Supposed untethered jailbreak for iOS 6 ends up being fake
An unidentified person just fooled a lot of people by teasing an untethered jailbreak for iOS 6 with a tool called Dream Jailbreak, but it ended up being fake.
An unidentified hacker behind a hack called Dream Jailbreak pulled a fast one on countless iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch owners today with the announcement and heavy teasing of an untethered iOS 6 jailbreak, or software that lets users gain deep access to their device without fear of losing it all after rebooting.
In a proof-of-concept video posted earlier, the unidentified hacker connects his iPhone 5 to a computer via USB; accesses a Web site through Safari (the identity of the site is blurred in the vid); and then runs an application called Dream (coming to Windows and Mac) on his computer. After a few flashes of code, the iPhone 5 reboots with popular third-party app and code installer Cydia in place and a world of third-party software just a tap away.
Many consider the untethered jailbreak to be a gold standard. In contrast, a tethered jailbreak, the only hack available for iOS 6 at this time, requires you to connect the iDevice to the computer via USB every time you restart it. Cumbersome.
Interest in the subject hit frenzied levels today as the hacker announced the jailbreak video on Twitter and received more than 500 comments on YouTube in less than 15 minutes, with many dozens more added by the minute.
The feedback provided an interesting view into the psyche of Apple fanatics and naysayers: the tone on the video page quickly escalated with excitement as people chanted for the video to finish processing so they could view it. After the video went live, people started fighting over whether it was real. However, the observable consensus majorly sounded off that the video appeared authentic.
The public download was supposed to go live on December 22, the day after doomsday as presumed by the Mayan calendar. But the hacker behind this jailbreak suddenly announced on Twitter that it would go up tonight, and then later announced at the supposed release time that it wasn't true. After revealing the hack wasn't true on the related Web site, the Dream Jailbreak Twitter account announced, "Jailbreakers, what you see may not always be true. Please follow the dev team members for true and meaningful updates in the JB world. Let this be a lesson to all current and future jailbreak fakers."
Update, 8:50 p.m. PT: The hacker behind Dream Jailbreak indicated it was a fake.
Update, 5:05 p.m. PT: The hacker behind Dream Jailbreak has indicated that it will come out tonight.