Apple’s bug-bounty program is the reason people these days are talking about whether jailbreaking is dead. Motherboard has a wonderful story which talks about the life, death, and legacy of jailbreaking, which has sparked off the debate that jailbreaking is probably dead.
It is a valid concern when you consider that it has been more than 6 months since a jailbreak has been released. They are several reasons why the jailbreaking scene is not as active as it used to be.
Apple has tried to kill jailbreaking by first aggressively patching the security vulnerabilities that are or could be used for a iOS 11 jailbreak to make it even more difficult to jailbreak iPhone8, and by adding features that were the primary reason to jailbreak your iPhone. Even in iOS 11 & iPhone 8 there many many features that are inspired by jailbreak apps and tweaks.
In this view we can say that Apple seamlessly minimizing the need for someone to jailbreak iOS 11 on their device. On the other hand Apple is offering and making connections with hackers behind the jailbreaks by hiring them or launching an invite-only bug bounty program where security researchers and hackers are attracted to $200,000 for disclosing bugs in iOS.
We initially thought that was the reason why the jailbreak community has been quiet. But Apple’s bounty program seems to have failed to take off as companies like Zerodium pay a much higher rate for the exploits than Apple. Zerodium has offered up to $1.5 million for exploits that can jailbreak iPhone 8.
The iPhone jailbreaking scene has been blessed with some of the best hackers of our generation with hacking teams such as Geohot, Comex, iPhone Dev team, Chronic Dev, evad3r, Pangu, TaiG, and Luca Todesco, but most of them are no longer active in the jailbreaking scene anymore. I wouldn’t blame them if they have decided to go underground to cash in on the lucrative business of selling exploits to companies like Zerodium.
But when it comes to hacking or jailbreaking, you can never say never. There are hackers who do it for the money, and there are some who do it for the thrill of breaking into one of the most secure platforms in the world. It is also a great platform to show your skill as a hacker, and get visibility. So I wouldn’t say jailbreaking is dead. I won’t be surprised if an unknown hacker or a group of hackers will release a jailbreak for iOS 10.3.3 or iOS 11 in the future.
Are you eagerly waiting for iOS 11 & iOS 10.3.3 jailbreak or have you given up? Please share some of the reasons why you still want to jailbreak your iPhone.
Update: It was heard that Luca Todesco has access to iOS 11 root which means he might be able to inject the code for jailbreaking iOS 11 but we shall confirm this news very soon.