Student turns jailbreaking into 50K annual business

**lefty** · 04-08-2011

Most of us jailbreak our iOS devices to expand the functions of our devices or to simply customize the look. Jailbreaking itself has become much more popular in the last few years due to the amazing ease of the iPhone Dev Team’s tools.
Recent jailbreaking tools can jailbreak an iOS device with the clicks of a few buttons, where in the past the process was much more complex. With the ubiquitous nature of jailbreaking, it was only a matter of time before someone took advantage of it.
Kevin Lee, a George Mason University senior, claims he makes about $50,000 a year from hacking customers iPhones for them. The Washington Post is reporting that the student runs Craigslist ads that describe his different services. For example, Lee will unlock, jailbreak, and customize an iDevice for various prices.
Frankly, I feel charging people to jailbreak their iDevices is wrong. Even the Dev Team clearly states that their tools are NOT to be used for commercial use. While we don’t know which tools this student uses exactly, there’s no doubt in my mind it’s tools from the Dev Team.
I jailbreak iDevices for my friends and family, but of course I never charge them. Instead, I do it for free and then show them how easy it is to do. For everyone else, Gary and I publish easy to follow jailbreaking guides on this website for free.
A lot of blogs are publishing this story today and essentially applauding this kid. I disagree. If he is using the Dev Team’s tools, this is simply stealing and taking advantage of people. Either create your own jailbreak tools from scratch or get out.