Apple has allegedly taken steps to ban at least two iPhone “hackers” from its iTunes App Store.
According to Redmond Pie, iPhone developer and hacker Sherif Hashim was recently barred from the virtual store for so-called “security reasons.”
It should be noted that Hashim had recently discovered an exploit in the latest iPhone OS 3.1.3 which could unlock the 05.12.01 baseband for iPhone 3GS and 3G devices.
Meanwhile, Club Cupertino appears to have banned another serial hacker known as iH8sn0w, who developed the Sn0wbreeze PwnageTool alternative for Windows.
However, Jared Newman of PCWorld opined that the recent bans may represent isolated incidents, rather than the start of a mass crackdown against hackers and jailbreakers.
“Hashim hasn’t yet released his latest work to the general public, but the nature of the project is public knowledge. Apple could be staging an offensive against hackers, but there’s just not enough evidence to support that theory for sure,” opined Newman.
“Still, the idea of Apple punishing iPhone hackers is plausible. The company has argued that jailbreaking should be illegal, saying the practice leads to piracy, clogs customer support lines when phones crash, creates security problems, and could potentially knock out cell phone towers.”
