Smart phone technologies are continuing to surge in
popularity across the country. As these ultra-portable devices further
penetrate the business world, there are many important issues surfacing regarding
their responsible ownership and use. As Apple’s
iPhone continues to grow as one of the most utilized smart phones, experts have
been concerned about the practice of “jailbreaking” the iPhone, and the
potential hazard this could pose to information security. However, U.S. federal
regulators have officially declared this week that jailbreaking is not illegal.
“Jailbreaking,” or hacking the device to be able to use any
application including those who are not authorized or distributed by Apple, was
accepted as an explicit exception to the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions according to Wired.com’s
Threat Level blog Monday. Whether
or not this will have an immediate impact on id verification and fraud using mobile devices will be seen in the coming
weeks following the release of legal instructions on how to perform the
jailbreak.