Warning Against Using Ziphone

BigBoss BigBoss has written an article warning against the use of Ziphone. Below is what he has to say:

Question:
Could you please elaborate on the permanent changes caused by Ziphone? All unlocking/jailbreaking methods modify the phone in some way, at least they patch baseband, and pwnage patches bootloader. I know that Ziphone downgrades the 4.6 bootloader to 3.9 (which has been thought to be permanent until pwnage came out), but so does iLiberty+, iDemocracy and any other unlock method that is not based on pwnage.

Answer:
First off, iLiberty+ does not downgrade your bootloader by default. It downgrades you to 3.9 fakeblank which is easily reversible and not dangerous. This is not the same thing as 3.9 used by Ziphone! Ziphone downgrades the bootloader to 3.9 automatically. If this process fails, you’re done. This process considered so risky that Apple does not do any bootloader upgrades in their firmware packages! They could have put a stop to all the unlocks when 1.1.2 came out by having the 1.1.1 to 1.1.2 firmware upgrade upgrade old bootloaders to 4.6 but they considered this too risky and did not do it! Ziphone does it anyway.

Zibri has had so many releases that fix “type-o’s”. That’s just silly. The code is so sloppy and buggy. Some versions will unlock even when you did not ask it to resulting in a downgraded bootloader just on a request to jailbreak! Neat :(

Ziphone is also very dangerous because it does all the flashing (most risky part) during the first phase of the ram disk. During this phase, allocating too much memory can result in ram disk corruption. This is very bad. You want to minimize the amount of memory used as much as possible and you only care about stability. Ziphone doesn’t worry about this. Due to the technique used to boot the ramdisk, the memory is easily corrupted if you try to allocate too much of it. The result is that you are corrupting the very data that you are flashing!

iLiberty+, iPlus both use a smaller ram disk to flash. This minimizes the amount of memory used and takes great care to prevent memory allocations from corrupting the ram disk. Then these tools come back on a second pass to install payloads. This is done after the flashing is done where there is no risk.

As a result, several ziphone users have reported problems with no edge, no wifi, no bluetooth or a combination of the 3. In many cases this is unfixable. Zibri has added a wifi “fix” to his app which works sometimes, but this programs a bogus network address that is the same on every phone.

You can read the entire article at sleepers.net.

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Comments

  1. When Zibri came with Ziphone at the fist time, no one said that its crap….

  2. It amazes me that people are still using ZiPhone after solid evidence has been released that it’s dangerous.
    I jailbroke my iPhone for the first time using 2.5. It worked fine. I didnt know if I unlocked it, it would downgrade my bootloader.
    Then I jailbroke again when ZiPhone 3.0 was released and had major problems. Every app I tried to download, I got a Main Script Execution Failed. Also, Safari bookmarks would not save. I restored, and did NOT use any backups. Jailbroke again, and had the same errors. Restored once again, and tried iLiberty and it worked fine.
    Thank goodness for the Dev Team, you know, the people who don’t steal code? They released BootNeuter and I am no back with my 4.6 bootloader.

    • who said it´s dangerous? you? a weblog? someone you know only trough internet?
      and whats the problem about a developer ‘stealing’ code? all coders that can ‘unlock’ an iphone should join to make a better unlocker and stop us about their ‘own’ codes and stuff.

  3. That is very corius because i had same issue last time i did iL+ and i havent saw any eveidence of the dangerous of the ziphone.

    But on my experience i have suffer the intent of someone that i dont know if is a dev´s minioms or somthing that hide on IRC and somehow mess with the phone after they found out its ziphone method

    I respect other opinions what i dont accept is the war againt ziphone.

    For me its very hard to beleave that if where any risk of damaging the phone. the advertize on national Italian TV give recognition to Zibri with the one and only secure method of liberating the iphone.

    Why instead of taking garbage abouth the method.
    NOOnes havent come with something better and more secure.

