The Live Indian Entertainment Blog

The Spirit jailbreak for the iPhone and iPod touch on 3.1.2 / 3.1.3 and the iPad on 3.2 is now downloadable. The jailbreak is untethered (meaning you don't need to have your device cabled to a PC if you reboot it).

Jailbreaks rely on vulnerabilities in the devices, but the Spirit jailbreak uses a "userland" vulnerability. As the iPhone Dev Team describes it:

Userland jailbreaks are more troublesome for Apple since they expose security weaknesses that exist even for non-jailbroken owners. As such, Apple is likely to close them soon after they’re made public. One recent example of this is the SMS vulnerability exposed at Blackhat last summer. Apple released new firmware to close that hole within a day.

The best jailbreaks exploit holes such as in the one long used in the bootrom which was plugged last year, forcing newer iPhone users to have to resort to a tethered jailbreak.

In case you aren't clear, this isn't an unlock, just a jailbreak. Notes from the Spirit site:

• Any iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch on firmware 3.1.2, 3.1.3, or 3.2.
• An activated device: one not stuck on the Connect to iTunes or Emergency Call screen.
• Any version of iTunes 9 (including 9.1.1).
• Syncing with iTunes before trying this highly recommended.
• Note: On iPad, all this is still sort of beta. Some packages in Cydia, not designed for iPad, might screw up your system and require you to restore. Be careful. (And no, Cydia's appearance is not final.)