Looks like Palm's webOS Reset Doctor, intended for resetting Pre smartphones with a mangled system, has been outed to the public at large along with a very special bonus for hackers and other programming enthusiasts: a complete 195MB root image of webOS itself. Code-inclined individuals on the PreCentral forums have already cracked open the ROM and are getting an unfettered glimpse at the Palm's new platform, which for the layman means it should open the doors for some crazy Pre hacking and possibly hint, by way of unfinished / unused code, of what's to come for the platform -- and if we're really lucky, maybe someone will be able to look at this and move us one step closer to an unlocked Pre that could jump onto Verizon's network. Amusingly, you also get to see all the comments left by the devs in the code, guaranteeing a few good chuckles from others who can relate. Intrepid computer science-ers can hit up the read link to find the appropriate .jar file or just follow along with all the fun in the forum discussion.

In case you weren't already convinced of a certain model of Nokia 1100's hackability by the exponential surge in its aftermarket value, fraud investigation firm Ultrascan has successfully recreated a virtual bank heist by reprogramming one of the devices to receive another phone number's text messages. Using this trick, shady characters in fancy suits can get your mobile transaction authentication number -- provided you live in a country like Germany or Holland that use mTANs -- and use it to get into your bank account and transfer funds. They'd also need your account name and password, mind you, but obtaining that data isn't nearly as complex when there's plenty of people clicking on the wrong emails and signing into fake website with all those deets and the associated digits. It all sounds a bit like the stuff of crime novels, doesn't it? And before you go running to eBay with that 1100 you stashed away in a drawer years ago, please note that it only works if the candybar was produced at a very specific plant in Bochum, Germany.

The jailbreakers have managed to keep their speed record intact. Just one day after Apple releases an update to the iPhone OS 3.0 beta, QuickPwn updates its wares to support the new firmware. According to the related writeup, it should work with all iPhone / iPod touch models. After going through the jailbreaking process, you'll need to open icy and follow a few more steps to finish the job. As usual, download at your own risk, and for now, crack is for Windows users only.

Update: The Dev Team has chimed in with the usual list of caveats and warnings. If nothing else, you've now got tacit verification that this release of QuickPwn isn't some malicious hack.

The Palm Pre won't be out for several months yet, but that isn't stopping a few clever hackers from working out how to boot Android onto the pebble-shaped slider. As it turns out, efforts to port Android to the OMAP 3 processor used in the Pre have been underway since July of last year, so tailoring the build to the Pre shouldn't be too hard -- the difficult parts will be gaining serial access to the bootloader to enable switching between OS's and cramming both systems plus whatever apps and media you might have into the Pre's fixed 8GB of storage, since there's no microSD expansion. All problems we're eager to see tackled just as soon as the Pre launches -- doesn't seem like it can happen soon enough, does it?

[Thanks, Chris]

Read -- Work on Pre beginning
Read -- More details on the port

We weren't too thrilled with the Touch Diamond's resistive touchscreen when we got a chance to play with HTC's new hotness, but if you're envious of that updated soft keyboard, you're in luck: the Diamond's ROMs have already been pulled apart and the .cab files are just a click away. Installation is said to be slow and you'll have to jump through some hoops to switch the default language from Italian, but things will eventually work out for you -- although we doubt anyone's going to be nearly as impressed as if you had a real Touch Diamond.

[Via MobilitySite]

[Thanks Andrew, Erica]

Update: Yep, it's an April Fool's joke. We're just going to go offline until April 2nd, peace.

We're not yet entirely sure how it works, but iPhone hacker Zibri's just released a new app he's calling ZiPhone, which claims to jailbreak any version iPhone -- including new 1.1.3 phones right out of the box -- without messy downgrades and baseband changes. We haven't tested it ourselves, but prepare for the onslaught of downloaders to take it offline in five... four... three...

[Thanks, Tyler and Eugene]

Update (2/13): Looks like v2 is out, and it's capable of downgrading the bootloader from 4.6 to 3.9. Thanks, Yuri.

Google told us that we wouldn't see any Android devices until the end of the year, but a funny thing happens when you put up the entire SDK and an emulator for a platform -- all them crazy hackers start hacking. Apparently Android was natively booted on a Freescale-based dev board called the Armadillo 500 back in November, but the floodgates were really opened when a Hungarian group called Eu.Edge discovered that basically any device with an ARMv5TE chip could run Google's baby. Armed (heh!) with that information, tinkerers around the world have gotten a variety of Sharp devices running Android: the SL-C760, C3000M, SL-C3000 series, and the SL-6000 have all been confirmed running the OS. Hopefully that means we'll be seeing a lot more unofficial Android devices soon -- check a couple videos after the break.

