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How I spent my summer vacation...hacking into Apple
By AprillBrandon in Pop Goes the Culture
July 8, 2009

You know that old joke about needing a 6-year-old to help you program your new computer/cell phone/Web site? Turns out it's funny cause it's oh so true.

A group of teen hackers are outsmarting dozens of Apple's engineers and consequently, giving poor Steve Jobs a permanent headache (which I'm sure can be soothed by hopping on his yacht).

According to this Wall Street Journal article, since Apple released it's iPhone 3GF5P (or whatever it's called) on June 19, 15-year-old Ari Weinstein and a group of other teen and 20-something hackers have been trying to jailbreak it (heh, look at me, I know cool hacker terms).

This past weekend, they finally succeeded.

According to the article, "This weekend, one of the members of the group, dubbed the Chronic Dev Team, released the jailbreaking software they've been working on. Ari says the program is a test version with some bugs, but that users have successfully downloaded it. A quarter-million people have visited the site, he says."

For all you non-hackers out there (or total hacker posers like me that like to use cool phrases like "jailbreak"), basically that means these kids have come up with unapproved software that lets people download a range of programs for their phones, including those not sanctioned by Apple.

Of course, this makes Apple none too happy and if they ain't happy, well, a bunch of iPhone owners are. While Apple is trying to see legally what they can do to stop this kind of activity (claiming it violates the Digital Copyright Act), many others are praising these kids, saying if they are able to do it, they should.

Regardless, you gotta admit it's pretty impressive a bunch of kids who can't drive and probably have yet to kiss a girl are giving high paid engineers a run for their money. According to the story, Ari was already messing with the family's cable box as a preschooler, adjusting the settings and whatnot and by the age of 7, he could get around AOL's parental controls.

And who says kids today aren't smart?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go find a toddler to help me find Ari's software online.

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