iPhone Dev-Team Asks 3GS Owners to Prepare for Jailbreak

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Posted July 1, 2009 at 11:54pm by iClarified

The iPhone Dev-Team has asked 3GS owners to prepare for the upcoming jailbreak by capturing their iBEC and iBSS files.

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Remember we warned you to stay away from any updates to 3.1 if you want to be able to jailbreak or unlock your 3GS.

Well this is an additional message to all you 3GS owners that would like to jailbreak your device sometime soon, but this advice comes with a warning! A warning that if you accidentally upgrade to 3.1, you will not be able to use Ultransn0w, so please re-read and double check this warning at the bottom of this post before proceeding.

You may have read or heard about techniques to capture files during the iTunes restore process. These will be required to jailbreak your phone in the near future, most of the methods involve icky USB snoops. Well, there is an even better and more reliable method to get your hands on those lovely files.

During the restore process iTunes nicely keeps these oh-so-top-secret-files in a lovely accessible place for us to copy out and backup, that place? /tmp on Mac OS X or %TEMP% on Windows. Thanks Apple - handy!

The downside to this approach is that you actually need to go through the restore process to get these signed files, which has risks if you are anywhere near 3.1 or 3.1 beta :-)

If you are ready to proceed and you know the risks we'll get down to the nitty-gritty -

So during a usual recovery with iTunes, your signed iBEC is written to /tmp and during a DFU mode restore the signed iBSS is written there also. To be sure, restore in both modes one after another to be able to grab them both. You'll need to keep an eye on the temp directory and copy it before it is deleted again by iTunes. I'm sure some nice folks will create a tutorial about this, we'll link to the first person who makes a good one.

Should you choose to accept this mission, act fast, this needs to be done quickly! But again, always, always double check here to see if 3.1 has been released, if is has, then don't do this.
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You can find instructions on how to do this here: Windows, Mac

iPhone Dev-Team Asks 3GS Owners to Prepare for Jailbreak

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pancholelo - July 2, 2009 at 8:29pm

So, I used the ECID to generate the unique certificate and also obtained the signed iBEC and iBSS files. They are about 103kb correct? Anything else I need to do so far? Thanks for your help.

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pekay - July 2, 2009 at 5:46am

Does it mean, that when 3.1 is out, this method of preparation won't work anymore even if I restore 3.0 firmware?

DistortedLoop - July 2, 2009 at 9:46am

Yes, that's the implication. Apple will probably break this method with the 3.1 update, or secure it. Also, for unlockers, 3.1 changes the baseband, which may be un-unlockable.

B00t - July 2, 2009 at 5:08am

This is getting ridiculous! I got the files, but this seems like there will be a lot of peeps that can't play with the 3gs, kinda sad for the avg user...

prazer - July 2, 2009 at 3:08am

So...does this mean the Dev Team is going to release a JB soon?

`DNA` - July 2, 2009 at 3:38am

There will be no release of a Jailbreak for the 3GS prior to the release of the 3.1 Firmware.

eLL Mobile - July 2, 2009 at 3:00am

is it possible to jail break and unlock fw 3.1 with the new basband?

`DNA` - July 2, 2009 at 3:35am

To answer your question. No, it is not possible. Now to clarify...at this time the 3.1 Firmware includes a Baseband update which will not work with Ultrasn0w. You must use pwnage tool (once its updated to support 3.1) to update the iPhone to the 3.1 Firmware without applying the 5.08.01 Baseband. Or a custom 3.1.ipsw created by pwnage tool. Now in order to Jailbreak in the first place so you can unlock the iPhone your going to need the ECID, and just in case apple tries any tricks, you should really have a backup of the .iBSS and .iBEC files so if needed you can downgrade back to 3.0 where you can safely Jailbreak & Unlock.

DR - July 2, 2009 at 1:17am

Hi, I thought it was enough to get the ECID and with it the file on purplera1n. Should we (3GS) do this too? tx

vanimox - July 2, 2009 at 1:23am

Yes! Apple has put alot of extra security in the new iPhone 3GS and both the ECID and this must be done, of coarse if your not in any hurry you can always wait a few months until the Dev team & Geohot comes up with an eaiser way...

seanwes - July 2, 2009 at 1:50am

I want to know this as well, I did the purplera1n thing, is this in addition to that?

Vit - July 2, 2009 at 2:19am

Apparently yes :/ After 2 restores need to upload everything back to iPhone... Sucks :) By the way comments on Dev Blog says that it's enough just second part of restoring (DFU Mode)...

Cosmo - July 2, 2009 at 12:51pm

I've just boughta 32 g 3GS, but i'm not an At&T customer (i'm not even in the us anymore), so i cound't even activate the Iphone. Is there any way i can get it working, so i could get these files?

MZ - July 2, 2009 at 6:43pm

Hey this happened to me while i was overseas a couple months ago when i was trying to update my 3G to get yellowsn0w. When i restored, the phone had to be activated, but i couldnt use my AT&T chip cus i dont have roaming overseas. I thought i was screwed until i returned to the US. Luckily, there IS a way to activate you phone. First of all, for the iphone to activate, it just needs to have a cell phone signal. As soon as the phone gets reception, the phone will activate. It doesn't matter if its the AT&T network or not, just that the phone has a signal (i think its beacuse that the phone assumes that since the phone is locked, if you are getting a signal, then you must be using the correct chip). What you need to do since your overseas is buy (or borrow) one of those sim card things (like turbo sim or sumtin) that will work on the 3Gs baseband (not sure if they make them yet). Just pop it in with your local chip, and as soon as the phone gets reception, you will see that the phone will say it has just been activated. It worked for me on the 3G and should be same for the 3Gs. I hope this helps dude. Good luck!