Apple Spys in the Jailbreak Community: Leaking Exploits

Comex's tweets didn't allege that anyone on the Dev-Team was responsible for the leak, and the suggestion in the original version of this article that he did was an error. I am keeping my graphic, though, cause it's AWESOME

With iOS 4.3.1 apparently having been specifically released to burn an exploit held in reserve by @comex, he is now publicly speculating that Apple may have a mole on the Dev-Team itself in the jailbreak community. The genius dev behind Spirit and JailbreakMe is acknowledging that he is possibly being "paranoid," but says in a tweet that "it's really hard to explain" the patch of his exploit as "anything but a leak." He did, however, stop short of pointing any fingers at specific people.

In a separate tweet, @comex noted that the exploit that he had been holding in reserve was "actually the kernel exploit used by JailbreakMe 2.0," the userland jailbreak released in August of last year for iOS 4.0 and earlier. Though Apple released iOS 4.0.2 to disable the tool, @comex says "it was never properly fixed," and so he was holding it in reserve.

Another tweeter pointed out the fact that it was certainly possible that Apple had discovered the hole on their own. However, @comex noted that it was a "funny thing" that the vulnerability, which had been present in releases 4.0.2 through 4.3, suddenly was "magically found in time" for 4.3.1, which was exactly the release @comex had been saving the exploit for.

It's an alarming idea, and people should probably be very careful about spreading worries about Apple spies inside the Dev-Team in the community. Secrecy is a necessity, of course, but if jailbreakers begin suspecting and accusing each other, then the community gets divided, which of course plays into Apple's hands. Meanwhile, as @comex himself said: "go go @ MuscleNerd and @ i0n1c," and later noted that he's currently at work reversing i0nic's untether.