As all of you already know (except my wife because she reads this blog to spy on me... ily honey) today @geohot is releasing blacksn0w which will unlock the 05.11.07 baseband for the iphone (3gs/3g). This is terrific news for all of you that are on unofficial carriers. If there are any of you reading this post now that have stupidly accidentally upgraded your iphone os from 3.0/3.0.1 and lost your unlock, you will be granted a get-out-of-jail free card (pun intended). As @geohot said, this is likely the best all of us have it. So be very careful from now on. One - three misclicks in iTunes can render your phone jailed and locked once again.
But what happens when @pple stops signing signature hashes for 3.1/3.1.2 for 3gs phones?
How will we be able to fix a phone that is stuck rebooting or needs to be restored for any reason once @pple decides that you MUST update to the latest iPhone OS because they won't sign your ecid SHSH to allow you to restore 3.1/3.1.2?
You have two great options: 1. Saurik automatically saves your ecid SHSH file on his secure servers if you install cydia on your jailbroken iPhone OR if you point to cydia.saurik.com in your etc/hosts file and perform an iTunes restore.
NOTE: ALWAYS be careful when trying to restore via iTunes.
2. TinyTSS and Umbrella are your local option. Using these two tools will allow you to save the all-important ecid shsh file locally on your computer. You can then load the same file using TinyTSS and putting "127.0.0.1 gs.apple.com" in your etc/hosts file will allow you to restore to whatever version of the iPhone OS you have an ecid SHSH file for.
Which approach should you use? Both. You simply cannot be too safe. Umbrella is incredibly easy to use and TinyTSS is a command line tool that I plan on updating with a neat GUI.
As it stands now though, the download link on the right will always have the latest version. Check back regularly for updates.
And yes, I still plan on adding soft-activation and local activation to TinyTSS. I'm just quite busy and life > this. :)
TinyTSS is a small java app that acts as your very own signature service.
When iTunes verifies your restore for your 3gs phone, it 'phones home' to see if you are allowed to restore to the version you are requesting. With TinyTSS + the shsh blob file(s) you obtained with Umbrella, you will be able to restore to the version of those shsh files forever!
People may wonder why I did this when Saurik is already doing the same thing. I'll explain my philosophy. I admire Saurik for what he has done and I thank him for pointing me in this direction. I simply think that I would rather have my shsh blobs on my personal machine AND on his server for safe keeping. This way if something happens to cydia, I can still restore my phone to the version I want to restore to.
Plus I have the peace of mind knowing that my files are safely in my possession. I don't have to worry that some catastrophic event could render my downgrades impossible.
So use cydia's shsh storage feature! But use Umbrella and TinyTSS if you are a power user that wants control over your own ecid shsh files and want to be able to use your own machine for restores.
I've fixed a bug that I introduced accidentally. I had forgotten to add a library or two to the Manifest so it wasn't able to run from the jar.
UPDATE: I've revamped the readme file. It should be a bit more informative. Also removed an error on JRE 1.5 on Leopard
UPDATE: You can follow me on twitter: notcom
Download Umbrella and TinyTSS together:
If you need an md5 checker I like: Nirsoft's MD5 Checker
I've gotten quite a few questions about donations. I'll accept donations but I want it clear that I did this for fun.
If you really want to donate you can contact me at xsemaphorex (the symbol for the word "at") gmail (the dot symbol) com.
