[kbz1960]

Which do they need to do? Shiet or get off the pot?

[blackjack93117]

Yeah, I think these guys are legit, but I need more than an led or backlight or w/e. Maybe I'm just uninformed, but if its trivial to read email once its "rooted" or look at contacts or steal pictures or w/e, then why didn't they show it?

I think its because they couldn't figure it out yet. Its more difficult than that. Maybe they need a few more hours, days or weeks or months to get to that point? Maybe the PB has some other security up its sleeve so its impossible?

These possibilities haven't been looked at.

I'm just saying, yes RIM should look into it and talk to these guys, but this is not sufficient evidence to claim that emails can be read.

#justsaying

I guess they got excited and couldn't wait to break the news - would have been much more impressive if they took some time to do some mindblowing thing - like make it self destruct.

Nice to have you back chief the forums are picking up with happy newbies...new blood. Much more happiness here these days...

[alnamvet68]

Much to do about nada; BB has no equal, holes or not, in the secure encryption category.

[alnamvet68]

Oh, oh never mind.

[Profbx]

I really don't understand what the big deal is. The whole process of rooting is an active one, not a passive one. If someone roots their Playbook, it is their choice. It does not effect the security of your own Playbook. It is something that allows one to do things with their Playbook that it could not otherwise do. As well, it is such a pain in the *** to root most devices in the first place, making it a niche at best. Long story short-you could be surrounded by a room full of people with rooted Playbooks, and your Playbook would be just as secure as it was the day before.

I'm speaking from experience here as well- when I had my series of Android phones, rooting was the only way to get the phones to have any sort of decent battery life and to reclaim power lost due to crapware installed from Verizon. As well, one of my phones (LG Ally) was so ungodly slow that I went the extra mile and installed a custom ROM, which made it useable. Now, the Playbook has none of these issues, so I don't see myself rooting my Playbook. On the other hand, it is something I could see a tweaker doing.

[pooger]

Shall we suck or blow? That is the question

[Blackberry_boffin]

Okay 8-9 months later they have eventually done it?

[Thomasrox3]

Android IS NOT rooted to install third party programs. It is rooted to enable access to things that are otherwise closed off from the end user. It's not about installing apps, it about what the apps can do. I still don't quite believe it though, will wait until its online before i do

Did you not read what I said at all? I said "Android is rooted for much that same thing (Super User Powers(I believe))" Now do you not know what Super User Powers are? Cause I'm pretty sure that's one things that allows you to change all the permissions in android...

Why does no one seem to understand that changing the brightness ans LED is merely a proof of concept? There is way more too it than that, and it opens up tons of possibilites for the Playbook. The Android player could be improves/modified to allow more systems to run to name just one. ****, getting an Android/BBX dualboot could even be a possibility.

With that said, there is obviously a security risk with having root access but no one said you have to do it.

/rant

As I said Root access does nothing. Unless they have access to the boot loader they can't do ****. For Android to be dual bootable in the Jailbreaks current state, they would need to code all of android into a .bar and side load to the Playbook(Not that this will ever be possible). There is deep level encryption on the Kernel of the Playbook, it would take them months if not years to reverse engineer the encryption on the kernel or the bootloader. Now unless this turns into the PSP Scene (which it won't) because the Playbooks Firmware is Encrypted and we have no way of installing a CustomFW of sorts.

I'll say it again, these guys are all hyped up about this "Jailbreak". Attention whoring is something that happens in every scene(AKA @Mathieulh on the PS3 Scene). Even Crackberry is falling for it, **** they had the useless little turd on the podcast yesterday. Now until something miraculous comes from this, which I'm still pretty nothing will come from it, I'm gunna just sit back and laugh at all these people who actually think something will come from this...

[genesimmons]

didnt apple hire the genius that was responsible for jailbreaking their i lineup.i read somewhere they did that.jailbreaking and rooting opens up sooooo many doors.a jailbroke ipod is god.i cant belive they didnt hire this guy sooner to develop for them.rooted apps and themes would only help the pb market.look how excited everyone is over android apps and half dont even work.imagine unlimited free apps and beatiful themes.

[Thomasrox3]

Apple didn't hire GeoHot, Facebook hired GeoHot, after Sony sued the **** out his ***.

didnt apple hire the genius that was responsible for jailbreaking their i lineup.i read somewhere they did that.jailbreaking and rooting opens up sooooo many doors.a jailbroke ipod is god.i cant belive they didnt hire this guy sooner to develop for them.rooted apps and themes would only help the pb market.look how excited everyone is over android apps and half dont even work.imagine unlimited free apps and beatiful themes.

Noone had any idea who this was before this happened. And I'll say it once more, rooting the Playbook get's you nowhere right now. In my other post I mentioned how iOS is jailbroken to side load, what no one seems to understand is we can do this already. People may seem to think that with this root we will be able to code our own drivers and such, not going to happen, iOS is torn apart when jailbroken creating holes all over the place in the software. This guy saying "Oh... this is the mack truck of exploits" means nothing. If he can manage to decrypt the Playbook's firmware then we'll be getting somewhere, I don't see this happening though.