Read - Overview of Android hacks
Read - Instructions on booting the Sharp Zaurus SL-C760
Read - Instructions on booting the Sharp SL-C3000 series

Well if you like looking through line after line of incomprehensible programming gibberish, make sure to hit up the Read link below, in which the TIFF exploit-based firmware v1.1.1 jailbreak code from team Toc2rta is posted in its entirety. More of an academic exercise for curious geeks than a useful bit of knowledge for the average iPod owner, we're sure there's still some interest out there in seeing exactly how this hack was developed. And as usual, if you do decide to go about 'breaking your device as previously described on these pages, we're, like, totally not responsible for any undesired consequences.

It would seem that the first-ever iPhone game has been written and is available to download to your Jail-broken device, and true to the natural form of the Microsoft vs. Apple debate, it's all based around blowing up Zunes. Jason Merchant, a clever (and possibly very bored) iPhone hacker has coded a small game app for the phone wherein you target floating Zunes with your onscreen mini-iPhone, and then blast away with missiles. The Microsoft-fanboy-incensing shooter was written in objective C, and obviously requires that your device has had Jailbreak run on it to allow for the install. The creator says he's working on an aquarium app which will allow you to drop fish-food to an underwater iPhone, which pretty much makes no sense at all.

[Via Hackint0sh, thanks Boy Genius]

In 2005, Greek authorities discovered a plot hatched and executed by unknown sources which allowed the tapping of wireless phones on the Vodafone network belonging to the country's Prime Minister and other top officials, making it one of the furthest reaching covert infiltrations of a government in history. A recent report from IEEE Spectrum shows that the tap was made possible by a 6,500 line piece of code called a rootkit, the first-ever to be embedded in a phone switch's OS. The complex hack took advantage of aging phone systems by disabling transaction logs on calls and allowing call monitoring on four switches within the teleco's computers, thus sending the call to another phone for monitoring (similar to a legal wiretap). The spies covered their tracks by creating patches on the system which routed the calls around logging software which would have alerted admins, and were only discovered when they tried to update their software. The case clearly exposes holes in call security amongst providers (due largely in part to outdated systems), and suggests the possibility that this kind of thing could easily happen again... to you!

[Via textually]

Hot on the heels of the activation hack, iPhone enthusiasts from the irc.osx86.hu channels #iphone-talk and #iphone-mac have deepened the cracks in the Apple device's armor by creating an application called iPhoneInterface, a Windows and Mac tool which allows you to manipulate the phone's state, fiddle with launch services, and interact with the iPhone's filesystem. With the new app, you will have the ability to scan the device's file structure, create and remove folders (which should open doors for those not feeling the sync options), and start iPhone services. Plans for a public server are underway, so fasten your seatbelts.

Update - The hack is officially available (Windows only right now) for your ever-lovin' pleasure, so get it here.

[Thanks, Chris V]

Even casual readers of this publication know that we're always seeking out ways to add more functionality to our existing gadgets, so when we heard about an innovative modder who was able to turn his Nokia cellphone into a fully-functioning Bluetooth mouse, well, we knew that we were approaching convergence heaven. Inspired by Jani 'Japala' Pönkkö's LogiNoki hack (in which Jani embedded a Nokia LCD into a Logitech G3 mouse), "Pyrofer" decided to forgo the hardware modifications and instead write a Java code and corresponding Windows driver that would allow him to use his 6230i as an impromptu optical input device for when laptop trackpads and control nubbins just don't cut it. Since it's still in development, Pyrofer has yet to release his code to the public, and the Nokiamouse does indeed have some serious drawbacks; most notably, he has to hold the handset a fraction of a millimeter above the mousing surface -- which must contain distinct patterns, so no direct desktop operation -- in order for the camera's CCD to pick up enough usable light. Still, once he develops a proper Bluetooth HID for the phone to work on any BT-enabled notebook (there's also talk of a GPRS connection) -- as well as an interface for mirroring the PC's screen on the Nokia's display -- this sounds like it'll be one sweet project that could see some serious widespread adoption.

[Thanks, Mike]