Month: May 2020

Enlarge (credit: Maurizio Pesce / Flickr)

Hackers have released a new jailbreak that any user can employ to gain root access on any iPhone, regardless of the hardware as long as it runs iOS 11 or later.

Dubbed unc0ver, the exploit works only when someone has physical access to an unlocked device and connects it to a computer. Those requirements mean that the jailbreak is unlikely to be used in most malicious scenarios, such as through malware that surreptitiously gains unfettered system rights to an iPhone or iPad. The inability for unc0ver to survive a reboot also makes it less likely it will be used in hostile situations.

Rather, unc0ver is more of a tool that allows users to break locks Apple developers put in place to limit key capabilities such as what apps can be installed, the monitoring of OS functions, and various other tweaks that are standard on most other OSes. The jailbreak, for instance, allows users to gain a UNIX shell that has root privileges to the iPhone. From there, users can use UNIX commands to do whatever they’d like.

Enlarge / Twitter's policies currently protect apparent rule-breaking posts due to a "world leader" clause. Tuesday saw the social media service try a different tack. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

Twitter's newest fact-checking initiative, which slaps warnings on misleading posts by major public officials, appeared on arguably the biggest possible account in North America on Tuesday: President Donald Trump.

Earlier that day, Trump used Twitter to allege that mail-in voting is inherently "fraudulent." Hours later, his posts were updated by Twitter to include a clickable, plain-text notice—"get the facts about mail-in ballots"—next to an exclamation-point icon.

Clicking that notice directs users to a page that cites "CNN, Washington Post and other fact checkers" in disputing the president's Tuesday-morning allegation. But before the Twitter page links to these citations, it opens with what appears to be entirely original language, as opposed to a quote from a press outlet: