RIM PlayBook Tablet Jailbroken 63
Trailrunner7 writes "A group of researchers is claiming that they've found a root exploit that enables them to jailbreak the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet made by Research In Motion. In a video demonstration of the jailbreak, one of the researchers shows off the ability to change the settings on a PlayBook and says that he also has the ability to install the Android Market app on the tablet."
weren't playbooks android apps converted.. (Score:3)
..with a converter?
or is it just a wrapper? or just some totally unnecessary shit rim added to the hoopla loop to have master keys on which store you get your apps from?
wtf?
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Not running Android (Score:5, Informative)
playbook is NOT running android. Its running openjdk based JVM. The android apps have to be packaged with RIMs packaging tools so the JVM on playbook can fire the app. The jdk holds playbook's implementation of android classes. as an e.g. opengl calls on the playbook jvm translate to lower level graphics call that are relevant to playbook.
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Actually, it's running QNX. I don't believe the Playbook is running Java.
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I stand by my comment. BlackBerry phones run JVM. The Playbook does not. The applications are based on Adobe Air.
As of right now the Playbook does not run JVM.....you retard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_PlayBook [wikipedia.org]
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Go read the "Future Android and Java application support" section. The future they are talking about is Android player which will use Java. They run a full JVM on their QNX OS.
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JVM is not loaded on BB Playbook 1.x. My comment is correct.
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Congratulations?
Re:Heartbreaking (Score:5, Informative)
The original OS has been rooted, at last year's pwn2own contest for instance...
There is incentive to root Android, iOS and the new Blackberry OS since it's QNX based, because once rooted you can install unofficial apps and all these systems are unix based so there is plenty of unofficial code you could install...
The older blackberry os is completely proprietary, even if you rooted it you'd have nothing to install on it.. Also the average blackberry users are corporates, not the kind of geeks who would want to root their phones.
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Except that on PlayBook and Android, you can also install unofficial apps without rooting. Nothing to see here.
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Giving even less incentive to root the device...
There are some things on Android you can't do without root, but for most users the ability to install unofficial apps is all that's required.
Re:Heartbreaking (Score:5, Interesting)
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HTC is a big culprit: their Gingerbread update took forever and only the Desire/Z/HD & Incredible got the upgrade at all.
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The older blackberry os is completely proprietary, even if you rooted it you'd have nothing to install on it..
WTF? Since when is J2ME [wikipedia.org] proprietary? [blackberry.com]
AFAIK RIM has never dictated what apps can or cannot be installed. They do however make that power available to BES administrators. One of the biggest mistakes RIM made IMO was their lack of vision creating an "app store". Until I discovered Handango.com [handango.com] around 2004/2005 whenever I needed a particular type of app I would post to a forum and hope someone else knew of an app that would do what I needed.
What a shame (Score:5, Funny)
Now the PlayBook will have a native email client :(
Almost worth it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Best Buy is trying to dump these for $199.
Only about $99 too high for me. Sorry, almost worth it, but I'm not springing $200 for what is a short-lived product. The hardware will not be supported much beyond warranty, I fear.
Still, RIM is on track to convert to Android. So long as their mail client is better on Androidt than it is on iOS, they have a chance. Even Google is stumbling out of the iOS gate. There is still time for RIM to maintain some relevance.
And privacy isn't much of a problem for RIM any
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well what isn't a short lived product?
and they can maintain relevance.. by.. eh.. becoming eudora?
they could maintain relevance if they had some solid hardware building knowhow in house, if they weren't just another batch of bozos who orders shit from odm's.
Re:Almost worth it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Still, RIM is on track to convert to Android.
Source? Seriously, people that say this crap don't know what they're talking about.
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Wtf, why is this modded insigntful? QNX is a far superior OS to Android or iOS.
[Citation needed]
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Re:Almost worth it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Almost worth it... (Score:5, Informative)
Best Buy is trying to dump these for $199.
Only about $99 too high for me. Sorry, almost worth it, but I'm not springing $200 for what is a short-lived product. The hardware will not be supported much beyond warranty, I fear.
Actually RIM announced in their earnings call this past September that they would be running these discounts in order to move inventory; and recently there has been talk from RIM about a next generation of PB tablets.
Your statement (I can't call it reasoning, because there is no reasoning present) makes no sense considering that they're moving their entire future platform to "BBX" as they call it and have a major new platform release scheduled for February, specifically for the tablet.
And privacy isn't much of a problem for RIM any more. They are no more or less secure than Facebook, and their corporate clients are losing any hope of being safe from the prying eyes of sovreign states. Welcome to the party, security is an illusion.
You're referring to the fact that the enterprise BES data is encrpyted, and RIM literally can't give anyone access because RIM does not own the user's private keys?
Still, RIM is on track to convert to Android. So long as their mail client is better on Androidt than it is on iOS, they have a chance. Even Google is stumbling out of the iOS gate. There is still time for RIM to maintain some relevance.
