5岁就在看电脑 Manual 拆箱子的小孩。
7岁就有做网上销售的念头。
12岁就破解 IPOD Mini 来下载游戏。
15岁就是主要在破解 IPHONE 的少年。
这不是天才是什么？
*很有趣的说法，反版权法令的说法是：我有权在我自己购买/拥有的手机，做任何我爱做的事，这是不犯法的。
看来苹果会很头大。
PHILADELPHIA -- Like many teenagers, Ari Weinstein spends his summers riding his bike and swimming. This year, the 15-year-old had another item on his to-do list: Foil Apple Inc.'s brightest engineers and annoy chief executive Steve Jobs.
Ari is part of a loose-knit group of hackers that has made it a mission to "jailbreak" Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. The term refers to installing unapproved software that lets people download a range of programs, including those not sanctioned by Apple.
Since Apple began selling its latest iPhone 3GS on June 19, Ari and six online cohorts spent hours a day probing the new product for security holes. This
weekend, one of the members of the group, dubbed the Chronic Dev Team, released the jailbreaking software they've been working on. Ari says the program is a test version with some bugs, but that users have successfully downloaded it. A quarter-million people have visited the site, he says."Coding and testing things that may or may not work, and figuring things out, is a really rewarding experience," says Ari, a Philadelphia resident who began hacking when he was 11.
Ari's hobby has ruffled the feathers of famously secretive Apple, which exerts tight control over its gadgets and sells programs for its iPhones exclusively through its App Store site.
"The vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones, and for good reason," an Apple spokeswoman says. "These modifications not only violate the warranty, they also cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably."
Mr. Jobs, in the past, has called dueling with hackers a "cat-and-mouse game" and has said it is Apple's "job to stop them from breaking in."
So far, Apple hasn't stopped them. A year ago, when the Cupertino, Calif., company launched its iPhone 3G, a team of hackers released jailbreaking software for the device less than a week later.
The software, which can be downloaded from a Web site, gives users access to a store that sells programs that Apple doesn't. These include applications that block ads on the iPhone's mobile Internet browser, for example, or let the phone double as a laptop-computer modem.
In February, Apple filed a 27-page statement to the U.S. Copyright office arguing that modifying phones violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Digital-rights advocates say they believe it isn't illegal because people own their phones outright. The copyright office is expected to rule in the fall.
Ari says he takes ethics seriously and says he has researched the Millennium Copyright law online. But he has concluded his actions aren't wrong. He also has a lawyer, who he says volunteered his services after Ari created iJailbreak, a piece of free software that worked on the original iPhone, two years ago.
"Apple doesn't have the right to tell me what I can put on my phone," says Ari, who uses non-Apple-sanctioned programs that let him change the look of his home screen and administer Web sites from his phone. "I only do hacking that helps people."
Ari became interested in technology as a preschooler, when he would flip through the manual for a cable set-top box and change the settings on the family computer. "I remember it being a big relief when he went to kindergarten," says his mother, Judy Weinstein, 43, a social worker.
At age 7, Ari teamed up with two other boys to create playing cards, decorated with hand-drawn characters, to sell online. The business never took off. But Ari says he learned to build Web sites, among other things: The site he created wasn't on the child-approved list of his AOL Internet service, he says, so to access it, he had to figure out how to get around AOL's parental controls.
"That's when we knew we should start teaching him ethics," says his dad, Ken Weinstein, 45, a real-estate developer.
Ari started hacking in sixth grade after looking for a way to download free games on his iPod mini. Two years ago, he received an iPod touch for his bar mitzvah and says he jailbroke the device in an evening. He later simplified the process into the iJailbreak software.
He says the program has been downloaded a million times. Some users donated cash, a standard way of showing appreciation for free software, and Ari says he received "several thousand dollars" in all.
Reference: "Wallstreet Journal, By YUKARI IWATANI KANE "
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