You probably know about latest iPhone’s security issue. The good news is that there is a solution to fix it.
Jonathan Zdziarski has deviced a way to disable this writing to disk, so that screenshots cannot be recovered. On a jailbroken iPhone, you can disable these screenshots with the following commands in MobileTerminal or through SSH connection to iPhone:
Screenshots themselves actually get written to /var/mobile/Library/Caches/Snapshots. So these commands delete this folder and symlink it to /dev/null, so the screenshots don’t get written to disk.
The side effect to this is that when resuming an application, you’ll get the default screen in the zoom-in effect. Once the application resumes, however, you’ll have your application screen back. For example, your mail application will always zoom to the front as if you had an empty inbox, but will quickly correct itself once the application resumes.
“To return to the default behavior, just delete the symlink and the directory will get recreated. Mind you, this has no effect on the many other pieces of data stored on the iPhone, and therefore your iPhone will always be at risk for leaking private data, especially to seasoned forensic examiners. Use at your own risk.”
New racing game got green light from Apple. This game will be avaliable in AppStore soon. Very good 3D graphics, wi-fi multiplayer and much more. Costs $7.99.
This applicatin allows to send MMS messages. SwirlyMMS is a well-known application for iPhone 2G users. Version for 1.x firmwares was in Cydia and Installer for a while. Recently the developers created version for 2.x firmwares. Avaliable through Cydia Installer.
Be very very carefull. Because there are so many fake web sites came out recently. Do not trust names like quickpwn.com. There sites pretend to be DevTeam. Applications that those sites give you might be dangerous for your iPhone. Some sites ask for donations. Remember DevTeam don't do it.
There is only one DevTeam's site: http://blog.iphone-dev.org. When I publish news about some new version of QuickPwn, WinPwn, PwnageTool and etc, I use links from DevTeam's site. Everything else could be harmful fake.
CopierciN is a cool app that implements some copy / paste functionality. It’s in the beta stages but has potential. It lets you import and export between apps like notes, sms, email. Avaliable via Cydia Installer for 2.x firmares.
CopieriN is a basic text editor which, hopefully, bring some kind of copy/paste mechanism to iPhone (to jailbroken ones only, unfortunately). It does not add copy/paste functionality directly to other applications but it provides a mechanism to import text from and export text to SMS, Notes, Mail applications (more to come in the future) and files in the filesystem.
Usage: It basically has two parts: Text Editor and Importer/Exporter. Within the text editor, you can select a piece of text using your finger, cut or copy it, and paste it to a selected location.
The iPhone 2.1 is out. It contains the following updates as listed by Apple:
- decrease in call set-up failures andcall drops
- significantly improve battery life for most users
- dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
- improve email reliability, notable fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
- faster installation of 3rd party applications
- fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
- improved performance of text messaging
- faster loading and searching of contacts
- improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
- repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
- option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
- Genius playlist creation
The 2.1 firmware is build 5F136 (weighing in at 237.8MB) and can be directly downloaded through iTunes. The new firmware also contains a number of security fixes including the well publicized passcode flaw.
It's amazing, how curious some people are. iPhone hacker and data-forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski explained that iPhone snaps a screenshot of your most recent action -- regardless of whether it's sending a text message, e-mailing or browsing a web page -- in order to cache it. This is purely for aesthetic purposes: When an iPhone user taps the Home button, the window of the application you have open shrinks and disappears. In order to create that shrinking effect, the iPhone snaps a screenshot, Zdziarski said.
The phone presumably deletes the image after you close the application. But anyone who understands data is aware that in most cases, deletion does not permanently remove files from a storage device. Zdziarski demonstrated that if you know what you're doing (and you've got over an hour), you can recover the file system and see many, many of these grabs.
"This flaw can only be exploited by somebody with physical access to a device, but your phone could get into the hands of someone with more malicious intent," he said. "Obviously, you don't want to trust any of your data to a passcode."
Gadget Lab is also reporting that Zdziarski said forensics experts have actually used this method to solve serious crimes.
Everyone who has owned a cellphone over the last 10 years should at some point pour one out in thanks to Cliff Kushler, one of the inventors of the T9 text entry system. Now Cliff is smartly shifting his focus on touchscreens with Swype—a way to type blindingly fast on a touchscreen by tracing your finger or stylus over the letters you want without lifting up, connect-the-dots style. It looks frankly amazing in a demo:
This is a very useful advanced multi-function text editor. It is avaliable via AppStore (link), the price now is just $0.99 (was $4.99). Among the features are:
cut/copy/paste support
find and replace
pastie.org support (to upload your text to a public site for others or to retrieve later on a pc)
file sharing
web previews for HTML
22 fonts avaliable for displaying documents
hex and ASCII modes
landscape mode support
MS Office documents viewing support (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint)
autosave
character, word and paragraph counts.
Official application's blog: http://brancipater.com/blog
Categories allows you to create folders on your desktop. This allows you to organize your desktop rather than having it be a huge mess. For example, you can have these icons for folders with all games and communication applications:
The app comes with a GUI configurator so that you do not have to edit text files. When you add an app to a category, it is removed from the springboard list so that it no longer shows up on the main desktop. When you remove the app from the category it is returned back to the springboard. Here is an example of a categories folder full of games:
There are so many tools, some for Mac OS, others for Windows, different versions... Complicated. So let's summerize a little bit.
If you have iPhone 3G, you'll be able to install 3-rd party non AppStore applications (through separate applications called Cydia and Installer) and run these applications. If you have old iPhone, in addition to that you'll be able to unlock the device (use with any carrier).
There are two methods: quickpwn and custom firmware method. First one is for quikly pwning and jailbreaking the device without restore. You should use it if you have unlocked device or an AT&T contract.
If you are Windows user:
Go for WinPwn. The current version is 2.5.0.2 (also called 2.5 beta-2). Download here. It supports both iPhone and iPhone 3G, firmwares 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.2. You can use either quickpwn or custom firmware method.
There is a separate QuickPwn tool for Windows. The current version is RC3. Download here. Do you need it? Yes, if you want to quick pwn and you do not like WinPwn (or you had problems with it).
If you're using Mac OS:
Go for PwnageTool. The current version is 2.0.3.1. Download here. Works with 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.2 firmwares using custom-firmware method.
There is a version of QuickPwn tool for MAC OS. The current version is 1.0.0. Download here. It works only with firmware 2.0.2. Do you need it? Yes, if you want to quick pwn.
QuickPwn is not a replacement for PwnageTool, they are different tools and provide different features, QuickPwn is for quickly pwning a device, whereas PwnageTool is designed to custom build and tailor the ipsw production process, both tools will be actively developed in the future.
The creator of this video says: "The iHologram app was not real. It was an illustration of an idea I had which I believe could work with the technology (combining anamorphosis and motion sensing). Unfortunately I’m just an ideas person, and I can show how things should look, but I’m no hardcore programmer."