US authorities have legalized hacking phones

Every three years, the Library of Congress reconsiders the relevance of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in accordance with the tide of the times. The DMCA was created to protect copyright in the era of the Internet and digital technologies, facilitating the copying and dissemination of information. Next package of amendments, among other changes, legitimized the practice of hacking phones to install any software and fix the binding to a certain cellular Operator.

Thanks to the accepted easing, US iPhone users can legally perform a procedure called JailBreak (literally "jailbreak"). It allows you to open access to the smartphone's file system and install applications received from sources other than the official Apple App Store. Similarly, legalizing and eliminating the binding of the phone to the cellular operator (Unlock) is similar.

The new rules should not interfere with the existing practice of fighting Apple with the breaking of the iPhone (the release of updated firmware that make smartphones with JailBreak inoperable, refusal to owners of modified devices for repair under warranty), but the company will not be able to bring to trial the users who carried out the procedure. However, although Apple and calls JailBreak an unauthorized change to its software, there have been no prosecutions on this charge.

Similar rules apply not only to the iPhone, but to any other mobile phones. Anti-copyright laws also dealt with video games (they can be hacked for testing and vulnerability searches), computer programs protected with hardware dongles (you can hack if dongles become unusable and the vendor does not already release them), e-book readers (in part Overcoming protection against unauthorized voice playback of texts) and protected DVDs (you can use short videos for non-commercial purposes, for example, to comment on the video).

Experts are still struggling to assess how the new amendments to the DMCA will affect the business of Apple and other players in the mobile communications market. Obviously, only the business of numerous companies specializing in hacking and unlocking the iPhone, which has existed in the "underground" so far, will come to a new stage of development.

This Friday, Apple will begin selling iPhone 4 in 17 other countries, including Australia, Canada, Finland, Italy and Spain. Thus, the latest generation Apple smartphone will be sold in 22 countries by the end of the month, and by the end of the year the company promises to cover more than 60 countries.

According to recently published results of the third quarter of 2010 fiscal year, iPhone brought Apple about a third of revenue - about the same as and the implementation of branded computers.