    Make Daddy proud

    :)

  4. Phil, Washington, DC says

    Ahh..Haters. There will always be HATERS. Okay, listen to yourselves. There’s risk invovled in all these methods, even BigBoss said, the other jailbreak methods “minimize” the risk. That means there’s a risk. I have jailbroken my iPhone with iBrickr, Ziphone, Pwnage and iLiberty. My iPhone is a “BEAST” its withstood all these and is still going strong. Ziphone has worked and performed better for me. I had issues with the others, freezes, etc. After Pwnage I restored and went back to Ziphone. It just works better for my phone. Maybe I’ll stick with my undestuckable first Gen iPhone instead of buying the 3G in July. The rest of you HATERS, get a life and use whatever makes you happy. Zibri is on top and when your on top, no matter how you got there, people will hate you. Zibri for President!! LOL

  5. Bla Bla Bla Bla… Ziphone dangerous? Maybe, who knows???! Your iPhone/iTouch definitely does! ‘Cause some had no problems using it, some did (too bad!). Myself i didnt, i have used ziphone maybe 6-9 times (due to some mods i make to my iTouch). But never ever had a problem about the jailbreak part and apps. The fastest way and simplest way to jailbreak my iTouch is Ziphone, i use it. Got problems? Thay all do, iLiberty+, iDemocracy and so ever…
    NO NO, i am not ziphone maniac! I have used iLiberty and had no problem with it.

    Zibri stole codes? And what do i have to do with that??? Just glad my iTouch is jailbroken, was no cost at all, and YES i’m still in 4.6

    BROOKE, i realy dont know why is this post still here! You wanted to warn us about ziphone and its issues? Well this aint the best way, ’cause you know “Bosses” got limitation too…

  6. And who the heck is bigboss? why should i care for his opinions?
    i have my iphone unlocked with ziphone and everything works just fine.
    just because some blog post something everyone takes as true fact and all?
    come on!

  7. So no one here cares that the exploit was stolen? Does anyone here have ethics?
    You all know that Zibri stole it, you said so yourself, and you continue to give him credit.
    If you’re going to use Ziphone, at least give the Dev Team credit for actually finding the exploit Ziphone uses. All Zibri did was bring it out and slap his name on it.

    • ethics?
      the exploit was a product of a leak and freedom start in the iphone. the drama in between novary cares.. cause the other methods arent aproved from apple as well . it its the same just with a little more love on it and less painfull drama…

      Znite

    • Please at least attempt to make sense before posting a reply. It makes you sound more ignorant and biased than you already are. Did you understand that? Or do I need to rephrase it using a little less words and punctuation so you could possibly understand?

    • Sorry but English isnt my native languaje… and i spected that reaction.* from a Z hater.

    • Been a Zibri/Ziphone hater ever since Ziphone 3.0, and you know what? It feels great.
      I personally don’t give a crap if you like risking your phone, but I think I’ll pass.

  8. I have a question….Why does ZiPhone and iL+ and all the others work differently on these phones? Shouldn’t they all act the same? Meks me wonder how many manufacturers there ar making these things. They should all act roughly the same.

    Anyway, I find it very interesting that there definately seems to be MORE people here FOR ZiPhone than against it. So you had trouble with it. Did you ever think that maybe it was some other app you installed that caused the problems?

    • Uh, no. It couldn’t have been another app I has installed, because I had no apps installed. It was a freshly restored phone.

    • that’s ur problem branden…. Dont use the restore from iTunes. I know Brooke won’t tell you that. Unfortunately you have to manually re enter ur settings or use the chinese software

    • Last time I checked, my name was Braden. But I’ll let that slide. After all, you use Ziphone, so what can I expect?
      But also, I never restore from a backup in iTunes. I had a COMPLETELY restored phone. I’ll say it again. I had a COMPLETELY restored phone with NO BACKUPS. And Ziphone managed to screw it up twice in a row.

  9. I was “shopping” around for a JB program, reading on their sites, going onto their irc channels. I can honestly say that out all the major ones Ziphone is the most immature one.

    The “support” irc channel NEVER gave me any support what so ever when I had asked a few simple questions, they where too busy with their 1337-ness. Ziphone’s help files were crap at best, a copy ‘n’ pasted txt file without much explanations.

    Final word: lets just say there are plenty of better options out there then ziphone, and they dont “ask” for donations.

