Talk:iOS jailbreaking/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Description of comex

This edit changed "comex" to "Dev Team member Nicholas Allegra (a/k/a 'comex')", but I don't think that's a useful way to introduce him, since he consistently uses only his nickname on his jailbreaking projects, and he has published his jailbreaks as his own projects, not as Dev Team projects - he's affiliated but also works independently. Instead, I think it's appropriate to start the sentence with "comex (Nicholas Allegra)", citing the Nicholas Allegra part to the Forbes article.

This subsequent edit removed information about comex working for Apple, but I believe that's actually a notable part of the history of iOS jailbreaking, as shown by its coverage in secondary sources. Dreamyshade (talk) 18:48, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding this edit, the sources don't support changing "comex" to "Allegra" - the sources say "comex". Since we seem to disagree on what to do with this material, I tried looking for guidelines. MOS:IDENTITY says "When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself", and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Names says "For people who are best known by a pseudonym, the legal name should usually appear first in the article, followed closely by the pseudonym." They aren't exactly relevant to this situation, but my interpretation is that we should phrase the initial mention as "Nicholas Allegra (better known as comex)" and then refer to him as comex elsewhere in the article. It'd make more sense to me to mention his commonly-used/preferred name first and put his legal name in parentheses, but this is what the guideline says, so I'm fine with it. Dreamyshade (talk) 22:15, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe it's not useful to include that he was a Brown University student at the time of the Forbes article, especially since he published his first jailbreaks years ago when he may not yet have been a student there. Dreamyshade (talk) 23:39, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I removed that and also audited the sources again. I picked out some unsupported claims that was masqueraded in place as referenced but failed verification. I removed those too. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 00:04, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

As before, I can usually provide sources for poorly-sourced material if you give me a chance before deciding to remove material. :) For this edit, I believe it's justified to say "has released multiple jailbreaks for iOS devices" based on the section's other references, and that statement is useful as an introductory summary for the paragraph. Here are sources supporting that comex made Spirit:

• "Comex, or Nicholas Allegra, is best known as the developer of JailBreakMe 3.0 and Spirit." (CNet 2011)
• "Allegra is responsible for JailbreakMe 3.0, a web-based jailbreak tool released in July and designed to be used on iPhones, iPad and iPod touches running iOS 4.3.3. Before that, he created Spirit, which was an untethered jailbreak for iOS devices running iOS 3.1.2 to 3.2, and he was also a Nintendo Wii homebrew software developer." (GigaOM 2011)
• "Comex - the hacker responsible for the iPad "Spirit" jailbreak" (The Register 2010).

I agree though that those sources don't strongly support that it was his first jailbreak, so we could rephrase it from "has released multiple jailbreaks for iOS devices, beginning in May 2010 with the" to "has released multiple jailbreaks for iOS devices. In May 2010, he released the".

For this edit, we can source the "including the iPad for the first time" statement to these articles:

• "First iPad Jailbreak Demoed...the jailbreak is allegedly based off of a jailbreak for the iPhone called, "Spirit," written by a developer called Comex, it's safe to say that the methods used will be similar when the consumer-grade jailbreak is unleashed." (PCWorld April 2010)
• "The iPad survived a good, long day before hackers were able to break into it and gain root access over the weekend. The hack was engineered by a group credited with the iPhone "Spirit" jailbreak, according to MacNN.com." (PCWorld April 2010)
• "The jailbreak hack was first discovered by Dev Team member "Comex," who Tweeted that the "Spirit" jailbreak wasn't based on a browser exploit in April...The latest jailbreak hack was first demonstrated on the iPad in early April, just three days after the release of the popular Apple tablet computer." (CRN May 2010)
• "The “Spirit” jailbreak is now available for all iPhone OS devices (including the just-released iPad 3G)." (Wired May 2010)

Dreamyshade (talk) 01:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request

I have an indirect COI on this material (I work for the company that produces Cydia, which is installed by iOS jailbreaking tools, although editing is not part of my work), and I'd like to ask for implementation of the edit I suggested above in this section. In short, I'm disputing this edit and this edit - I'm providing a new suggestion that addresses the problems mentioned in those edit summaries and also provides more grammatical phrasing than the current text.

Previous text (before those edits): Nicholas Allegra (alias "comex") has released multiple jailbreaks for iOS devices, beginning in May 2010 with the Spirit jailbreak for iOS version 3.1.2 on devices including the iPad for the first time.

Current text: Nicholas Allegra (alias "comex") released a program called JailBreakMe 3in July 2011 Hackers released a package called Spirit in May 2010. Spirit jailbreak for devices including iPad and then new iPhones running iOS 3.1.2, 3.1.3, and 3.2

Suggested text: Nicholas Allegra (better known as "comex") has released multiple jailbreaks for iOS devices. In May 2010, he released the Spirit jailbreak for iOS versions 3.1.2 through 3.2 on iPads (which had just been released), iPhones, and iPod touches.

In addition, I believe that this edit removed useful material that should be put back: He was hired by Apple as an intern in August 2011, but lost the job a year later, after failing to respond to a corporate email offer to extend the internship. comex working for Apple is a notable part of the history of iOS jailbreaking, as shown by its coverage in secondary sources. Here are additional sources supporting including that sentence:

• "iPhone hacker Comex says he's landed an internship ... at Apple" (CNN August 2011)
• "Jailbreakme Author Comex Joins Apple as Intern" (Wired August 2011)
• "For Comex, a 19-year-old iPhone hacker whose real name is Nicholas Allegra, jailbreaking the iPhone comes easy. The iPhone Dev Team member may have hacked himself a golden ticket, since Apple has come calling and he now has an internship at the company." (GigaOM August 2011)
• "Apple hands internship to Jailbreakme.com developer "comex"" (Ars Technica August 2011)
• "Apple Gives Internship To JailbreakMe Creator 'Comex'" (CRN August 2011)
• "On Thursday the legendary iPhone hacker Comex, who I identified last year as 20-year old Brown University student Nicholas Allegra, wrote on Twitter that after a year as an intern for the company whose products he once expertly deconstructed, his time at Apple has abruptly ended." (Forbes October 2012)
• "iPhone Hacker Comex No Longer Working at Apple" (Mashable October 2012)
• "iOS Jailbreaker Turned Apple Intern Loses Job" (PCMag October 2012)

References

Thanks! Dreamyshade (talk) 00:34, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Privilege escalation

Regarding this edit, we can easily find sources for the removed sentence ("Jailbreaking is a form of privilege escalation, and the term has been applied on other computer systems as well.") WP:UNSOURCED says "Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step."

