The lack of a jailbreak and the shutting down of Cydia repositories seems to have convinced many people that iPhone jailbreaking is dead. But we finally have some ray of hope.
Now though things seem more optimistic as Google’s Project Zero is expected to release a new exploit, which will be helpful in creating a public iOS 11 jailbreak. The information comes from Google researcher Ian Beer who says Google will soon be making the exploit public. Beer noted that he will be releasing tfp0, which stands for task for pid 0 soon and has advised users to keep their “research only” devices on iOS 11.1.2 if they want to take advantage of the exploit. Apple has already closed the said exploit in iOS 11.2, so it will be crucial for those interested in a jailbreak to keep their devices on this particular version.
If you're interested in bootstrapping iOS 11 kernel security research keep a research-only device on iOS 11.1.2 or below. Part I (tfp0) release soon.
— Ian Beer (@i41nbeer) December 5, 2017
tfp0 exploit in layman terms is considered 80 percent of a jailbreak with read/write privileges for the kernel. You still need a kernel patch protection bypass (kppp) which well-known hacker Luca Todesco believes is possible iOS 10.3 onwards as Apple can’t fix the core issue. Interesting it was Ian Beer exploit that had lead to the first iOS 10 jailbreak last Christmas.
While information is thin on this but it is very likely that the exploit that Beer is going to release will only make semi-tethered jailbreak possible. Which means you will have to launch an app to ‘activate’ the jailbreak upon every reboot. Support for all models of iPhones isn’t guaranteed either. So a jailbreak may or may not support the latest iPhone X or iPhone 8 since they have a different processor than previous models.
Twitter user Jonathan Levin clarifies:
To all wen eta naggers, if it wasn't clear: UPDATE TO iOS 11.1.2 (TvOS 11.1) NOW – that's what @i41nbeer's TFP0 will be for. iOS 11.1 NO LONGER SIGNED BY AAPL. Ian's PoC won't be full JB, but will enable partial (kdata) on >=i7, and(possibly)full on<=6s, and it's best you'll get.
— I don't talk about Darwin, no, no, no… (@Morpheus______) December 8, 2017
While the discovery of tfp0 exploit is great news, someone still needs to develop a GUI-based user-friendly jailbreak tool, so I wouldn’t get too excited just yet.
If you are interested in an iOS 11 jailbreak, then it is highly advisable to either downgrade or upgrade to iOS 11.1.2, as it is currently being signed by Apple. If you are not on iOS 11.1.2 already then you will have to download the iOS 11.1.2 IPSW in order to install it, since OTA and iTunes upgrades will only let you upgrade to the latest version i.e iOS 11.2.
Do you think we will finally get an iOS 11 jailbreak? Let us know in the comments.