George Hotz

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George Hotz

Born October 2, 1989 (1989-10-02) (age 19)
 United States

George Francis Hotz (born October 2, 1989), alias geohot, million75 or simply mil, is known for publicizing the collaboration leading to a procedure for unlocking the Apple iPhone, allowing the phone to be used with other wireless carriers, contrary to AT&T and Apple's intent.[1][2] Hotz grew up in Glen Rock, New Jersey, where he attended the Bergen County Academies, a magnet public high school. He has one sister, Julia Hotz, alias fifty.[3]

Contents

[edit] Unlocking the Apple iPhone

On August 21, 2007, Hotz announced on his blog that he had successfully executed and demonstrated the first Hardware unlock of the iPhone using a technique that was developed by a team of five hackers, Hotz being one of this team. The unlock allowed the iPhone to be used with any SIM card.[4] He later posted the team's 10-step method on his blog.[5] Although other purported unlocks appeared earlier, Hotz claims theirs was the first to allow full functionality of the iPhone with almost any GSM wireless carrier without any external hardware, although the process requires experience with soldering and software.[citation needed]

Hotz, who had bought his first iPhone on its launch date, was originally associated with the iPhone Dev unlocking team, but was later banned from the team.[6] He estimates that he spent more than 500 hours working on the unlock. He said his primary aim was to enable other users to easily unlock their own iPhones.[citation needed]

According to his blog, Hotz traded his unlocked 4GB iPhone to Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell, for a Nissan 350Z car and three 8GB iPhones.[7] Hotz said he wanted to give the iPhones to the other members of the team who created the hack with him.[citation needed] Hotz's hardware based unlocking technique has largely been replaced by software unlocking that does not require disassembly of the iPhone.[8]

George Hotz recently developed the first software unlock for the iPhone's new Bootloader Version 4.6 that was previously only achievable with a "testpoint based hardware unlock" [9]

George gave the iPhone Dev Team an exploit he found in the at+stkprof command that they used as an injection vector for their yellowsn0w payload, which resulted in the first software iPhone 3G unlock. In the sourcecode for YellowSn0w, the 3G unlock daemon, it reads "thanks geohot for at+stkprof 02.28 injection vector".

On July 3, 2009, Hotz announced purplera1n, the first public software exploit for jailbreaking the iPhone 3GS. Details were posted on his blog[10]

[edit] Controversy

On July 12, 2008, Hotz posted on his blog that he had obtained a copy of the iPhone Dev Team's unreleased hack for the iPhone 2.0 firmware.
Hotz created a website, www.yiphone.org[11]. It was widely accepted that should the Dev Team fail to release their hack by the time the counter hit 0 that Hotz would release his exploit under the name of yiPhone. The Dev Team responded to the threat and created the site www.ihazsupper.com[12].
The website was a spoof rework of The last supper that targets Hotz and Kroo who are identified by Google sweaters and with the distinct lack of a halo that are adorned by the rest of the other characters in the image, Hotz takes the place of Judas Iscariot and the character of Kroo was made to lay in the lap of Steve Wozniak, these being obvious references to the leaked software and underhandedness of the subject matter.
Hotz later claimed that yiPhone itself was a spoof of the controversial unlock/jailbreak utility, ZiPhone and was Hotz's commentary on the claim that the author of Ziphone was using stolen code and soliciting large amounts of money. Hotz, in a statement on his blog stated that he "[has] never done the jailbreaks for any previous versions of the phone..."[13]

[edit] Other accomplishments and recognition

Hotz was a finalist at the 2005 ISEF competition, with his project "The Googler". [14] Continuing with robots, Hotz competed in his school's highly successful Titanium Knights battlebots team.

Hotz competed in the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a science competition for high school students, where his project, entitled "I want a Holodeck," received awards and prizes in several categories.[15] Hotz has received considerable attention in mainstream media, including interviews on the Today Show, Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, G4, ABC[16] CNBC[17], and articles in several magazines, newspapers, and websites, including Forbes[18], BBC and CNN[citation needed]. The Forbes article said Hotz hopes to go into neuroscience: "hacking the brain," he called it. In March 2008, PC World magazine listed George as one of the top 10 Overachievers under 21.[19]

In December 2007, Hotz travelled to Sweden to attend the Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar and talk about his 3-D imaging invention (called Project Holodeck) that netted him a $20,000 Intel prize earlier that year.[20]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Stone, Brad; John Biggs (August 25, 2007). "With Software and Soldering, AT&T's Lock on iPhone Is Undone". New York Times: p. C-1. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00717FD3A580C768EDDA10894DF404482. Retrieved on 2007-09-02. 
  2. ^ "Interview with 17 year old iPhone hacker". CNBC. September 30, 2007. http://www.webcastr.com/videos/science_technology/interview-with-17-year-old-iphone-hacker.html. 
  3. ^ McKay, Martha. "Tech whiz cracks code tying it to AT&T network", The Record (Bergen County), August 24, 2007. Accessed August 27, 2007. "The 17-year-old Glen Rock resident posted the complicated steps on his blog Thursday.... 'I've lived and breathed that phone for the last two months,' said Hotz, a Bergen County Academies grad who won a prestigious $20,000 Intel science fair prize this year for a device that projects a 3-D image.
  4. ^ On the iPhone: FULL HARDWARE UNLOCK OF IPHONE DONE, Accessed August 24, 2007.
  5. ^ On the iPhone: ITS RELEASE TIME, Accessed May 3, 2008.
  6. ^ ~geohot's unlocking manifesto Accessed May 3, 2008.
  7. ^ On the iPhone: THE iPhone HAS BEEN TRADED, Accessed May 3, 2008.
  8. ^ Code to unlock iPhone cracked Accessed October, 11, 2007.
  9. ^ On the iPhone: 11246unlock, good enough for the prize
  10. ^ http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/
  11. ^ yiPhone Website
  12. ^ Dev Team Spoof yiPhone Website
  13. ^ On the iPhone: yiPhone and otherwise
  14. ^ ISEF site listing finalists
  15. ^ [http://www.sciserv.org/isef/results/grnd07.pdf Grand Awards Ceremony of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair 2007]. Intel Education. Accessed August 24, 2007.
  16. ^ YouTube - Teen 'Unlocks' iPhone From AT&T Network
  17. ^ Breitbart.tv » iPhone Hacker Explains How He Did It
  18. ^ Junior R&D - Forbes.com
  19. ^ PC World - Meet the Whiz Kids: 10 Overachievers Under 21
  20. ^ SIYSS Participants List

[edit] External links

Search Wikinews Wikinews has related news: Telephone network access on iPhone unlocked by teen
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