Here are sources supporting this statement:

• "So a tethered jailbreak consists of one exploit against privileged code, or one exploit against unprivileged code combined with another privilege escalation exploit." (p. 299) "Although each kernel exploit and each payload is different, you can distinguish four common components of kernel-level payloads used for jailbreaks: Kernel state reparation; Privilege escalation; Kernel patching; Clean return." (p. 309) "Because all applications on the iPhone run as lesser privileged users like mobile, _wireless, _msdnresponder or _securityd the kernel exploit payload executed after exploiting one of the applications usually escalates the privileges of the running process to those of the root user." (p. 310) iOS Hacker's Handbook, available on Google Books and Amazon.
• "Let's break down some of the security implications of jailbreaking an iOS device...When it rendered a specially crafted PDF it would result in a stack overflow condition which then results in a privilege escalation." p. 192 of The Hacker's Guide to OS X: Exploiting OS X from the Root Up.
• "Exploits on mobile phones can be used for various reasons; a benign one may be to achieve system-level access on a device that was locked by the manufacturer or service provider (also known as 'jailbreaking' or 'rooting'), while potentially malicious reasons are manifold. Independently of the use case however, a specific exploit is not sufficient to achieve the desired access rights. Typically, exploits provide temporary privilege escalation immediately after their execution." S. Höbarth and R. Mayrhofer, “A framework for on-device privilege escalation exploit execution on android,” in Proc. IWSSI/SPMU 2011: 3rd International Workshop on Security and Privacy in Spontaneous Interaction and Mobile Phone Use, colocated with Pervasive 2011, June 2011. (Source for reference details.)
• "'As for the privilege escalation and dumping info off the phones, this is pretty standard in a jailbreak/root or malicious attack.'" NBCNews.com 2012
• "Respected for his iPhone hacks and now the PlayStation 3 jailbreak." Wired, April 2011
• "The first step for me was to jailbreak my Cliq XT." InfoWorld, July 2011
• "A Jailbreak for Google's Android" PCWorld, November 2008

Dreamyshade (talk) 00:11, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting that! The introduction includes the "other computer systems" note as part of defining the term - it's useful context to inform readers that "jailbreaking" applies to consumer device privilege escalation in general, not unique to iOS devices. See jailbreak, which could be linked from this article. The introduction used to specifically reference PlayStation jaibreaking, and we could put that back if you'd prefer, but I think listing specific details about other jailbreaks isn't necessary. Dreamyshade (talk) 02:08, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

To be specific, I think that the "citation needed" tag can be resolved using the sources above - I believe the iOS Hacker's Handbook plus the workshop paper would be sufficient to source it. Your edit summary said "Tagged weasel because I don't know what relevance the fact it has been used elsewhere has to do with the article" - does my explanation of its relevance make sense? Dreamyshade (talk) 01:06, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request II

This recent edit by an IP editor changed the disputed sentence from "Jailbreaking is a form of privilege escalation, and the term has been applied on other computer systems as well." to "Jailbreaking is a general term for privilege escalation." and removed the citation and weasel tags, but this new sentence is incorrect. Not all forms of privilege escalation are called "jailbreaking" - this term is only commonly used for certain kinds of privilege escalation on certain kinds of devices.

I recommend changing it to the following sentence and including these references: "Jailbreaking is a form of privilege escalation, and the term has been used to describe privilege escalation on devices by other manufacturers as well."

As noted above at #Edit request, I have an indirect COI on this article (I work for the company that produces Cydia, which is installed by iOS jailbreaking tools).

References

Dreamyshade (talk) 00:58, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done

I agree with proposal. Jailbreaking is privilege escalation but not all privilege escalation is jailbreaking and referencing seems fairly solid.Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:23, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Dreamyshade (talk) 02:39, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Additional sources for legal status in various countries

A tricky issue with the legal status section is expanding it to have balanced coverage of many countries while avoiding making it so lengthy that it unbalances the article, but while I was doing research for #Coverage of legal status and warranty in introduction, I found some sources that could be helpful for expanding it. Here are drafts for additional sections.

Australia: In 2010, Electronic Frontiers Australia said that it is unclear whether jailbreaking is legal in Australia, and that anti-circumvention laws may apply. These laws were strengthened by the Copyright Amendment Act 2006.

United Kingdom: The law Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 makes circumventing DRM protection measures legal for the purpose of interoperability but not copyright infringement. Jailbreaking may be a form of circumvention covered by that law, but this has not been tested in court. Competition laws may also be relevant.

References

Dreamyshade (talk) 07:10, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Coverage of legal status and warranty in introduction

Regarding this edit from yesterday, I believe the introductory section should include at least some summary of legal status and warranty status, since those are important pieces of information about jailbreaking. I agree that the introduction shouldn't only describe its US legal status, although I believe US legal status should be mentioned for multiple reasons: because Apple and most of the prominent people in the jailbreaking community are based in the US, because its legal status in the US has been covered in by more reliable sources than I can find for other countries, and because the US has a specific mention of jailbreaking in its law-related documents (I don't know of specific mentions of jailbreaking in the law-related documents of other countries). It's difficult to summarize global legal status without WP:SYNTHESIS, since I don't know of any reliable sources that compare its legal status across many countries, but I'll give it a try. Here's the text that was in the lead:

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, jailbreaking iPhones is legal in the United States, although Apple has announced that the practice "can violate the warranty". However, this applies only to devices that are currently jailbroken; restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak.

Here's my suggested revision for the lead:

Laws regarding digital rights management circumvention may apply to jailbreaking, and some countries have those laws; for example, in the United States, there is a Digital Millennium Copyright Act exemption for jailbreaking mobile phones. Apple has announced that jailbreaking "can violate the warranty"; this applies only to devices that are currently jailbroken, since restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak.

I believe that "some countries have those laws" doesn't need to be specifically referenced in the introduction because the Legal status section covers multiple countries and explains that international treaties pressure many countries to have those laws. I'd be interested in having two examples in the introduction instead of just one, but I need to look more for strong references that address this. Again, summarizing this is a tricky problem, and I'd welcome suggestions. Dreamyshade (talk) 00:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

References

I've been looking for more sources for this, and I've found that the legal status of jailbreaking in the US has been covered by newspapers in several other countries: New Zealand Herald, Belfast Telegraph, The Guardian (England), Sydney Morning Herald, Toronto Star, Manila Bulletin, The Times of India, 01net.com (France), etc. I believe this helps show that mentioning the US legal status in the introduction is appropriate - it's of interest to people in many countries, not just people in the US. Dreamyshade (talk) 01:34, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request III