Someone mentioned that this will make it so the Android player can install APKs through the Market place, ok sure, but there are still limitation like Android Native code not working on the Playbook, since the App Player is only a VM of sorts. So where does this get us? Right where we are right now? Installing android apps that have probably already been converted?

[genesimmons]

it wasnt geohot i was refering to.i will try and find the news clip.im sure apple hired him

[Thomasrox3]

GeoHot was the first person to jailbreak iOS, I'm not to sure who you're talking about.

[lavrishevo]

"In any Unix system, the root user is called a superuser because it has powers far beyond those of mortal users (and it's not even affected by kryptonite).

As root, you can access files and change the system in ways other users cannot. But you can also wipe out your entire hard drive in just ten keystrokes.
Unless you plan to install new software or tweak your system, you should log in to Linux as a user other than root."

In other words, the root user has full control over any function of the device and any configuration of the components. I'm not a Linux expert but Linux itself, the Playbook's OS, is not encrypted.

The main point of rooting to add functionality or 3rd party software but the security implications are quite real. A rooted Playbook makes it just as venerable as a rooted Android or iOS device.

[Thomasrox3]

I'm not talking about the underlying QNX OS I'm talking about Tablet OS and Tablet OS is encrypted. And the Boot loader is encrypted as well. So tell me what are we going to do with these root power if we can't modify the OS in anyway to work with the drivers or software that would be coded?

[gjohnsto]

I'm not talking about the underlying QNX OS I'm talking about Tablet OS and Tablet OS is encrypted. And the Boot loader is encrypted as well. So tell me what are we going to do with these root power if we can't modify the OS in anyway to work with the drivers or software that would be coded?

so, in anyone's informed opinion, does this 'jailbreak' compromise any given user's personal information or device in any way, and if so, to what extent?

[genesimmons]

Apple Hires Comex – iPhone Hacker Behind Popular Jailbreak Tools Like JailbreakMe, Spirit As An Intern

thats who i was refering too.i used his tool to jailbreak my ipod which opened all thedoors.if u cant beat em join em.

[Thomasrox3]

It shouldn't effect anything... Because you would be doing it to your device it only effects you. You would still be the only one able to get at your information. Unless these devs are putting malicious content into the jailbreak, which I don't see why they would as it would destroy any and all creditability these guys may have.

This doesn't harm the security of the Playbook at all. I still have no idea what they intend to use this for.

[Thomasrox3]

Apple Hires Comex – iPhone Hacker Behind Popular Jailbreak Tools Like JailbreakMe, Spirit As An Intern

thats who i was refering too.i used his tool to jailbreak my ipod which opened all thedoors.if u cant beat em join em.

I won't disagree with that at all. I do encourage them, that they think about hiring the devs based purely on talent. The question is how much talent do they have? They used a well known hole in QNX to gain root access, which leads me to believe anyone who titles themselves as a competent dev/coder could have done this, just noone really cared to.

As long as they don't go and do what Sony did to GeoHot. I will not condone them suing these guys. Just don't give a job to someone that doesn't deserve it...

[lavrishevo]

I don't think you understand Thomas. A bootloader just directs directs certain code and what OS to boot, if there are multiple OS's. It runs before the OS boots. The Playbooks operating system is not encrypted, it is just a version of Linux. The point is, if a Playbook was stollen or taken from an important official containing sensitive information someone logged in with root user access would be able to access this information or install malicious software to steal the information without the user having any knowledge.

Also, the DMCA authorizes jailbreaking or rooting of phones under the law. The Sony Geohotz case was settled out of court probably because Sony thought they would loose in the long run. I don't know if the DMCA Act extends to tablets or not.

[tstrike34]

didnt apple hire the genius that was responsible for jailbreaking their i lineup.i read somewhere they did that.jailbreaking and rooting opens up sooooo many doors.a jailbroke ipod is god.i cant belive they didnt hire this guy sooner to develop for them.rooted apps and themes would only help the pb market.look how excited everyone is over android apps and half dont even work.imagine unlimited free apps and beatiful themes.

You sir, need your **** rooted in order to sideload the proper English writing program. Did you break both of your shift buttons or something?

[Chaddface]

You sir, need your **** rooted in order to sideload the proper English writing program. Did you break both of your shift buttons or something?

I think I just LOL'ed.

[genesimmons]

You sir, need your **** rooted in order to sideload the proper English writing program. Did you break both of your shift buttons or something?

oh my the grammar police are in full force.ya to bad the pb wont spellcheck to make my gramer more gooder.

[Chaddface]

The technicality police say the PB has spellcheck. It doesn't have auto correct.

[joski]

You sir, need your **** rooted in order to sideload the proper English writing program. Did you break both of your shift buttons or something?

Apple users are used to iOS doing everything for them. Grammar, punctuation, etc.

In other news, Chris Wade is a DingleBerry. Anyone got any 3-ply kicking around?!

[FF22]

The technicality police say the PB has spellcheck. It doesn't have auto correct.

Technically it does not have autocorrect either as it pertains to spelling errors - it will provide options in some apps for misspelled words.