  10. Hey all,

    I’ll add a quick blurb to try to clarify a few points:

    1) This post was a warning. If you choose not to heed it that’s your decision. I backed up the warning with ample facts and technical details as to *why* ziphone is dangerous. It is not just out of hating Zibri. Google for the same information you can find that my facts will check out. It’s pretty tough to make up facts with such detail. I have provided enough information that anyone technical should be able to understand it. If you’re not technical, you have no basis to form an opinion one way or the other because you cannot understand the argument therefore you cannot torpedo it. “Ziphone worked for me” is not counter to my warning since I already indicated it will probably work most the time.

    2) While I dislike what Zibri did by stealing the original exploit code, that’s not the point. The reason this is brought up is that he did not have the capability to create this exploit on his own. The reason he was first was because the dev team planned to hold this exploit forever to avoid apple patching it. So all you that think he’s so smart for being first, the answer to that is that he was first because he stole other people’s work and packaged it. Not that he was smarter than everyone else. Hope that makes sense.

    3) I have used ziphone several times and it has never failed me. But this was before other, safer methods were out. I run a help channel and have had countless folks in there that were “ziphoned”. My warning is to try to pick the method of jailbreak that is least likely to permanently damage your phone.

    4) Ziphone failures can be catastrophic (no repair ever). iLiberty, iPlus, pwnage, as far as I know has never ruined a phone to the point it was not repairable. Sure, iLiberty has failed me a few times as well. Yes, I even had no wifi after once. But my phone was never damaged. I was able to restore and redo it and all was fine. Devs that have bad apps that cause a restore – big deal you just restore. This is a bit different than a “ziphoned” phone needing to be tossed in the trash.

    5) I know Zibri, talked with him many times back in the day. He had some decent ideas for the 1.1.1 jailbreak back when. He’s not an idiot. However, he *admits* he’s no coder. This is not something he will deny. He’s more a HW guy. Do you want to run system critical code written by someone that admits he cant really code?

    6) I’m not a member of the dev team. I’m an independent user when it comes to jailbreaking. I have no personal bias towards one team nor the other. I only wish for people to stop damaging their phones. I do not make $$ one way or the other or really care who uses what. I only offer this information to help. If a few of you listen and avoid ziphone then great, maybe I’ve helped save you some money. For those that choose not to listen, I hope it continues to work well for you.

    7) Finally, to those of you that don’t trust me, I say that’s good. You should always do some research not just blindly trust information you find on the internet. I believe if you research my claims you will find nothing that counters it and only find confirmation of my claims.

    _BigBoss_

    • wow… Well the Boston celtics just won so its a great night. I hope this ends this tread. We are all grown men and women here. I am sure we all know the risk we take when we unlock the phones. I wonder how he is able to update the code to unlock all the versions and work on new ones if he is not a coder.

      From what you said the dec guys wanted to hold on to the code. Seems to me the guy is a robin hood. Any ways I have donated to him and will continue to support anyone that helps improve this device. Goodluck.

  11. ketanitem says

    Well, I’ve been using ZiPhone dozens of times, it never fails me. But when PwnageTool got out I immediately use it, and again it never fails me. They are all use to restore 1.1.4 f/w.

    … Until one day I try to restore my friend’s 8GB iPhone. Everything works ok with Pwnage, custom firmware was created. And restoring through iTunes works great. Manage to install like 20 apps or so, but then after that it refuses to install, every application just won’t install (those apps are all tested and it’s in my repo so I know the integrity of the apps). It stucks with the ‘ring of death’, and everytime I have to go through SSH to manually delete the apps to let iphone breath again.

    Well, tired of that. I try ZiPhone to restore and guess what it works just fine. Funny!

    For my own iPhone I still stick to the custom firmware created by PwnageTool.

    I carry both ZiPhone and PwnageTool in my Mac, as a life safer.