I'd like to recommend implementing my suggested revision above - in other words, taking two sentences that were moved from the introduction to the US section, improving them (with supporting references), and putting them back into the introduction. As noted above at #Edit request, I have an indirect COI on this article (I work for the company that produces Cydia, which is installed by iOS jailbreaking tools). Thanks! Dreamyshade (talk) 01:34, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I disagree on the notion that its indirect COI. It's quite as direct of COI as industry lobbying to affect things that favors them. You have vested interest to increase perception of assurance to jailbrea; because your company's product depends on "jailbreaking" alteration of iOS devices. It's interesting that you have spent great deal of effort on Cydia, iOS jailbreak ad other matters which SaurikIT would be considered a stake holder. You blasted my AfDs that did not result in deletion as "failed" which infers strong consensus against my proposal even when they were very close to tie. For some reason, you've going around to defend AfDs, but seemingly focused on ones I nominated. I perceive it as an effort to frame me as bad editor in order to strategically undermine my influence on Cydia and SaurikIT related articles. You've somehow got yourself into seomoz, and consumerlab Afds which both happen to be outside your field, but Afds I proposed. On the other hand, you've taken seemingly zero interest on the fraternity page controversy. Just an interesting observation. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 03:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that my talk page or the COI noticeboard would be a more useful place to raise personal concerns, but that's OK. I consider myself to have indirect COI on this article because jailbreaking involves and benefits a whole ecosystem of people and companies, not just Cydia, but since you disagree, I'll simply say "COI" on edit requests from now on. You're right that I've put a lot of effort into these articles, but as I've explained in a few places in response to your concerns, this is because I'm interested in these topics and have a lot of knowledge in this area. This includes specialized knowledge - I can help correct and expand articles involving technical and obscure jailbreaking topics that not many other editors know much about, so I like contributing my knowledge. Like I've explained before, I'm lucky enough to work in a field that I personally care about. A lot of people think that jailbreaking is either legal or illegal, while the reality is much more complicated, and I find those complications fascinating and would like to help educate people about them.

I am puzzled by your concern about me trying to undermine your work on these articles - from my perspective, I've been writing comments pointing out factual/balance/etc. problems with your edits (and listing references for challenged material) simply in order to improve these articles, which is consistent with my interest in these articles. On the other hand, you've made a lot of comments on talk pages (and some in edit summaries and inline comments) directly criticizing my efforts to contribute to these articles, explaining your concerns about COI in a lot of detail with a lot of speculation.

I agree that calling your closed-as-keep AfDs "failed" was a bit strong, but my concern about your AfDs was more about a deletionist/non-deletionist difference of perspective than something Cydia-related. I contributed to the ConsumerLab.com AfD partly to show my good faith by contributing effort to non-Cydia topics, and partly because ConsumerLab.com is a website and most of my interest and knowledge is in software and website topics, as you can tell by my general edit history. It's easy and interesting for me to contribute to software/website articles, and I've recently been contributing to a number of software/website disputes and AfDs not related to yours (since during the process of contributing to yours, I found that I like finding references to help with AfD discussions). I'd have to do a lot of research in order to contribute to fraternity articles, and since I don't find fraternities personally interesting, I'm likely to procrastinate on doing the amount of research necessary to feel confident enough to make edits or recommendations on those articles. :) I'm also a little concerned that we'd get into additional lengthy disagreements on the fraternity articles, since we seem to consistently have differences of opinion. Regarding the SEOmoz.org AfD, I actually didn't contribute to that one (you can check this by searching Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SEOmoz.org for my name).

What do you think should be our next step to help resolve this, since you have more experience with the escalation boards than I do? Dispute resolution for some of the content issues? Or maybe a joint AN/I post where we both explain our concerns about each other, in order to get some neutral opinions from experienced editors? Dreamyshade (talk) 06:23, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. Getting back on topic, adding legality mumbo jumbo about specific legal rulings of a country U.S. in the lead is WP:UNDUE and the essay WP:BIAS is a good read. I don't feel that the lead paragraph is the place to discuss legal affairs about jailbreaking in Kazakhstan, or for that matter, USA.

It's also worth noting that a third opinion also felt the Cydia article was excessively filled with general jailbreak matters resulting in a significant trimming. I was tempted to do so, but I felt that if I were to do it, you would object; as you did when I first removed a stray screen shot of Cydia that was in some other related articles where I felt Cydia received undue attention.

If you're concerned about getting into a lengthy disagreement, you don't have to put forth so much fight to preserve CYDIA from various places ;) Cantaloupe2 (talk) 08:52, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

What do you think would be the best way to resolve our disagreements across various articles? WP:3O has been useful, so I'd like to try that again, but I felt stalled on inviting third opinions for these discussions after this talk page conversation with you, since it was unclear whether you were planning to comment. Unfortunately COI edit requests sometimes get backlogged indefinitely, but sometimes they invite helpful neutral editors, so hopefully these edit requests will be constructive.

I believe the list of references I provided above showing coverage of US legal status in the newspapers of countries around the world shows that including the US in the lead is appropriate. I'm not sure why you referred to it as "mumbo jumbo" - if my proposed phrasing is confusing or unclear, just let me know and I'll revise it. If you consider legal status generally unimportant for the lead, I can provide additional lists of references showing that a lot of reliable sources consider it important, and I'll point out that WP:LEAD recommends that the lead be a summary of the article's contents (note that the current lead doesn't do a great job of this in general, but I'd like to incrementally improve it instead of incrementally making it worse). If I could find references showing that the legal status of jailbreaking in Kazakhstan has been covered by a lot of reliable sources around the world, I'd support including that in the lead as well. :) Another reason why US legal status is significant in this case is because the US has pressured a lot of other countries to adopt intellectual property laws similar to its own, via ACTA and other treaties - see this article, another, another, another, etc. (Not strong enough sources to be used in the article, just examples of people drawing connections between US jailbreaking laws and the laws in other countries.)

I didn't dispute the third editor removing information on the jailbreaking platform from the Cydia article because by that time, I'd decided that it didn't make sense to try to debate how to cover jailbreaking in both this article and the Cydia article - better to focus efforts on one discussion instead of two redundant discussions. Other third opinions have agreed with some of my suggestions on APT, Greenpois0n, and this article. Since you dispute my suggestions and I dispute your edits, I believe we need thoughtful third opinions to help make progress.

I find it important to participate in these articles even if we disagree, because I care about these articles and your edits have sometimes accidentally introduced inaccuracies, confusing phrasing, or sources that weren't strong. It's OK with me to have some disagreements with you on articles I've been working on for years, but I carefully weigh initiating additional debates on new sets of articles. Dreamyshade (talk) 17:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Trying to work out a solution

I added a sentence to main paragraph which is intended to communicate that legality varies between countries, and conditions. The "conditions" wording is represent conditional legality like how it is legal for iPhone, but not or iPad, etc in a place like USA. feel free to revert if you don't like this change. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:23, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Seems better than no summary, but I believe we can come up with an improved version that we're both OK with. The main issue I see with this version is that saying "depends on countries and conditions" implies that it's illegal in some and legal in others, but the legality is actually unclear in most countries that have relevant laws (the laws and exemptions tend to be complex and not formally tested for this situation). The other issue is that the wording is vague; it'd be more useful and clear to make it more specific. (Also, this version omits the warranty part that used to be in the lead and is now only in the US legal status section, even though the warranty information applies to devices in all countries, so I think that can be improved.) Here's another try at new wording.

