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====== Status of iPhone / iPod touch 2.x firmware support ======

In firmware 2.x Apple added a new protection mechanism to prevent unauthorised modification of the iTunesDB database file on these devices. This is done via a special signature in the file, it has been referred to as a "hash" but it is more complicated than that.

At this time the complete method to generate a valid signature is not publicly known. Apple have tried to make it as hard as possible for someone to reverse engineer the method. Without having a way to generate a valid signature, full support of these devices/firmware versions is not possible. There is no ETA for this.

Some information was being collated on a Bluwiki article [[http://bluwiki.com/go/Ipodhash|here]] (created 22nd July 2008). This information was removed due to a [[http://bluwiki.com/go/Ipodhash/Takedown|legal claim by Apple]] that it violated the DMCA (first e-mail dated 10th November 2008). [[http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2008/11/support-free-speech-find-author-of.php|This is what happened next.]] Some analysis of Apple's claim can be read [[http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1036699&cid=25837581|here (random laywer?)]] and [[http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/apple-confuses-speech-dmca-violation|here (Fred von Lohmann, EFF)]]. The latest update is that [[http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2008/11/eff-agrees-to-represent-bluwiki.php|the EFF has agreed to represent BluWiki.]]

There remains an IRC channel #ipodhash on Freenode to discuss the protection mechanism.