A recent report from iPhoneAtlas is showing that Apple has apparently created a ‘blacklisting mechanism’ within the iPhone OS 2.x. This mechanism allows the handset to call home, search for unauthorized applications and eventually disable them. Included in the iPhone OS is a URL that points to what appears to be a page containing all blacklisted applications, although there are currently none listed.
Author of the book, “iPhone Open Application Development” as well as an iPhone Forensics manual, Jonathan Zdziariski notes that:
“This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down.
“I discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation.”
It will be interesting to see how things will play out between Apple and jaibreakers such as the Dev Team, as one would figure that all of the Installer applications will eventually make the blacklist. The Dev Team will manage to strip this off Pwned phones and Apple will combat it with new firmware updates and thus a viscous cycle will ensue.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