  12. This is a bad propaganda against Ziphone! I bought my iPhone pre-jailbroken with Ziphone and its working like a champ. I was once so intrigued on how to jailbreak one’s iPhone using iLiberty+ (you know, having a Ziphoned iPhone for a long time seems to bore me – I’m not saying it’s giving me problem or whatever – it’s perfect – but I just felt the need to do-it-myself). It installed just fine. But the problem is it has Cydia as a bundled installer (excuse the pun). When I checked Cydia it has no sources there. So I went back to jailbreaking my iPhone AGAIN this time using Ziphone. It installed so easily and I’m done in no time at all. Best of all, it has Installer in there together with a number of sources!

    Admit it people, you hate the guy, not his alleged stolen software.

    Zibri pwns yo’ as*es and you can’t take it.

  13. Nooneinparticular says

    Wow, Looks lige somebody (iphoneschool) is on iLibertys payroll, there goes your neutrality, guess i will have to look elsewhere for unbiased reviews from now on…

    • Markisha says

      I totally agree!!!

    • We do not get paid by anyone. We put out this warning for your information. I’ve used ZiPhone many times. I’ve also installed many apps and never had problems but some users have so we put out warnings. This is not biased. It would be if I or BigBoss had our own jailbreak. I promote and continue to promote many different methods for jailbreaking/unlocking. Jailbreaking your iPhone voids your warranty and can always have the potential of damaging your iPhone. This is the risk you take when “hacking” your iPhone, but it’s still worth it!

    • I don’t think they are in anyone’s payroll.
      BSD Subsystem had to be totally deleted and rebuilt by another Developer.
      Doug I don’t see a warning not to install that!
      Bigboss and anyone else that think they have any Zibri probably have a point. The warning itself that the application is bad id false and you know that.Yes Ziphone and other Unlocking tool will harm your phone if you don’t do it correctly. That’s just the truth and you know that…

      If if they all have faults, why single one out? that’s the issue and why we everyone is think you all have a take in bring Ziphone down. Look at your poll….almost 3 to 1 with people preferring Ziphone. That’s not an accident. For those that know what to do, it works best, simple and it is easy to use. If the other coders want to compete with Ziphone they should made their app user friendly.

      People will pay for some that works and works well.

  14. This post should be removed !!!

    I have used Ziphone many times now, and never had a problem i once had a problem i was getting and “Error Message – Iphone needs repair”

    But i realised i had just used the wrong USB cable, i was using an Ipod USB cable, changed to the correct cable this fixed issue.

    No problems with ziphone….. biased reviews shouldn’t be on this site.

    • Ok, that message has nothing to do with a USB cable. Any apple usb cable can be used with the iphone no matter what ipod/iphone it is from.

      That message has to do something with the unlocking process.

  15. Really, the iphone needs repair because Zibri broke it!

    • Markisha says

      Even if the software is not good witch i doubt Zibri didny brake your or anybodys iPhone for that matter, you did it your self! Nobody is forcing you to use ZiPhone!!!

  16. Zibri also steals other people’s code and gives them no credit what so ever.

    • Dude, what are you, 12? You’re mad at the guy because he’s a thief? Because he stole somebody elses candy and didn’t even share it? Who the cares if he really even stole it? I couldn’t care less where he got Ziphone! As long as it’s working perfect, hell, he can even steal my car! I just don’t expect to hear these kind of slanderous comments from someone who wasn’t even involved in the coding of Ziphone! I expect to hear this to the real makers of Ziphone (if Zibri is not the real one-I mean who really knew but Zibri and the Dev Team) not from some random guy who had problems with Ziphone in the past-maybe using past, unstable iteration of Ziphone. Why do you even care if doesnt give other people credit? Is it other coders (iLiberty+ – which sucks by the way, pwnage, or whatnot) really know the whole truth – that Ziphone isn’t really that bad after all – that’s why they need the all so important credit? You care about ethics? You have the to say that word in a hacking community? What gives? Really?

    • Hehe. You’re funny. Obviously, you have mixed definitions if ethics. Hacking my phone doesn’t doesn’t conflict with my ethics. I paid $400 for it, and I’ll do what I want with it. Stealing, like Zibri did, is a different story.
      And iLiberty+ sucks? iLiberty has custom payloads, and the option of Cydia. The reason Ziphone is so easy to use is because its soooo mediocre. And its fast because it does everything in the first boot, which could lead to memory corruption. Al others use a second pass to do most of it to avoid this.

