Yesterday’s hottest news was the leaking of a beta version of JailbreakMe that set the jailbreaking community on fire. Goncalo wrote a step-by-step guide for interested iPad 2 owners on how to go about jailbreaking the iPad 2 with it and, today, we’ve learned about how the leaking took place.
The story comes from Ryan Lobbins who states that, after Comex tweeted about a site called qoid.us, he stumbled upon the JailbreakMe files in a directory on the site’s servers. This was on 27th June, 2011.
This all started late one night on the 27th of June. I was playing Star Craft with some friends reading Comex’s twitter updates like every other person waiting for the jailbreak. That is when I had a crazy idea just to search a site he posted in a previous tweet. That site was www.qoid.us , during my initial search, the main thing that came up was comex’s bannerbomb exploit for the wii. This lead me to believe even more that the site was his. The next thing I did was just do a search for directories on his site and that is when I stumbled upon it. I saw a folder called saffron that grabbed my attention, mainly because jbme 2.0 was star.
Lobbins categorically states on his blog that he never intended for the files to leak out because he felt that, being a developer himself, he’d hate for his project to leak out before he himself thought it to be ready for primetime. And Comex has been working on JBme for a long, long time…
So what would you do if you stumbled on a website that had all the data for the jailbreak people have been waiting months for? At first I wasn’t sure what to do, let alone believe I found the files. The only true indication that I found them was all the pdf files, deb files named after different iOS devices, and a php file. The last thing I wanted was to just send out all the files saying here they are. As someone who has worked on a project for years in the past I would hate for my work to leak out before my self or the team was ready. Comex had been working on this for almost a year.
On 28th June, Lobbins first tested the files. His next move was to talk about the files he had received on a forum. People, of course, started calling him a “troll” because, well, he was claiming some big claims.
The first thing I did was the obvious, test the files. From comex’s tweets at the time I figured they were close to completion and wouldn’t completely brick my iPad. The next was I made a copy of the files for my own purpose of trying on other devices, not to leak them. I didn’t know if comex would have the files moved before I woke up the next day. Then as proof to my friends who had no reason to even want the jailbreak, but wanted to see it I uploaded them to this site. Worst mistake ever.
So, in order to prove them wrong, Lobbins sent a private message to a couple of other forum members with a picture of the new JBme site (with the site’s URL removed so it wouldn’t leak).
Now comes the next day, what would you do with the information you gained from decompiling and decompressing the files. You don’t want to leak them, but there has been no information on any updates. People are starting to doubt the jailbreak is even real. What I did was just spread information about the jailbreak, no pictures, no files, just me posting on forums what I know. Of course there were people calling me names saying I am a troll and other names. Next I sent off private messages to two people on the forums I was posting on. At that point after a few messages the only thing I sent was a picture. That was the first and only thing I sent. The picture was of the new jailbreakme website, with the url removed so the site didn’t get out. That was the end of it on June 28th.
Nothing happened for the next two days…
Until on 1st July, when Lobbins states that his curiosity piqued and he sent the files to fellow forum user Will Sayer aka “MultiMediaWill” and the rest, as they say, is history.
I went on vacation on the 30th and won’t be home until July 15th, but my curiosity started to get the better of me last night. I have these files that didn’t work on my iPad, but I wondered if they would work at all. I contacted another person on the forums who was multimediawill aka appreviewer will aka Will Sayer. He tried one of the pdf files and it jailbroke his iPad. I was surprised, he was surprised. He swore up and down he wouldn’t leak it, and I went to bed. That is when I woke up and saw my list of emails streaming in. Immediately the files were deleted, I felt stupid and horrible that my curiosity got the best of me and caused this. I never intended for it to get leaked out this big. In all I apologize to comex for my actions. I don’t want attention, and never wanted to spread his work like Will did. I was just curious, and this curiosity caused this.
MultiMediaWill tested the files. Jailbroke his iPad 2. Shot a video. And leaked the beta version of Comex’s highly-anticipated iPad 2 jailbreak. According to his Twitter account (now deleted), he “leaked it with hope that Comex will release the official jailbreak even faster.”
Late last night, MultiMediaWill, before deleting his Twitter account, publicly apologized to Comex for his actions, took down all the PDF files and the YouTube video of iPad 2 Jailbreak. But it was probably too late as the damage has already been done.
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