There has been much controversy around the surprise public release of an iOS 7 jailbreak earlier this week, and the jailbreak’s authors, the evad3rs, have published another open letter in an attempt to clear up some questions and concerns related to the release.
The biggest questions many are still asking are related to why and how the group made a deal with Taig, an app store of sorts that was installed on jailbroken devices in China, while not including an updated Cydia store in the release. While the group cleared up much of the situation in its first letter and removed Taig following piracy concerns…
The team’s latest letter addresses questions such as if any money was exchanged with Taig, and expresses disappointment that the company released a cracked version of the jailbreak.
The full letter is as follows:
Privacy and Taig
First and foremost, and of utmost concern, is privacy. No one’s data was ever sent anywhere. Of course, as a member of the community whose work frees devices, it would be against everything we’ve worked for the last 7 years to jeopardize the security of the users of our software. To reiterate, no Taig software was installed unless the computer’s language was set to Chinese. Furthermore, no Taig software would run unless the user opened the Taig application.
After rumors abound of encrypted data being sent for users in China who’ve installed Taig, we decided to do what we do best – reverse engineer the code of Taig to understand what was being sent. Taig transmitted data similar to what Cydia transmits. Unique device identifiers were transmitted in encrypted form similar to how Cydia uses SSL to protect the privacy of its users. Taig did not transmit any private user data from the devices at all.
Piracy and Taig
Our written and verbal agreement with Taig banned it. They assured us it was not in there. We did not check every package in their store but a cursory examination before release found no problems. However, after investigation and after notification from the community, we found examples, including pirated tweaks, Apple App Store apps, and even pod2g’s PodDJ app. We dropped the ball on this. While we at first did not believe Taig purposefully violated our agreement, the depth of the transgression against the software developers and the jailbreak community cannot be overlooked and we could not move forward after that even if it were fixed. We terminated our relationship with them. We are very disappointed that they have decided to put up a cracked version of the jailbreak on their site that installs Taig. We did not give them any permission or source code.
We have refused all monies from Taig
There have been a lot of rumors listing various amounts we’ve been paid. We have received no monies from any group, including Taig. We will not be accepting any money. Our donations are being given to Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure to help protect jailbreaking as your legal right.
Jailbreak Updates
We are working hard to fix the problems with the jailbreak. Unfortunately, it’s the holidays and we would like to spend time with our friends and family. The events of the last couple of days have been extremely stressful for us and we need some time to recover. We will work as hard as we can to resolve any remaining issues. Thank you for your understanding.
We worked very hard to bring this jailbreak free of charge to the community. We hope you can all enjoy it.
evad3rs