    • cydia, well sorry but i had very bad experience with that app.. Installer IS and WILL be the best… not a seccond hand wanabe like cydia that specially kills the phone services.. and who knows what els mess inside, on the other hand is a good tool for unix techy users..

    • Sahil Arora says

      how much do u know about the iphone that u can say ziphone sucks……..im sure u know nothing ……… iLiberty sucks……are you sure?????

      Hanckint0sh a most respectful forum says YES ZIPHONE SUCKS, iLIBERTY IS OK AND PWNAGE RULES

    • sorry but yes..

    • I never said anything about iLiberty or PWNAGE so do not bring that up.

  17. I’ve used ziphone for my 1.1.4 iPhone too.. the only problem i had so far is when i open youtube.. it doesn’t work with ‘edge’ it can only work with ‘wifi’.. does my iphone have any problems? is it normal?

    • “…does my iphone have any problems?”

      I think you just answered your own question: “.. it doesnt work with ‘edge’ ”

      There’s obviously a problem when some of your phone’s function isnt working.

    • especially if you have the 5.99 tmobilr Internet. If not there is a fix in Installer

    • any idea to fix it?

  18. Aussiephone says

    Forget all your bias for or against. If you understand coding, you’ll understand the warning. A good dev will never take short cuts, just to be called #1. ZiPhone is guilty of this. As for firmware 2.0, programs have already been written, but won’t /shouldn’t be released until the full story on activation of 3g iphone is known.

  19. lol you should never Funk with your iPhone anyway! you choose to mod a phone that is not meant for you to mod. you will have problems and you will have issues. bigboss is just letting you in on them and what they do or are. smile and deal with it. some one was nice to show you and gave you a way to hack a phone which in all reality no one really knew how to do any way! Smile say thanks to bigboss for doing something that NO ONE HERE really knew how to do any way! LIFE IS GOOD you got a sick phone and free apps….

    THANKS BIG BOSS YOUR THE MAN AND THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP!

  20. Hey Zibri replied.. (google translation)

    “However ask IREV that iPhone has repaired hundreds… and I say NEVER NEVER an Iphone was bricked by Ziphone.
    In return a bunch of iPhones had some serious baseband problems, others display problems, other power and some interface (connection to the PC) and all got fixed ”

    “Obviously since Ziphone ‘has been downloaded by 4 million people, all the faults were blamed to Ziphone especially by the most ignorant.”

    These are the words of Zibri, wich probably explain how the allegations of BigBoss are unfounded and, perhaps, the result of envy.

  21. @arsen – I couldn’t agree with you more, man. You nailed it! Ziphone was, is, and always will be the best iPhone hack out there! All this write up (or down) is nothing but a result of envy!

    @braden – Are you kidding me? Cydia? Have you even tried using iLiberty+? Cydia?, no sources whatsoever! How can one download and install an app without a repo/source(s)? What, every time we need an app we need to SSH our phone? Cydia? I don’t know what you’ve been smoking lately but, dude, Cydia? Are you kidding me? Sucks big time if you ask me!

  22. Sahil Arora says

    not to mention you tube……..never worked on any ziphoned iphones iv seen.

  23. Phil, Washington, DC says

    Ahhh..after a day or two I came back to breath in more HATE! The iPhone gods are very disappointed I am sure. Spread Love not JAIL Hate!

  24. Shame to see this article on this site… Stolen or not, i used zibri more than 300 times on 100 different iphones and never got a tiny bit of problem…

  25. hello all
    i have one of the 1st gen iphone and i reciently tried to update from 1.1.4 to 2.0 sing itunes, the problem is itunes locked my phone and now asking for the origional sincard that came inofder to reactivate, problem is i don’t have it.
    i downloaded Ziphone 3.0 inorder to try and reunlock it but itkeeps freezing once the Ziphone gets to the part when it is rebooting the iphone. can some one please help me i have not a clue what to do next.
    thanks

  26. Wonderfully well written piece of writing!!

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