Previous text: Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, jailbreaking iPhones is legal in the United States, although Apple has announced that the practice "can violate the warranty". However, this applies only to devices that are currently jailbroken; restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak.

Current text: Legality of the jailbreaking depends on countries and conditions. (Just a note - it'd be more grammatical to say The legality of jailbreaking depends on countries and conditions. although that's still vague.)

Fixed for the time being. I don't see any COI issues if you were to directly edit grammatical errors though. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 11:27, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggested revision that omits the US example in order to be non-controversial: Laws regarding digital rights management circumvention may apply to jailbreaking, and some countries have those laws with various conditions. Apple has announced that jailbreaking "can violate the warranty"; this applies only to devices that are currently jailbroken, since restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak.

I'm hoping we'll hear from a third opinion on whether the US example should be included, but I'm OK with omitting that part while waiting for more opinions. Dreamyshade (talk) 03:43, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

References

3rd Opinion

Hello, I'm here to offer a 3rd Opinion on this matter. As far as I can tell, from a reader persective, including an example where the law is actually defined (i.e. the US as it is specifically mentioned within law) is appropriate. Perhaps it would be an idea to word it in such a way that it is clear that in many countries legality is a grey area or a ambiguous loophole. Cabe6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 16:27, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

It is already included, in the relevant section. Just not in lead summary. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 17:28, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I understand this. The third opinion was on to include it in the lead summary was it not? Cabe6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 08:12, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

What level of details of laws of USA do you recommend in lead paragraph in your opinion? Cantaloupe2 (talk) 08:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be detailed. More a "For example... " mention. The details come later in the appropriate section. Cabe6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 15:24, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

What do you think of my "suggested revision for the lead" above at 00:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)? Is the coverage of the US brief enough, and does the "may apply to jailbreaking" part summarize the grey areas properly? Dreamyshade (talk) 12:26, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it is fine, a good comprimise. Cabe6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 14:51, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Warranty

I believe putting in a sentence about warranty in lead as suggested by an employee of company which stands to gain from spreading jailbreaking is highly POV and I'm disputing the accuracy. I believe the claim warranty voiding only applies to currently jailbroken device is wrong. Do the reliable sources advance the position that Apple specifically only voids warranty on jailbroken devices if and only if the phone is jailbroken at the time it is returned to them? Would they officially state warranty is unaffected if you return the device and report that you have jailbroken it, but undone it? If there is no verifiable evidence supporting this, inference that undoing jailbreaking revalidates voided warranty is wrong. Suppose a car manufacturer says warranty is 36,000 miles and tampering with odometer voids warranty. A reliable source says odometer can be rolled back undetectably and explains the method. If the method is used to roll it back to 35,000 miles, it would be honored based on false perception that its only logged 35,000 miles. However, if reliable sources do not support that such tampering does not void warranty as long as vehicle itself don't have signs it exceeded 36,000, even if manufacturer is made fully aware(i.e. prior service history in THEIR system shows 35,500, but no signs in vehicle itself) of it as long as vehicle exhibits no retrievable detectable signs, the aforementioned claim is big time synthesis Cantaloupe2 (talk) 10:30, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

As a former employee at an Apple Store at the Genius Bar I can tell you that if an iPhone came in that was jailbroken we were supposed to deny service and, in the Apple systems, void the warranty. However, most genius bar workers will not do this, I tended to tell people to go away, restore the phone and bring it back. Doing this was undetectable. Whether this can be sourced using WP:RS is another matter but I know it to be true from experience. Cabe6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 01:23, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

So, what you're saying is that its your personal experience, but there's nothing in written policy that says reverting jailbreak reinstates warranty correct? There's a difference between exceeding the speed limit by 5mph is perfectly lawful vs not always enforced. The former is improper synthesis. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:55, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

First, I'd like to apologize for this being a very long comment - I just want to cover everything in one comment and provide plenty of rationale so that we can make progress more efficiently.

Cantaloupe2, I'm puzzled by you saying that I want the warranty material in the lead for COI/POV purposes - I didn't originally put this material in the lead, I'm just supporting material that another person added and that was there for a while. (I remember similar puzzling COI/POV concerns in a similar discussion about phrasing in the Cydia article in December - see Talk:Cydia#Summary of Apple policy on jailbreaking, where User:Tkbx had originally added the challenged text of "although detecting previous jailbreaks on a restored device may be difficult or impossible". Unfortunately you didn't respond there to my proposal to use the phrasing that was in this article at that time, and which you're now disputing, or else perhaps we could have sorted out this concern earlier.) I'm also puzzled by your timing on this in general.

For reference, here's this article's edit history from November 14 to 15, where four editors (including you and me) collaborated on this sentence to develop a consensus that was in the article until you changed it today: User:NealCruco added the sentence "However, this applies only to devices that are currently jailbroken; if a jailbroken device is restored through iTunes, there is no evidence that the device was tampered with.", and User:SudoGhost removed the sentence for being unsourced. I added back the sentence with the addition of two sources. SudoGhost reworded the second part to "the jailbreaking process is reversible" with the edit summary of "Rewording with what the source *actually* says." Then I reworded that to "restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak" with the edit summary of ""reversible" is a little vague/unclear". Cantaloupe2 reworded this back to "the jailbreaking process is reversible" and replaced the two sources with a different source, with an edit summary saying "replace with more reliable source". I undid this edit with the edit summary of "undoing since Huffington Post and Forbes are both content aggregators, and a trends editor is less reliable than a technology journalist". Then I added another reference for the statement that restoring with iTunes removes a jailbreak. That was stable for a while.

On January 6 you moved the sentence including this material to the US section with an edit summary only expressing concern with the legal aspect of the sentence, and on January 8 I proposed a revision to address your concern about US bias, retaining the undisputed warranty material with minor adjustments for grammar. After sorting out your concern about US bias via a third opinion saying my proposal was OK, today you disputed the warranty part reworded it to "Restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak, although it does not reinstate warranty" - but "does not reinstate warranty" is not clearly supported by the existing sources. Even if the original statement was poorly-sourced, it seems sub-optimal to replace it with a different poorly-sourced statement instead of tagging it as dubious or removing it. To sort this out, let's look at what the existing sources say:

• Forbes 2012: "Does jailbreaking void my warranty? Technically, yes. Apple does will not provide support or warranty for a jailbroken device. However, since the process is reversible, it’s not really a big deal."
• CNet 2012: "Whether you've discovered that jailbreaking isn't for you, or you need to take your iDevice to the Genius Bar for repair, you'll need to unjailbreak your device." "Cydia is gone, and when you take your iDevice to the Genius Bar, there will be no obvious traces that you once broke your gadget out of jail."
• PCWorld 2008: "Although jailbreaking your iPhone or iPod touch won't hurt it (you can always restore it to its original condition with iTunes), doing so will void your warranty."

