'Evasi0n' iOS 7 Jailbreak Controversy Surrounding Piracy and Chinese Partnership

Sunday December 22, 2013 8:16 pm PST by Richard Padilla

After the Evasi0n untethered jailbreak was updated for newer iPhones, iPads, and iOS 7.x earlier today, Cydia administrator Jay Freeman noted on his Twitter that he was not informed about a new version of the jailbreak before its release. Beyond that, he also reported that the new jailbreak automatically installs a third party app store named Taig which distributes cracked apps in China.

Following Freeman's comments, two tweets by developer i0n1c claims that the Chinese company Taig paid the Evad3rs development team "a big pile of money" to release the jailbreak in order to bundle its app store onto devices.

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Now, the Evad3rs development team behind the jailbreak has posted an open letter to the jailbreak community on its website, trying to address the various concerns surrounding the method and emphasizing the safety and security of its users.

The team admitted that it was indeed approached by a company with an offer to include Taig with the jailbreak in China, feeling that it was "well-suited to meet the needs of users for the Chinese market." The team also notes that users are not locked into Taig, with the program giving users given the ability to uninstall the Chinese app store and install Cydia.

Also addressed was the speculation concerning the possible disclosure of exploits and methods to Taig:

Taig has never asked us to disclose our exploits to them, let alone sell them. We were simply asked to bundle their third-party app store in China in a similar way we bundle and distribute Cydia around the world as an additional App Store, and in a similar way to how previous jailbreaks like blackra1n have bundled non-Cydia stores.

Furthermore, the developers also claim that they were unaware that Taig contained pirated apps upon access, and say they are removing instances of piracy and that Taig had contractually agreed not to serve pirated apps. They say they "will continue to monitor this issue and work to resolve it completely" and that Taig will be removed if it can't be resolved.

Currently, Evasi0n is available for OS X and Windows as an untethered jailbreak.

Top Rated Comments

impulse462

167 months ago

This is a big blow to jailbreakers images. Majority of them don't engage/are against piracy. Whoever allowed this app into the jailbreak in the first place should be ashamed.

Furthermore, whoever does engage in piracy are pretty awful if you ask me. People spend a lot of time and effort to make apps/movies/music etc. If you can't be bothered to compensate developers or artists for their work, you should suck it up and live without their work.

Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)

ideal.dreams

167 months ago

I jailbroke my 5s earlier this evening but after I found out about all this I restored my phone back to stock iOS 7. It was foolish of them to sell out and ruin what was once a good thing. What I found really shocking was that they kept to themselves about everything. Saurik didn't even know about this and Cydia isn't even updated for iOS 7. Nor are the majority of the tweaks.

As I was going through my list of installed tweaks from previous iOS jailbreaks, I noticed that almost all of them were brought as features in iOS 7. The only thing I installed after jailbreaking today was MyWi, which I will happily live without until this situation gets sorted out. I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in the way this was all handled.

Lol. Beyond sketchy.

Happily using stock, secure Android 4.4.2 on my Nexus 5. You guys have entered the shady world that Android has always been accused of. Nope, all is well here. If you want features and flexibility, get a Nexus 5 / Moto X. Life is great on this side. Android is beautiful and has come such a long way.

Careful out there. It's a scary world.

Enjoy having your information sent to China. Sounds fun!

You're taking an incident that has occurred ONE time over the many years jailbreaking has existed and generalizing it as one big reason to ditch the entire OS. That's like saying you bit into an apple and found it was rotten, therefore you should only eat pears from that point forward.

Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

mKTank

167 months ago

They potentially jeopardized the possibility of the jailbreak for the final release of 7.1 because they rushed for money. Well evaders I hope you're happy with your money but you've practically single-handedly destroyed whatever trust was left within the jailbreak community and probably helped Apple fix the exploit by 7.1GM. Not to mention all of the fishy stuff your jailbreak seems to be doing with contacting Chinese sites: (just peruse through the mess: http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/).

Great work guys!

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Lol. Beyond sketchy.

Happily using stock, secure Android 4.4.2 on my Nexus 5. You guys have entered the shady world that Android has always been accused of. Nope, all is well here.

Careful out there. It's a scary world.

I'm an Android fan just as much as you are but you're not really making a point here at all. This isn't some official thing that happened to iOS; it's a hack that you specifically have to go out of your way to install. There's nothing insecure about that.

Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

inkswamp

167 months ago

Happily using stock, secure Android 4.4.2 on my Nexus 5. You guys have entered the shady world that Android has always been accused of. Nope, all is well here. If you want features and flexibility, get a Nexus 5 / Moto X. Life is great on this side. Android is beautiful and has come such a long way.

Not really. Android has come a long way in terms of Android, but it's nowhere near as beautiful and solid as iOS. Fact is that iOS is faster, more efficient and way more stable and secure. I'm not sure why flexibility is so desirable that you'd give up all those things.

BTW, I've owned Android phones. I'm not some Apple die-hard doing a knee-jerk defense here. You can go on and on all day long about how much more flexible Android is than iOS but at the end of the day, all that flexibility piled on top of an unstable, unpredictable OS that is more often than not difficult to deal with and near-impossible to update is meaningless.

And a lot of what Android fans brag about in terms of flexibility is really more about shoehorning Android into a desktop OS mold. I'd rather sacrifice some flexibility and instead have a world-class mobile OS that excels at what it does, while remaining secure and stable and effortless to update.

Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)

jmh600cbr

167 months ago

everybody should just back off. [LIST=1]
* there is no hard evidence that information is being sent anywhere
* taig has been removed from the jailbreak
* saurik has admitted that he too was aware of taig and he did know about the jailbreak just not the release date
* THESE PEOPLE DESERVE MONEY
* they are donating all contribution to a good cause
* they work their asses off and do they make money? no! but the guys who make tweaks (and arguably work nowhere near as hard as the evaders) get paid!
* do you donate to them? probably you don't. who puts food on their tables.

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)