The Proliferation of Linux

It seems that Apple may have thrown us another reason why to avoid the iPhone 3G. Apparently Apple may have included a kill switch in every iPhone that can remotely disable any application.  That’s right, AFTER you paid for it.

According to iPhone hacker Jonathan Zdziarski he has found a blacklisting system embedded in the iPhone 2.x firmware by Apple.

This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down.

I discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation.

Not only does this make it possible for Apple to remotely disable any application it doesn’t like, it also opens up the issue of privacy.  Is Apple spying on it’s customers?

Engadget [via Slashdot]

UPDATE: Steve Jobs has confirmed [Wired] the kill switch:

“Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull” he told the Wall Street Journal.

I wonder if he would include such a “lever” on normal PC or Mac applications?