After much controversy surrounding the surprise release of a public iOS 7 jailbreak from well-known jailbreakers the evad3rs, the team has published another open letter 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 latest letter addresses questions specifically regarding if any money was exchanged with Taig. It also expresses disappointment that the company released a cracked version of the jailbreak.
The full letter is below:
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
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What staggers me is that anyone has the balls to question anything that anyone does. Don’t like it? Jailbreak the device yourself, with your OWN exploit and your OWN coding.
People are awful.
Well I think they know they screwed up on this, but are trying to put things right. Given their history I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’ve prepped my devices and will jailbreak once the kinks have been worked out and cydia and tweaks are functioning properly.
Screwed up according to WHO’S standards? Do pathetic whiny iPhone owners feel entitled to such jailbreak releases? Are they required to provide a certain level of quality, or reliability, or legitimacy? Hell no.
+1
You need to know the whole story and put it in perspective to understand how bad this is, how poisoned the scene is and how hypocritical this official evaders letter is.
1.- The last couple of months there had been chinese companies headhunting for iphone hackers, offering up to 150,000 per hacker in “donations”.
2.- Evaders releases an untethered jailbreak that was untested, breaks everything, uses an exploit that has already been patched in 7.1 and doesn’t even include cydia because saurik was kept out of the loop. But it includes Taig’s illegal AppStore. A little background on Taig: the company was booted of the Apple AppStore for pushing a clock App that stole and sent to their servers in China personal info from your iOS device, back before iOS asked for permission for Apps to access both the information stored in Contacts and your photos.
3.- Taig’s parent company publicly acknowledges their involvement and announces that their own team will be releasing their own JB next week.
4.- Tim Cook announces the China Mobile deal mere hours after the evaders release.
huh?
It was tested and worked fine for many people. Cydia WAS included but hadn’t been updated and almost no apps worked because they hadn’t been updated either. Taig was ONLY installed on iPhones where Chinese was default language.
How is Taig illegal? It’s no different than Cydia. Both are stores that people can loaded cracked apps to if so desired. How would you like living in China or only speaking Chinese and only having an English version of Cydia to find JB apps. A Chinese version of Cydia will be up and running sooner rather than later and it WILL contain cracked and pirated apps, there is no way around it since it is the JB community NOT run by Apple.
You have all kinds of not having the right info going on in your post.
Yea.. Not sure where he’s getting his info, but it’s not correct haha. I have Cydia on my iPhone 5 right now and haven’t had a single problem with it.
It’s like saying “I stole this the Apps from developers and left it on the roadside and I am sure the others will not steal it…”. The damage is done and someone is going to have the credit card and all the sensitive information you carry around with your phone. Welcome to piracy…
why? For the 7 figure payday lol. I know it just crushes everyone to realize that the “free” work they do has made them millionaires. Trust me they appreciate all the sympathy and admiration and donations this has created. And they have laughed all the way to the bank.
Fortunately for me, between this coming out and the blizzard devs saying they ruined the mmo genre (both things I have been saying for years now) the level of gratification is profound.
Sheep can deny and mock me fairly conscious free, but when they deny the hand that feeds them (for lack of a better phrase) now they risk sounding absolutely ignorant at best.
Lol they terminated the agreement because of the shitstorm that followed. Please.
Oh, and if you didn’t think they were already very wealthy due to this, do you think anything would have stopped them from a million dollar pay day? Nope!
I would have taken if and closed up shop if that’s what it took. Still more than many people make in a lifetime.
Keep on jailbreakin for “free” guys!
(P.S. This was in no way indicative of my displeasure with evaders or the way they operate. You guys do great work and deserve to be compensated. To what degree is not for me to decide. This cynical post was to simply remind the sheep they’ve been herded)
Must feel good to declare yourself above everyone else. Just how is it that you stay so informed and are impervious to the indoctrination that seems to have captured everyone as of late? Stop calling people sheep.
And get over yourself
So silly.. yeah sure.. they didn’t get any money.. they are all good thieves, so kind people.. Donating all their money to evade taxes better… that is what donations are for.