For over a month, users of iPhones are able to legally jailbreak their phones. I doubt people who wanted to do such a thing in the past were stopped by the fact that it wasn’t permitted. But now that it’s legal there’s even more reason to do something like this. Legal or not, jailbreaking still isn’t seen as a good thing or tolerated by Apple and the company has announced that jailbreaking your device will most likely void your warranty. A recently discovered patent application from Apple, which was filled in February last year but just recently discovered, aims to take measures against thieves and possibly even jailbreakers, PCMag reports.
The patent we’re talking about is called Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device and it’s really easy to understand. The main idea is that a device should become able to self-identify that it has been compromised by an unauthorized person. This can happen by checking the identity of a user and determining whether the user is part of a set list of authorized device users either with the help of a picture of the user’s face or with voice recognition. Apparently, these things should also be taken into account: “hacking the electronic device, jailbreaking the electronic device, unlocking the electronic device, removing a SIM card from the electronic device, and moving at least a predetermined distance away from a synced device.”
As soon as the handset discovers any of the above is taking place, it can respond in various ways. The Cupertino-based company thinks that in this situation handsets should be able to take keylogs and screenshots as well as other records of communications between the handset and a carrier or computer. So far, it sounds like a great feature that owners can make use of if they’re handset is stolen. Unfortunately, this is also pretty bad for users who want to jailbreak their devices, as discovered written later in the patent. Apple also has plans to allow the compromised device to limit features as soon as it discovers an authorized user or activity. The handset could even delete all the “sensitive data.”
As mentioned before, corporate users or users whose phone was stolen will probably benefit from this future addition. It’s however unclear at this time how everything should work out for users who want to jailbreak their devices, seeing as Apple also included jailbreaking as a hint that the phone was in the wrong hands.
We’re hoping Apple applies this feature as ‘on demand’, meaning that you can request for this stuff when your phone gets stolen. Otherwise, even if your phone detects a jailbreak and you can then confirm your identity (and prove that you’re the actual owner of the phone), Apple will still be able to list which users carry around a jailbroken phone and could come up with various other measures to keep your device un-broken.
