, you have a lot of good points. The enforcement and detectability of Jail broken phones leave a lot of unansered questions of what the real implcation will be for the end user.
Please, it’s called ‘Going Native’, not jail-breaking.