And it it also produces more energy than it consumes!
I am sorry..
It’s just a Ramadan hallucination, induced by lack of caffeine in my blood..
I just could not resist coming up with this post title when I saw this in Al-Ghad:
Two Jordanian engineers unlock the iPhone!
This was the lead story in the paper’s “science and technology” section. At first, I could not believe my eyes. I started reading. It just says that these two engineers were able to crack the iPhone’s AT&T SIM-lock “after a lot of excruciating work and without the need for external devices”..
What the heck?
It goes on to say that they achieved this with “software that was developed for that purpose”.
That’s basically the story. The rest is details about the guys’ careers and some standard write-up about the iPhone’s features.
The photo shows an iPhone that has “Fastlink” as the operator. No date is provided for the picture. So, it must have been taken before Fastlink changed their operator ID to Zain. Or so I assume.
So what’s this all about?
It’s either a badly written story about two brilliant Jordanian hackers who where able to do write some software that achieved what other hackers have already achieved in the US. Or maybe they are the real people behind the hacker pseudonyms of the original iPhone hackers!
Or.. this is a badly written story about two guys who just downloaded the hacking software from the web and merely used it on an iPhone on Jordan. Nothing wrong with that. But in this case WHY THE HELL DOES THAT DESERVE TO BE THE LEAD STORY IN THE TECH PAGE OF A NATIONAL PAPER??
I am keeping my mind open. If anyone has info about what the guys really did then let me and the readers know.
But if it turns out that these guys merely applied the the already available unlock, then I demand that the paper writes a story about every citizen who successfully installs Vista..!
In any case.. this is really lame reporting.
And all of this reminds me of the occasional story we used to see in the 80’s and 90’s in the papers:
“Jordanian Inventor Creates a Car that Runs on Kerosene”
Yippeee!
Comments
20 responses to “Jordanian inventors create an iPhone that runs on Kerosene!”
LOL!
I struggled with vista for 500 hours and then managed to use software applications and tools which allowed me to end up with Windows XP ..
I demand first page in the newspaper!
they downloaded the unlocking software and used it.. so lame
Is this a joke.
I guess its the third possibility, definitely. They downloaded the software and unlocked the phone.
I managed to put a password on my bios yesterday.
I know exactly what you mean, many people take responsibility of other people’s acts if its news worthy. Reporting should be transparent, giving names and facts with no prejudice. Sadly this doesn’t happen much.
Gone the days when reporters can deceive us, except if you watch Fox news maybe.
dear all please check the link and read the comments below the news (you can just skip the useless story) and go direct to see the reaction of readers…
http://www.alghad.jo/?news=201389
As I know they did not do any thing new… just they use some ready software which is available for any one…
the important thing in this matter is the Arabizing… some news said in Saudi Arabia a programer is peppering and testing to make arabic version of the software.. at this moment he success to make the arabic SMS working on iPhone.. how ever they are facing some problems with law since Saudi Arabia is part from WTO…
any way my advice to do some thing clever as arabs rather than copying the hacked things
like WHEN we will have our own arabic OS for mobiles or even computers… maybe i am asking too much… but lets share more good ideas about every thing…. then maybe we will ask these newspapers who is interested in writing good thing to do some thing to support a real good ideas…
Ah, the mysterious Jordanian Inventor strikes again. I’m waiting for “Jordanian Inventor Creates Fire Using Kerosene, Burns Self.”
iPhone that runs on Kerosene! … i really believed that … Ramadan karem
This is really sad. Before we get people in Jordan to understand that piracy is a crime so not to commit; reporters who should be endowed with higher culture should understand that first in order to attack it rather than presenting it as an invention!
‘’But if it turns out that these guys merely applied the the already available unlock, then I demand that the paper writes a story about every citizen who successfully installs Vista..!’’
LOOOOL, that was really funny
It’s interesting how some people tend to make hasty judgments and assumptions. I have to agree with you Ahmad that the writer of the article perhaps didn’t do the two young Jordanians much justice.