And here are additional sources:

• ReadWriteWeb 2010: "For those who aren't afraid to void their warranty (don't worry, you can always restore to factory settings with no one the wiser), the new jailbreaking tool called "Spirit"..."
• New York Times 2010: "Jailbreaking has downsides. It may void a phone’s warranty, though a jailbreak can be reversed."
• Ars Technica 2008: "Both jailbreaking and unlocking will void your Apple warranty, except in places like Hong Kong where the phone is sold already unlocked. Caveat Jailbreaker. Jailbreaking is not a one-way path, however. You can restore your iPhone to its pre-jailbroken state at any time by restoring it with standard firmware."

Here's the text that stood in the article from November to January: although Apple has announced that the practice "can violate the warranty". However, this applies only to devices that are currently jailbroken; restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak.

Here's the text I proposed above: Apple has announced that jailbreaking "can violate the warranty"; this applies only to devices that are currently jailbroken, since restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak.

Here's the text that Cantaloupe2 changed it to: Apple has announced that the practice "can violate the warranty". Restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak, although it does not reinstate warranty.

Here's a new proposal that I believe avoids synthesis and more closely corresponds to the sources: Apple has announced that jailbreaking "can violate the warranty". Restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak, putting the device back to its original condition.

Dreamyshade (talk) 04:20, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

To add to this, the act of jailbreaking the phone doesn't automatically void the warranty, it's still intact until the phone is serviced at an Apple store with the jailbreak active. It is then the warranty would be voided. Jailbreaking and then removing the jailbreak before visiting the Genius Bar means that, at no point in the Apple systems, has the warranty on that phone been voided. Cabe6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 10:58, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

That makes sense, thanks. What do you think the article should say based on the available sources - does the new proposal sound OK? (Side note: while trying to find more sources, I've found that some countries have consumer protection laws that extend the warranty and might not allow Apple to make exceptions for things like jailbreaking. See this CNet article for example, and Apple's "Additional Legal Rights" and "Statutory Warranty" pages. I haven't yet found any sources specifically explaining how jailbreaking relates to those warranties though, so we shouldn't include them yet.) Dreamyshade (talk) 04:05, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Warranty rights vary from state to state even within the US. This below is a fairly standard boiler plate language for consumer products warranty: "Except where prohibited by applicable law, this warranty is nontransferable and is limited to the original purchaser. This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may also have other rights that vary under local laws.". Cantaloupe2 (talk) 05:53, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I know you worked in Apple Store and all, but your anecdotal evidence(your experience, first hand words from people who worked there and such and such) of local non adherence with policies have no ground here. According to our verifiability we need reliable sources that say undoing jail breaking officially prevents revocation of warranty before such a statement can be added. Your experience that you're supposed to deny warranty and void it in system seems consistent with official words; as opposed to written directions in official materials instructing management to instruct employees to deny service and ask the customer to bring the device back with jailbreak undone to receive warranty service. Likewise,speeding 5mph may not consistently result in one receiving a citation or getting stopped, but absent credible source stating "exceeding speed by 5mph does not constitute a violation", you can't claim that "speeding 5 mph is not considered a traffic infraction that can get you cited". If we have a reliable source verifying that a device that had been verified jailbroken by Apple retains warranty as long as its brought back to them with jailbreak undone, we can include this. Cantaloupe2 (talk)

Dreamy, I don't think I said you added it. I was raising objections that you proposed inserting something inaccurate. You are very knowledgeable and this subject and I felt that you'd know this better. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 05:46, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, do you mean that I seemed to be knowingly proposing inaccurate text in order to trick potential customers into feeling more confident about jailbreaking? Please assume good faith; I don't have a pattern of trying to cause problems like that, and I want this article to be accurate.

The relevant part of my original proposal was to move the existing text about the warranty (collaborated on by multiple editors in November) back to where it used to be - my intent was to improve the material you mentioned in your edit summary (the legal part) while preserving the material that appeared to have consensus (the warranty part).

I believe it's true that "this applies only to devices that are currently jailbroken, since restoring a device with iTunes removes the jailbreak", but since you brought up a concern about verifiability, I looked more closely at the sources, and I suggested new text that tries to be careful to avoid synthesis and reflect the sources accurately.

What do you think of my concern that the text you added (currently in the article) isn't well supported by the sources, and does my new proposal sound OK? Dreamyshade (talk) 09:08, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

claim about warranty

The assertion that warranty revocation by Apple only applies to currently jailbroken device is not reliably supported. The currently included reliable sources say "technically yes" but does not matter, because its reversible. It's whether or not its detectable. Unless Apple asserts undoing alteration reinstates warranty, the claim is improper synthesis. The old version implies you could write "I jailbroke the phone, but I undid it with iTunes, and I still have problems with the device" to Customer Care and they would officially consider it warranty is still good. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 11:56, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I responded to this above at #3rd Opinion in order to try to keep the discussion all in one place and in context. I hope that's OK. Dreamyshade (talk) 04:24, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Undoing collapse of table

This edit by Cantaloupe2 on January 21 collapsed the "First jailbreaks" section and renamed it to "First jailbreaks by device", without an edit summary so I'm not sure what the reason was. An anonymous editor just copied and pasted that section with the edit summary "Changed it back the way it was after someone removed a table containing information very useful" and then undid their paste, so it sounds like that editor was generally confused by the collapsed table. I'd like to suggest uncollapsing it due to that confusion, and I'd also like to suggest "First jailbreaks" was a better title since the table includes first jailbreaks by iOS version as well as by device.

I also looked up what the Manual of Style has to say, and in MOS:COLLAPSE it says "Scrolling lists, and boxes that toggle text display between hide and show, should not conceal article content, including reference lists, image galleries, and image captions...Collapsible sections or cells may be used in tables that consolidate information covered in the main text, and in navboxes." This table's content is not fully covered in the main text, which would be another reason to uncollapse it. Thanks! Dreamyshade (talk) 08:08, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

A separate table for software unlocking

The article currently may give the impression that jailbreaking and unlocking are equivalent. There's a lot to say about unlocking, i.e. which phone models, baseband and firmware is supported by which mechanism. This is important because today there's no software unlocking for hardware newer than iphone the 4. Unlocking is lagging behind jailbreaking. E.g. --Ubershmekel (talk) 09:51, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

For example:

Mechanism Name	Release Date	Hardware	Firmware	Untethered?	Publisher
redsn0w 0.9.15b3	July 5, 2011	iPhone 3GS iPhone 4 iPod Touch iPad iPad 2		Yes	http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

moving jailbreak reversion from legal, US to lead

I moved the sentence noting iTune restoration removing jailbreak from US legal to lead. This was done, because there is no verifiable official statement from Apple referencing jail breaking does not invalidate warranty or that it reinstates warranty once it is undone by the user and Apple is the only entity that can prescribe warranty polices. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 00:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Potential sources for information about evasi0n

