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Phœnix
| Developer(s) |
Siguza @tihmstar jk9357 Max Bazaliy Luca Todesco |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 7 Aug 2017 |
| Stable release | v4 / 7 October 2017 |
| Operating system | iOS |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Jailbreaking |
| Website | https://www.phoenixpwn.com |
Phœnix is a semi-untethered jailbreak for 32-bit devices, primarily intended for devices running iOS 9.3.5. The exploit was written by Siguza and tihmstar, with jk9357 providing extensive contributions, and further assistance from Max Bazaliy and Luca Todesco. Like its predecessor, Home Depot, Phœnix works by sideloading an IPA using Cydia Impactor. Released on 7 August, 2017, almost a year after the release of iOS 9.3.5, it brought a long-awaited jailbreaking solution to devices for which iOS 9.3.5 is the only signed version. Phœnix exploits the fact that Apple never properly fixed the vulnerabilities exploited by Home Depot (Pegasus). It is not yet known if it is compatible with iOS 8.4.1, but the IPA can be installed on iOS 8.4.1 and higher.
Version Change Log
| Version | Date | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| v1 | August 07, 2017 |
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| v2 |
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| v3 | August 08, 2017 |
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| v4 | October 07, 2017 |
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Controversy
The release of Phœnix was not uncontroversial and sparked a conflict between the developers and Stefan Esser (i0n1c), as well as one between jk9357 and tihmstar in particular.
Esser had started a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter for an online iOS 9.3.5 jailbreaking course and felt betrayed by tihmstar, accusing him of backstabbing. tihmstar denied receiving help from Esser, and Luca Todesco noted that jk9357 announced a jailbreak before Esser's campaign. While Home Depot contains code written by Stefan Esser used "without his consent" according to its credits, Phœnix features another joke at Esser's expense, as the "Enable jailbreak" button from Home Depot has been renamed "Kickstart jailbreak."
After a misattribution on Phœnix's website, jk9357 wrote a complaint on Twitter regarding his absence from Phœnix's credits. The issue was promptly resolved and the attribution corrected.
The conflict between jk9357 and tihmstar flared up again after the release of etasonJB, with jk9357 criticizing tihmstar in a post written in all-caps on /r/jailbreak, calling him a fraud and insinuating that he had stolen code from Siguza. He followed up by updating Home Depot with 8.4.1 support and by posting an infographic on Twitter with further accusations against tihmstar. Following this and a Reddit post, Siguza explained the situation and shed light on the development of Phœnix, on Discord as well as in a series of tweets. According to him, the initial, non-working version of the kernel exploit was written by him, then ~80 percent of the code was refactored by tihmstar before the two sent the code back and forth several times. Eventually tihmstar increased the stability from 50 to 90 percent. Advice was provided by Max Bazaly and a heap spray was replaced with code provided by Luca Todesco. Siguza also took the blame for the misattribution issue, saying that he wrote the Phœnix website and intended to write something like “jk9357 - UI, App framework and patchfinder”, but that he was interrupted after writing only “UI” and forgot to correct the mistake before publishing the site.
