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So you know how T-Mobile is now selling unlocked iPhones for 999 euros — roughly $1,500? Yeah, well they’re not exactly sitting down and soldering the devices themselves. They’re offering an unlock via iTunes. Apparently, once the customer buys the phone, T-Mobile sends the IMEI to Apple, which within 24 hours will set the phone to unlock when connected to iTunes. Anyone else think that hackers will exploit this to the fullest extent?

Besides the fact that it’s only taking seconds, the software version, when checked, remains at 1.1.2, so Apple isn’t making any firmware changes. So, what’s likely happening is iTunes sees the IMEI on Apple’s servers, says “ok, unlock” and there you go.

Real Tech News reminds us that France will be getting the iPhone on the 29th, and they require phones to be unlocked. So this feature, they say, was already in iTunes, making it that much easier for the Germans to use the feature.

So if iTunes can be exploited for this unlocking feature, we figure that someone in the U.S. will figure it out soon enough. That is, unless the iPhones in Europe are demonstrably different than those in the U.S.

[Real Tech News]

Posted By : Joe
Posted at : November 27th, 2007 - 11:00 am
Filed under : iPhone