I've collected a list of sources that could be used to fill out the evasi0n material and/or could be used to build an article about it:

• Sarah Perez (February 4, 2013). ""Evasi0n" Overloads Servers As Over 270,000 People Download The New Jailbreak For iOS 6.0/6.1 Devices, Including iPhone 5". TechCrunch. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Adrian Kingsley-Hughes (February 4, 2013). "Untethered iOS 6 Jailbreak For iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini, And iPod Touch". Forbes. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Matthew Shaer (February 4, 2013). "Want to jailbreak your Apple iPhone 5? Here's how". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Eric Limer (February 4, 2013). "How to Jailbreak Your iPhone or iPad". Gizmodo. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Emil Protalinski (February 4, 2013). "Untethered iOS 6.1 evasi0n jailbreak arrives for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices". TheNextWeb. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Chris Foresman (February 4, 2013). "New untethered jailbreak works for iDevices running iOS 6.x". Ars Technica. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• John Koetsier (February 4, 2013). "iOS 6 jailbroken: iPhone 5, iPad 4 can now live untethered to Apple's 'garden of pure ideology'". VentureBeat. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Braden Thomas (February 4, 2013). "Evasi0n Jailbreak's Userland Component". RawTech blog. Accuvant Labs. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Andy Greenberg (February 5, 2013). "Inside Evasi0n, The Most Elaborate Jailbreak To Ever Hack Your iPhone". Forbes. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Russell Holly (February 5, 2013). "How did Evasi0n manage to jailbreak iOS 6.1?". Geek.com. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Christopher Breen (February 5, 2013). "Why I continue to jailbreak". Macworld. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• John Paul Titlow (February 5, 2013). "Why Jailbreaking iOS 6 Is Popular Enough to Break Cydia". ReadWriteWeb. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Andy Greenberg (February 6, 2013). "After Evasi0n, iOS Hackers Have More Exploits In Store For Apple". Forbes. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• David Kravets (February 6, 2013). "Mobile-Phone Towers Survive Latest iOS Jailbreak Frenzy". Threat Level. Wired. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Sarah Perez (February 6, 2013). "Evasi0n By The Numbers: 2 Days In, Cydia Usage Jumps To Over 4M Devices, Jailbreak Website Sees 5M Uniques". TechCrunch. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Liau Yun Qing (February 7, 2013). "China top visitor of iOS jailbreak site". ZDNet. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Lance Whitney (February 7, 2013). "Evasi0n iOS jailbreak version 1.1 pops up with bug fixes". CNet. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Adrian Kingsley-Hughes (February 8, 2013). "If You've Jailbroken Your iPhone/iPad/iPad Mini Using Evasi0n, You Need This Fix". Forbes. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Jacqui Cheng (February 8, 2013). "Latest iOS jailbreak: Nearly 7 million served". Infinite Loop. Ars Technica. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Andy Greenberg (February 8, 2013). "Evasi0n Is The Most Popular Jailbreak Ever: Nearly Seven Million iOS Devices Hacked In Four Days". Forbes. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Josh Lowensohn (February 8, 2013). "Latest iOS jailbreak dubbed the most popular ever". CNet. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Lance Whitney (February 8, 2013). "iOS 6.1.1 doesn't break evasi0n jailbreak, at least not yet". CNet. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Adrian Kingsley-Hughes (February 10, 2013). "Evasi0n 1.2 iOS Jailbreak Tool Brings Bugfixes And New Feature". Forbes. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Tarjei Mandt (February 13, 2013). "From USR to SVC: Dissecting the 'evasi0n' Kernel Exploit". Azimuth Security. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Christopher Breen (February 19, 2013). "How to jailbreak your iPhone". Macworld. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Vince Horiuchi (February 19, 2013). "These apps make jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad worthwhile". Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Lance Whitney (February 20, 2013). "Evasi0n jailbreak tool supports iOS 6.1.2". CNet. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Josh Lowensohn (February 25, 2013). "Upcoming iOS update likely to kneecap Evasi0n jailbreak". CNet. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Andy Greenberg (February 25, 2013). "Apple Is Beta-Testing An Update That Kills Evasi0n Jailbreak". Forbes. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Richard Holt (February 26, 2013). "Apple to block record-breaking iOS jailbreak software". The Telegraph. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Jon Russell (March 2, 2013). "Popular jailbreak software Cydia hits 14m monthly users on iOS 6, 23m on all devices". TheNextWeb. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

• Andy Greenberg (March 4, 2013). "As White House Backs Device Unlocking, 4.6 Million iPad Jailbreakers Left In Legal Limbo". Forbes. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

Dreamyshade (talk) 01:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Kindly Edit the Jailbreak Apps Details

Hi,

Sorry for the inconvenience. Kindly edit the Jailbreak Application section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.71.237.123 (talk) 12:34, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Jailbreaking (and rooting) (il)legal(?) in the States

I changed this page saying jailbreaking is illegal at it got "reverted" [1]. First I'm not a lawyer. But I still believe the DMCA says jailbreaking is illegal and then there are exceptions [2]. The copyright office (Library of Congress) decides of these exceptions. They have to reevaluate every three years. They granted an exemption for phones. The ref mentioned (for the sentence of the revert) is unfortunately from the time of an exemption that ran out and was reevaluated. It seems nothing changed, as for jailbreaking, only unlocking. I apologize, I misread. An exceptions for tablets was asked for and not granted. That should tell you that in general jailbreaking is illegal and I think that should be mentioned first and then the limited exception. Tablets are not phones according to the ruling (iPads have no SIM card?). Since the unlocking is now forbidden and only the jailbreaking is allowed that makes the tablet decision very illogical/wrong (meant to protect subsidized business?) to me hence, my misunderstanding.. comp.arch (talk) 12:12, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi comp.arch! It makes sense to me to mention iPhones first since that's the flagship iOS product, but describing the general case first also sounds fine. But there's no clear source (such as a court case) saying whether jailbreaking is "illegal" or "legal" - in other words, it's a legal grey area. The DMCA doesn't specifically cover jailbreaking, and it's arguable whether it really criminalizes jailbreaking. Corresponding with this, the DMCA exemption for jailbreaking smartphones also doesn't clearly indicate that jailbreaking smartphones is "legal" - it just says that jailbreaking smartphones is exempt from the DMCA - so I'd be fine with more careful wording on that too. For more clarity on this, I'd suggest reading the Copyright Office's explanation of its 2012 exemption decisions - "I. Background" explains the exemption process, and "B. Wireless Telephone Handsets— Software Interoperability" describes why they decided to exempt smartphones but not tablets. It includes these parts, where the Copyright Office discusses that it's not clear whether the DMCA already criminalizes jailbreaking:

Joint Creators asserted that the proposed exemption is unnecessary and beyond the scope of the rulemaking because Section 1201(f) of the Copyright Act already defines ‘‘the contours of acceptable circumvention related to interoperability.’’ Specifically, Joint Creators argued that the proponents have not established that Section 1201(f) does not already permit the conduct in which proponents seek to engage and, ‘‘if it were established that Congress chose not to include the conduct at issue within [Section] 1201(f),’’ then proponents have failed to establish that the Librarian has the authority to upset that decision through this proceeding. The Register concluded that it was unclear, at best, whether Section 1201(f) applies in this circumstance, so she proceeded to analyze the merits of the proposed exemption.

