Each year, fans and hackers always waiting eaglerly the iOS jailbreak event (it's a major event). This year, people still waiting the jailbreak for iOS, but something has changes: jailbreaks becomes big business.
For example, Evasi0n's hacker team jailbreak both iOS 6 and iOS 7. After
jailbreak iOS 7,
iPhone users with Chinese language found that a program automatically
installed named "TaiG". TaiG is an App Market which offered
Chinese-language apps, and the important is thousand iOS app "cracked"
(pirated, no license required).
The group made "around a million dollars" in placement fees for adding
TaiG to Chinese iPhones. While the actual number is currently unknown,
my source explained that the rumors were true and that the fee was well
within that “order of magnitude.”
The
Evasi0n team, for their part, responded online to allegations that they
had been paid to put pirated app stores on users’ phones:
"
Yes, we have benefitted financially from our work, just as many others
in the jailbreak community have, including tweak developers, repo
owners, etc. Any jailbreak from us will always be free to the users but
we believe we have a right to be compensated in an ethical way, just as
any other developer. However, the interests of the community will always
be the most important thing to us. When releasing the jailbreak, we
pledged all our donations to foundations supporting the interests of the
community. We are deeply upset at how we have inadvertently distressed
the community and we are focused on fixing it.".
Evasi0n also said that TaiG have many pirated app: "
We are very upset that despite our agreement and review by their team,
piracy was found in the store. It was not acceptable and they have been
strenuously working to resolve the problem in good faith, and have
removed all instances of it that we have brought to their attention".
Jay Freeman, a developer with nick name "saurik"creator of
Cydia, said: "
The jailbreak works and people should use it". Cydia is a popular “feature store” that allows users to shop for tweaks and updates to their iPhone’s OS.
"
The thing that bugs me [about TaiG] is there’s tons of piracy in it.
We’re not about piracy. It used to be that if you wanted to pirate you
did have to jailbreak. That’s no longer the case. But people still look
at us we’re those pirate assholes", said Freeman.
Jailbreaking is a business now. Saurik himself makes a living off of
having his app installed on jailbroken phones and the Evasi0n team,
among others, make money selling space in their apps. In short, things
have come a long way since the lone hacker spent time cracking iOS in
his spare time.
What does the TaiG partnership mean? Very little, in the long run. Even
George Hotz (nick name Geohot), a well-known early iPhone jail breaker,
attempted to sell his own jailbreak technique to unidentified buyers for
$350,000 to a commercial customer.
In the end, Evasi0n released theirs for free, heading potential for-pay
jail breakers off at the pass. That they made money for adding TaiG, in
fact, should be immaterial.
Everyone want their work paid. Freeman also said that "
Evasi0n do good work and I think they deserve money for it". That the TaiG app store contains pirated material, however, is another
matter entirely. Now that jailbreaking is a business, people want to get
paid, but not this way.
Source: TechCrunch
