Dev Team Crack 3G Baseband, Unlock Approacheth

by Eric March on October 26, 2008 at 2:40 pm

You heard that right. It’s been three and a half months since the 3G was released, which is an indication of how tough a nut the 3G’s baseband was to crack. However the dev team haven’t given up, and their perseverance has paid off. Today, they finally managed to wedge their way into the iPhone 3G’s baseband. Those of you who followed the first-ever software jailbreak on the first-gen iPhone should realize that this means they have gained access to the system’s core. Having such access will give them the ability to gain direct access to the hardware through the firmware, and we all know what that means.

On a slightly related note, I’m rather bemused by the fact that the iPhone 3G still uses Hayes AT commands. Lordy, but it’s been ages since I had to configure a modem with those. I know I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow I still am.

Anyway, check out the digital break-and-enter in the video below — the second half is annotated for those that don’t understand what’s going on.

Awesome work, team. Now we just wait for the unlock and its inclusion in Pwnage.

3G Baseband Tool from iphonedev on Vimeo.

2 Responses to “Dev Team Crack 3G Baseband, Unlock Approacheth”

christopher said:

October 26th, 2008 at 3:32 pm

that’s so awsome but is it “fixable” by apple in a next firmware or permanent??
Eric March said:

October 26th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

I can’t say for sure, but the purpose of the team’s PwnageTool was to make it so that if further upgrades to the firmware change the baseband, it is possible to downgrade the baseband to the older unlockable version, so it’s entirely possible that once they get the unlock going, it may be possible to keep it unlocked.

Don’t quote me on that, but the team knows what they’re doing, and I’m sure they’re going to want to put safeguards in place to prevent new firmware versions from screwing up their months of hard word.