The nature of the copyrighted work—firmware—remains the same as it was in 2010, and it remains true that one engaged in jailbreaking need only modify the functional aspects of the firmware, which may or may not be subject to copyright protection.

The Copyright Office goes on to explain that it didn't extend this exemption to tablets only because the proposal was unclear about how it defines "tablet", not because they believe that jailbreaking tablets should be a DMCA violation. So, I'd recommend very careful wording when discussing the legality of jailbreaking in the US - not declaring it "illegal" or "legal", but discussing its DMCA exemption status. Dreamyshade (talk) 22:27, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh also, the EFF reference used to support the "illegal" phrasing also actually discusses the legal grey area of non-exempted circumvention. This is talking about carrier unlocking, which is separate from jailbreaking, but it's also a form of exploiting the device for interoperability, and the same principle applies:

Unlocking is in a legal grey area under the DMCA. The law was supposed to protect creative works, but it's often been misused by electronics makers to block competition and kill markets for used goods. The courts have pushed back, ruling that the DMCA doesn't protect digital locks that keep digital devices from talking to each other when creative work isn't involved. And no creative work is involved here: Wireless carriers aren't worried about "piracy" of the software on their phones, they're worried about people reselling subsidized phones at a profit. So if the matter ever reached a court, it might well decide that the DMCA does not forbid unlocking a phone.

Dreamyshade (talk) 17:36, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Dreamyshade! I'm not sure this makes any difference: 'there's no clear source (such as a court case) saying whether jailbreaking is "illegal" or "legal".' That is, if there is a court case. If the law says it is illegal, then that is what we say. The law would never say jailbreaking or rooting. I may have been hasty saying the same applies to rooting as to jailbreaking as for rooting the source of Android is open (and I guess the derived binaries). However, eg. for Cyanogenmod Google complained about them rooting Android and keeping the existing proprietary Google apps on the phone. Not sure if how they did it, did they distribute them or copy from the existing phone while rooting and back from the phone. In effect that is what you do with jailbreaking? Except then you do it with all the Apple programs that are mostly all propietary. And this copying is to "circumvent an effective technological measure" (the Apple DRM)? comp.arch (talk) 18:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

The quotes from the Copyright Office say that it is unclear whether the law makes jailbreaking and unlocking illegal, and the quote from the EFF supports that interpretation. They are experts in this law, and the article should carefully reflect the best available expert sources instead of including our own interpretation of the law (to follow Wikipedia:No original research).

That situation with CyanogenMod and Google apps was unrelated to jailbreaking (and rooting wasn't really related). CyanogenMod takes the open source Android code and distributes a modified and compiled version of it (which is OK under the license of that code), and Google complained because CyanogenMod was also redistributing copies of Google's copyrighted apps (which is copyright infringement) - see CyanogenMod#Licensing for a pretty good description. Jailbreaking does not involve redistributing Apple's copyrighted software - instead, jailbreaking makes small modifications to the existing software on the device (by applying security exploits). These security exploits do "circumvent an effective technological measure", but it may be "acceptable circumvention related to interoperability", and "jailbreaking need only modify the functional aspects of the firmware, which may or may not be subject to copyright protection". Dreamyshade (talk) 19:28, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, the Ars Technica source isn't strong enough to declare jailbreaking "illegal" compared to what the Copyright Office says; the article oversimplifies how the DMCA works. Something that isn't exempted isn't automatically made illegal by the law - people also have to decide that the law applies. The article says "circumvention is illegal whether or not the underlying use of the work would be a fair use", but it doesn't cover the case where the work "may or may not be subject to copyright protection".

I'd suggest this phrasing: In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits circumventing DRM, which may apply to jailbreaking; there is an exemption from this law for jailbreaking smartphones "at least through 2015". Apple has announced that jailbreaking "can violate the warranty".

If that doesn't sound good to you, how about we ask for a third opinion, on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law for example? Dreamyshade (talk) 19:34, 31 January 2014 (UTC) (edited 10:06, 4 February 2014 (UTC))

References

Requested move: iOS jailbreaking → Jailbreaking (iOS)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Proposed title created as a redirect. No prejudice against a new RM to discuss Cuchullain's proposal of moving this article to simply Jailbreaking. Jenks24 (talk) 07:14, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

---

IOS jailbreaking → Jailbreaking (iOS) – This request will make the title of this article congruent with the just-completed move of “Android rooting” to “Rooting (Android OS)”. Consider: Provided that the context of discussion is known to be smartphones (rather than gardening or criminal justice), when people talk about “rooting” everyone understands they're referring to Android (not some other OS), and when people talk about “jailbreaking” everyone understands they're referring to iOS. Given the context, the subject of “rooting” or “jailbreaking” needs no further qualification. In other words, “Android rooting” and “iOS jailbreaking” are redundant titles. The parenthetical qualifications (Android OS) and (iOS) are needed to disambiguate the base terms from completely different meanings (gardening or criminal justice, among others), not different OSes. Therefore, the parenthetical disambiguation technique of “Rooting (Android OS)” and “Jailbreaking (iOS)” seems to me to form the most appropriate titles for the two articles. (The latter also has the small side benefit of avoiding the technical complication of a title beginning with a lower-case letter.) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 13:56, 29 June 2014 (UTC) — Jaydiem (talk) 19:30, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

"Jailbreaking" does not clearly refer to iOS - people use it to describe privilege escalation on other devices and operating systems too, including PlayStation Jailbreak and Wii homebrew (see this article). People sometimes even say "jailbreaking" when talking about Android devices (see this article), including Google Glass. It sounds more natural to call the article "iOS jailbreaking" than to rearrange the words. Dreamyshade (talk) 20:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Hm, the term "jailbreaking"‍—‌at least to me‍—‌instantly brings a picture of an iOS device, while I've never heard of anyone using "jailbreaking" for the procedure of rooting an Android device. Perhaps the authors who wrote those two articles come from the iOS land, so they tend to stick with terms they use more frequently.