I happen to know Shadi Hussein (who is Production Manager for the Faridah group), the guy is a really bright person. I asked him after I read the article last night (yes, I read the papers at night), and he told me the following: “What actually we did was to get the outline by the first person who cracked the iPhone code, then we started searching and testing to build up a proper method to how crack the code, we used some ready-to-go applications and other utilities under three operating systems (MacOS, MS-Dos under Windows and Unix), and our success came after three weeks of work, and the phone can be used in Jordan on any of the three local networks.”
Jordanians are hilarious honestly, if anybody else is so smart, then why didn’t you guys unlock it? I guess the reporter didn’t had much knowledge on hacking (I might be too soft here, but I hate bashing any person’s work), and so she didn’t know how to describe the process. But one thing is for sure: They didn’t download the unlocking software.
Aha.. interesting Pheras.. I said in the post “I’m keeping my mind open”. But the matter is still pretty unclear.
What ‘ready’ applications did they use?
Anybody who followed the iPhone unlocking saga, knows that at first someone hacked it in a way that needed a hardware modification. Then someone did it in software and started selling the solution for $100, then days later another group elaborated another method and made it available for free. All of this still needed some technical knowledge and the downloading of several software components.
Then, lastly, someone came up with a combined solution ‘for dummies’
There are more details and intrigues (like who used who’s code, etc).
So the question is, at what point did the Jordanian guys get into this.
And is what they did worthy of a major story in a national paper?
THe whole thing is murky and the article does not help in anyway. Your comment, pheras, does not help much either I am afraid. As you can see, there were several solutions of varying sophistication available at different stages. When you say they didn’t download the unlocking software, which software are you talking about?
On so on..
true ahmad
There’s such a term for people who build on other’s code, they call them script kiddies. In my experience with the so called “Jordanian Hackers” most were in that bucket. You’ll be surprised to know how limited their experience in programming is, yet they somehow managed to crack something.
To answer one thing that Pheras mentioned. If other people knew how to do it, why didn’t they go ahead and do it? I can authoritatively say that anyone who works for a reputable software house who engages in such activities will soon find themselves on the street! There are benign experimental hacking but doing something like that will likely jeopardize their career. As the reputation of being a hacker is not one to be proud of.
Besides, ethical hacking requires that if some one finds an exploit to something, they should notify the manufacturing company first, allow them time to respond then expose the exploit for the benefit and security of the users NOT to make profit
Many security groups and experts around the world follow these rules and make sure companies are aware and ready to respond by the time an item goes public. That’s exactly what I have done for Cisco when there was a serious vulnerability in their EAP-TLS implementation on Cisco ACS. Instead of preparing and selling exploits!
Why didn’t many people bother? Simply because not everyone is crazy about iPhones. Most die hard geeks are not into Apple gear anyway! It’s too pretty for thier taste
Hey, I just realized something reading Qwaider’s post.
I saw a 6th grade computer book the other day. the one they teach at schools. and they begin by explaining that there are 2 kinds of computers, ones that are IBM-compatible and use Windows, and Apple Macintosh ones that use Mac OS X .
What I realized is that growing up we didn’t have these classifications, they were all Windows PCs! They never taught us about Apple, Mac OS or anything other than Windows.
Well, if that doesn’t spell change I don’t know what does. Welcome back, Apple
You’ve certainly made it if they take time to mention you in 3rd world government school courses methinks.
lol ..
really nice blog this is my first visit here and am sure it wont be the last
i guess these two guys either related to the article writer
or friends
the post and the comments are so funny… you made my day! You are all funny people
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7017660.stm
and so it begins : )
Honestly Ahmad, I don’t have any answers to yours questions. I’ve actually forwarded the article to my friend, and he didn’t respond, so I guess that makes your analysis pretty spot on…lol.
Its strange how we can creticize others when we are just setting wasting our times to creticize them! We talk about them as if they were criminals and we forget that if they did nothing good, and the whole thing is a lie, then we are not better…The whole arabic community is falling apart and we are very good talking about others, while we actually can do nothing good to our homeland…Bless you!