[citation required] See above comment about missing reasoning - why would RIM convert to Android? Any new Android player is doomed to minimal market share at best, at this point -- there are already too many on the market, and they're sure to be whittled down in the coming years.
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It seems that RIM has found the sweet spot in pricing. WIll they price the next PB there? If not, I would expect another sale.
Of course, RIM gives up 'non-entierprise' data (so far as we know) when governments demand it [mobileburn.com]. BES is the target of many nations, and RIM may find itself forced to either give it up via some back door added in, or disclaim the data and let themselves be forced out of those nations - though I suspect a comprmise will be reached.
On the Android front, RIM is apparently developing too
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It seems that RIM has found the sweet spot in pricing. WIll they price the next PB there? If not, I would expect another sale.
They did - if they'd priced it in the 200-300 range to start, it would have fared much better.
Of course, RIM gives up 'non-entierprise' data (so far as we know) when governments demand it [mobileburn.com].
Of course they do - as does every other carrier out there - a fact that nobody sees fit to mention when they point out how RIM shares non-enterprise data. It's the cost of doing business in a country.
BES is the target of many nations, and RIM may find itself forced to either give it up via some back door added in, or disclaim the data and let themselves be forced out of those nations - though I suspect a comprmise will be reached.
Speculation and more speculation. So far, they haven't been forced to do so - and governments have been trying for years. There's no evidence to suggest that this will be changing.
On the Android front, RIM is apparently developing tools to manage other platforms. I expect BES services to be delivered on those platforms in time, sooner rather than later, and BBX (is that it?) may become a bit player. Even a small share of the phone market is good money, and RIM may yet compete.
I agree. I do not expect to see RI
Does this mean (Score:2)
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You miss the point. It's not difficult.
It's just ridiculously bozo-the-clown-shoes stupid
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Yeah push email and automatic notifications are so overrated.
I guess next you will suggest that I let all of my phone calls go to voicemail and call and check to see if I have any messages every so often,,,,,
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Well, if you want *real* push email, you'll already have a Blackberry, so ... what exactly is your point again?
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How is push email any less real with ActiveSync running on a tablet?
Not 'rooted' (Score:5, Informative)
Remember this is QNX. This is a privilege escalation above the default 'devuser'. I still see nothing that indicates that the bootloader or anything of importance was 'rooted' in the same sense as an Android 'root' or and iPhone 'jailbreak'.
Mod parent up... (Score:1)
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Ehm... not quite (Score:5, Informative)
IF you have the physical device, and IF you have developer access to it, and IF you explicitly sideload this... then some additional access has been obtained to the OS.
Unlike the iPhone/Android "jailbreak" concept, this lets you muck about in the OS but doesn't give any way to overwrite the bootloader.
It's an interesting proof of concept, and certainly something RIM should be looking into ... but it also isn't the fatal flaw in RIM security that much of the popular tech press is reporting.
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That is not unlike a Rooted Motorola Droid 2, which gives you true root access, but the bootloader (and kernel) remain locked and unchangeable. The Andorid community stills considers that rooted, although it is limited compared to most other devices.
Corporate security? (Score:2)
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See thePowerOfGrayskull's comment above:
IF you have the physical device, and IF you have developer access to it, and IF you explicitly sideload this... then some additional access has been obtained to the OS.
Unlike the iPhone/Android "jailbreak" concept, this lets you muck about in the OS but doesn't give any way to overwrite the bootloader.
It's an interesting proof of concept, and certainly something RIM should be looking into ... but it also isn't the fatal flaw in RIM security that much of the popular tech press is reporting.
It's not a major issue, and RIM will undoubtedly fix it (they usually catch this sort of thing and patch it long before it's discovered).
Researcher or Hacker (Score:3, Funny)
What are the physical difference (Score:1)
...between a RIM playbook and the Amazon Kindle Fire?
Everyone talked about similarities, but are they identical?
Re:What are the physical difference (Score:5, Informative)
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They look similar, that's it. The Playbook is much higher quality hardware with two cameras, gyro, gps and bluetooth.
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Anybody that thinks the Playbook and Kindle Fire are similar must also believe that there are no differences between a Corolla and a Porche 911.
Why bother? (Score:1)
The only way I could see a jailbreak useful would be if they were able to wipe out all the BB crud and make the device useful. The only problem with that would be what is the command line that makes your screen physically bigger?
RIM devices are in so many technical ways better than most other devices yet due to the company being way out of touch
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Sure. RIM's future does look bright -- they've made some fantastic acquisitions over the past few years, Torch Mobile, QNX, DataViz, The Astonishing Tribe (TaT) just to name a few.
As for the appeal of their devices, the PlayBook (while slammed in the media) is a really great tablet in terms of hardware and the software get's better with each release. The UI is undeniably next-gen (they're well ahead of the game here).
Their phones are rock-solid. They have best-in-class security. They have one of the best
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RIM should kneel down and praise this hacker (Score:2)
Jailbreaking the Playbook may have just saved RIM from extinction.