At the same time, PlayStation Jailbreak seems to be more of a product someone uses to achieve the desired result, rather than a procedure that can be performed by anyone with no additional hardware modifications required. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 22:23, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree that iOS is the most common context for the word "jailbreaking", but these examples help show that the term is used broadly enough that "iOS jailbreaking" isn't the clear meaning of "jailbreaking" for everyone. For more examples of broader use, see the Copyright Office's explanations of its 2011-2012 DMCA exemption rulings, which talks about jailbreaking for smartphones (not specifically iOS) and video game consoles:

"This exemption is a modification of the proponents’ proposal. It permits the circumvention of computer programs on mobile phones to enable interoperability of non-vendor-approved software applications (often referred to as ‘‘jailbreaking’’), but does not apply to tablets—as had been requested by proponents—because the record did not support it."

"These restrictions require a console owner who would like to install a computer operating system or run a ‘‘homebrew’’ (i.e., independently developed) application to defeat a number of technical measures before they can do so—a process that proponents refer to as ‘‘jailbreaking.’’ Proponents sought an exemption from Section 1201(a)(1) to permit such jailbreaking of video game consoles."

Which is partly because the Electronic Frontier Foundation was using jailbreaking as a general term in its advocacy around these exemptions - see this "Jailbreaking Is Not A Crime" article and "Jailbreaking Is Not A Crime" website, referring to a variety of devices ("phone, tablet, or video game system"). See also this example of the term "jailbreaking" being used for Android devices as a usefully precise term: "he takes issue with the word ‘unlock,’ preferring to call it a ‘jailbreak’ because that term is exempted by the DMCA." (Related forum thread.) And here's "jailbreaking" for Windows RT tablets.

But mostly it seems useful to retain the current title because it sounds more natural/readable. Wikipedia:Article titles#Disambiguation seems to recommend natural language in general - "Natural disambiguation: If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title." Dreamyshade (talk) 01:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC) (Edited at 01:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC))

Hm, the references linked above stand, there's no doubt about that. I'd assume that the term "jailbreaking" was used in a much broader context because that was the path of least resistance – the whole legal thing probably started around iOS devices, and it was the most easy just to extend it to cover privilege escalation on other devices as well. However, I have no references to back that statement, so that stays only at the level of "thinking aloud".

To me, "jailbreaking" still brings images of iOS devices, while for video game consoles it's about "modding" – but that's just me. If you agree, let's see other editors' thoughts. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 04:12, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I believe iOS jailbreaking popularized the term "jailbreaking" and that other people hacking devices have adopted it from there (and then from each other). It's not unusual for useful jargon terms to spread like that. :) Dreamyshade (talk) 08:03, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support: As discussed above. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 22:23, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

• I grant that the term "jailbreaking" (in the computing context) is not always used in reference to iOS, but I suspect that among those readers who come to Wikipedia looking for information about "jailbreaking", most have iOS in mind—enough so that jailbreaking of iOS would qualify as the primary topic for the term "jailbreaking" (again, in the computing context). I don't have empirical data to support this, but if there's disagreement on this point, perhaps some could be found.

|

I see that right now, Jailbreaking redirects to Jailbreak, which is a disambiguation page covering prison escape, music, film & TV, computing, and games. Curiously, the only use of the word "jailbreaking" (as opposed to "jailbreak") on that page is in reference to iOS jailbreaking. This makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better to not redirect Jailbreaking to Jailbreak, but rather to assume that someone reaching Jailbreaking is interested in the computing topic, perhaps even the iOS-specific topic. A hatnote for "other uses" could then refer to the disambiguation page at Jailbreak.

|

It also strikes me as curious that the topic of "jailbreaking" in computing in general, beyond the scope of iOS, is (1) titled with the noun "Jailbreak" rather than the gerund "Jailbreaking"; and (2) in fact only redirects to a section within the Privilege escalation article. Perhaps someone could explain the difference between "privilege escalation" and "jailbreaking" in the general computing sense? Are they not largely synonymous? If they are, the fact that there exists an article at Privilege escalation could be taken to mean that "iOS jailbreaking" is indeed the primary topic for "jailbreaking", because anything beyond the scope of iOS is no longer just "jailbreaking" but rather "privilege escalation".

|

Under that reasoning, the title "iOS jailbreaking" could be thought of as somewhat redundant. However, because there is still the whole universe of topics related to the word "jailbreak" but unrelated to computing, adding the parenthetical disambiguator "(iOS)" can serve as a sort of quick, quiet, unobtrusive, at-a-glance visual confirmation that the reader seeking information on "jailbreaking" in the sense of iOS has, indeed, arrived at the correct article. In other words, it honors the principle of least astonishment, while not being too distracting. The fact that dab label is presented softly, after the primary topic word, rather than standing loud and proud in front of it, is why I prefer it in this case (and other, similar cases). — Jaydiem (talk) 03:45, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree that iOS jailbreaking is the most common thing that people are looking for when they look up "jailbreaking" on Google or on Wikipedia, but I don't think rearranging the title would significantly help people who are looking for this article. I also don't think it would cause huge problems for them if we rearranged the title, but Wikipedia:Article titles#Precision and disambiguation has reasonable reasons for supporting natural language in titles.

I don't think the term "jailbreaking" on its own clearly indicates a computer-related term if you have no context for it - it's just too similar to the term "jailbreak" which has a strong non-computer-related meaning. There are articles using "jailbreaking" to refer to prison breaking - this one for example, or this one.

Privilege escalation refers to a broad range of exploits for any software application; jailbreaking is a more specific term, including that people usually use "jailbreaking" for talking about powerful privilege escalation exploits for consumer electronics device operating systems (instead of partial/limited exploits, or exploits for other types of software). Dreamyshade (talk) 08:03, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. "IOS jailbreaking" is common enough (Google Books; Google News) to serve as natural disambiguation, which is preferable disambiguating with parentheses as in "Jailbreaking (IOS)". However, it seems to me that this phenomenon may indeed be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the term "jailbreaking". While "jailbreak" obviously refers to real jailbreaks and other things, A Google Books search for "jailbreaking returns very few hits for anything other than jailbreaking iphones, pads, and pods.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:50, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Comparison to Android rooting" section

Hey Jaydiem! While I totally agree with the result of your latest edit in the iOS jailbreaking § Comparison to Android rooting section, I'm also a bit confused – why do you find it more readable as a single paragraph? It looks and reads great in its current two-paragraph form. Please advise. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 21:44, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Well hello there! I guess I just feel like there isn't enough material to adequately fill out two paragraphs. But it's only a minor preference on my part; if you strongly prefer splitting, I don't mind. I'm just pleased that you seem to like my rewrite of the section! =) — Jaydiem (talk) 21:54, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

To me, it looks great now. :) Maybe it's up to the window size you're using to view the article? Almost all Wikipedia articles don't look that geat when viewed on anything wider than 800 1400 pixels or so – on somewhat standard 72 dpi screens, of course. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 22:02, 17 July 2014 (UTC)