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patrickboyd

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 12, 2009
19
0
i really dont like it being teathered cus im worried about turning the phone off then it being in recovery!
 
i really dont like it being teathered cus im worried about turning the phone off then it being in recovery!

Tethering has nothing to do with the OS version and everything to do with iBoot version. Many people, myself included, have long had untethered jailbroken phones on 3.1.2. What matters is your version of iBoot.

As for whether a way will be found to untether the new 359.3.2 version of iBoot, who can say? Nobody can possibly know what will happen before it does. Only when and if someone finds a useful exploit in iBoot will it be possible to know. If they do, then there will be an untethered jailbreak; if they do not, then there won't.
 
Ok so what exactly would I do to make it unteathered?

There's nothing to be done. Your 3gs will either have the older iboot or the new one. If it has the older one, it will be untethered. If it has the new one, it has the new one, and if you jailbreak, it will be tethered. Nothing can be done to change that.
 
Ok so what exactly would I do to make it unteathered?

Let me try to explain. Every iPhone has a chip in it which contains a tiny program called iBoot. iBoot is the phone's bootloader, the program that tells the phone how to load the operating system. During this process, the OS checks the OS to make sure that it is the official version provided by Apple. If it is not the correct version, it will normally refuse to boot your phone.

Clever hackers discovered a weakness in iBoot (which they called the 24kpwn hack) that allowed them to inject their own code into iBoot to bypass this security check and boot a jailbroken version of the OS that iBoot normally would not boot. Basically, by crashing iBoot at a certain point in the boot process, they could inject 24kb of their own code and iBoot would think it was perfectly normal. This code disabled the security check, and it was the only known way of getting a jailbroken iPhone to boot itself.

As of sometime in October, Apple started shipping iPhones with a new version of iBoot. This new version patched the 24kpwn hack, meaning we lost our only known way of modifying iBoot so that it can boot a modified version of the OS. It is still possible to use a computer to bypass iBoot, but one can't convince iBoot to bypass itself. This is why the new iPhones can have only a tethered jailbreak.

Does your phone have the new iBoot? There are ways to check. If your iBoot version is 359.3, then you can have an untethered jailbreak (whether on 3.1.2 or any other version of the OS); if it is 359.3.2 or 359.3-2 you cannot, at least not now. It has nothing to do with the version of your OS, only the version of iBoot.

Right now there is no prospect for a new iBoot hack, and it is therefore impossible to predict when or even if one will be found. For now you should assume that any phone with the new iBoot is not untetherable.
 
Ahh right well I got mine the other day so I guess I have tre new one


not true i got a brand new 3gs a week ago and it has the old iboot version so you may want to check

but my wife's phone purchased same day has the new version iboot mines white hers is black thats the only diff both 16GB's
 
Let me try to explain. Every iPhone has a chip in it which contains a tiny program called iBoot. iBoot is the phone's bootloader, the program that tells the phone how to load the operating system. During this process, the OS checks the OS to make sure that it is the official version provided by Apple. If it is not the correct version, it will normally refuse to boot your phone.

Clever hackers discovered a weakness in iBoot (which they called the 24kpwn hack) that allowed them to inject their own code into iBoot to bypass this security check and boot a jailbroken version of the OS that iBoot normally would not boot. Basically, by crashing iBoot at a certain point in the boot process, they could inject 24kb of their own code and iBoot would think it was perfectly normal. This code disabled the security check, and it was the only known way of getting a jailbroken iPhone to boot itself.

As of sometime in October, Apple started shipping iPhones with a new version of iBoot. This new version patched the 24kpwn hack, meaning we lost our only known way of modifying iBoot so that it can boot a modified version of the OS. It is still possible to use a computer to bypass iBoot, but one can't convince iBoot to bypass itself. This is why the new iPhones can have only a tethered jailbreak.

Does your phone have the new iBoot? There are ways to check. If your iBoot version is 359.3, then you can have an untethered jailbreak (whether on 3.1.2 or any other version of the OS); if it is 359.3.2 or 359.3-2 you cannot, at least not now. It has nothing to do with the version of your OS, only the version of iBoot.

Right now there is no prospect for a new iBoot hack, and it is therefore impossible to predict when or even if one will be found. For now you should assume that any phone with the new iBoot is not untetherable.

Wow - that's a great, informative post. Thanks for taking the time to distill it down for us "civilians".
 
Wow - that's a great, informative post. Thanks for taking the time to distill it down for us "civilians".

No problem. I'm thinking about doing a post sometime explaining what jailbreaking actually does to your phone, how it does it (in simplified terms), and why it is such a cat-and-mouse game with Apple. Do you think that would be worthwhile? I certainly know that I didn't have a clue what I was actually doing to my phone the first time I jailbroke it.
 
i tryed to find out my iboot thing but when i try to go into dfu it just goes to recovery with the plug in sign surly that means i have the new iboot?
 
No problem. I'm thinking about doing a post sometime explaining what jailbreaking actually does to your phone, how it does it (in simplified terms), and why it is such a cat-and-mouse game with Apple. Do you think that would be worthwhile? I certainly know that I didn't have a clue what I was actually doing to my phone the first time I jailbroke it.

I think your explaination of iBoot should be made a sticky. If this is a fair indication of how jailbreaking would be explained by you then I'd say that should be a sticky as well.
 
i tryed to find out my iboot thing but when i try to go into dfu it just goes to recovery with the plug in sign surly that means i have the new iboot?

You should be able to put your phone into DFU mode regardless of your version of iBoot. That's kinda the whole point of DFU mode: it completely bypasses iBoot. It is sometimes hard to get into DFU mode, though; it requires pretty good timing. You just need to keep trying, following the instructions carefully. Don't give up!
 
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