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It’s been unlocked for a while now, but it’s free, software, and reliable now.
It’s now possible to unlock your phone without registration, put 3rd party applications on it as you like, and then drop an arbitrary SIM into the phone.
(Humorously enough, hosted on Google docs.) The dev. wiki, the anySIM app, Hackint0sh, and all the others that contributed to this effort; thanks. http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dhq2b8r7_17gvw9s3
Now, where’s my SIP stack? 
Happy hack(ed)!
-N. Noctis.
Got the 60$ Linksys blues? Try http://openwrt.org/; their totally free Linux based router software can be flashed onto yours readily, and expose a whole host of normally very expensive options. It’s nifty, it’s fast, and it’s surprisingly well supported/documented.
It’ll let you administer your router per-port, build your own widgets, and generally do the unexpected with your router.
Or, if you really don’t like your warrenty, you can try http://rwhitby.sourceforge.net/wrt54gs/serial.html, and add serial ports to same.
As always, happy hacking!
-N. Noctis
Not usually a hardware hacker, despite the recent iPhone tracking, but who wouldn’t want their very own Tesla gun?
These folks will be happy to tell you how. All you need are some very basic parts (most of which you can cannibalize from common household appliances) and an impressively Buck-Rogers zap-gun housing, with trigger.
No trace peeling, no complicated solder joints. Fill it with the right sort of gas, and you can even get a combination flamethrower/plasma gun. Neglect the gas, and it’s still a welcome addition to any mad scientist’s arsenal, that can be used to light lights, use light bulbs as plasma balls, and otherwise show off.
If you do over-engineer it to shoot 10 foot arcs, however, be warned that “the body of the person holding the device is used as the RF ground”… in other words, let your (most expendable) minions fire it.
-N. Noctis.
It had a good run, but Apple’s iPhone is now unlocked. With a lot of caffeine, some serious soldering skill, and a willingness to brick your $600 toy, you can have your very own T-Mobile (or OneSim, or whatever you can SIM) iPhone. The hard part is peeling a circuit trace (very gently); then soldering your desired leads. If you’ve successfully done one of these before, it’s a pretty straight-forward, elegant, ‘fool it into thinking it’s blank’ hack, not too dissimilar from the earliest X-Box Linux breeds.
If not, you can always wait for the software-only version; though it isn’t released yet, the folks over at Engadget have verified the iPhoneSIMfree.com method works, and is (at least) restore-resistant.
(Personally, I’ll wait for iPhone Doom.)
Happy Hacking!
-N. Noctis
Voiding your iPhone warranty for fun and profit (many thanks to the iPhone Dev Wiki and the Hackint0sh.org forums):
(Note: These methods will only unlock the iPhone such that it becomes a super iPDA; true SIM/3-rd party development/total file control hacks are still in development)
Activation via Jon Lech Johansen’s PAS (Phone Activation Server)
This method works by spoofing Apple’s activation server. It is unclear at this point if this method works in both the Windows XP and Windows Vista versions of iTunes, and no information in available on porting this method to OS X. Details here.
Instructions step by step:
1). Download UltraEdit-32, install it.
2). Download PhoneActivationServerV1.0, extract it to desktop or anywhere you want.
3). You might wanna backup the original iTunes.exe(located under C:\Program Files\iTunes) first.
4). Run UltraEdit-32, open file iTunes.exe, use Ctrl+G to go to address 2048912, then enter 33C0C3. Do the same for the rest two offsets: Go to address 257074 then enter 28 and go to 257013 then enter 33C9B1. Save the file and close UltraEdit-32.
5). Open Windows explorer and go to c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc. Open the “hosts” file in ULTRAEDIT and add the line
127.0.0.1 albert.apple.com
to it. This will redirect any DNS query of “albert.apple.com” to your local host. Save & exit.6). All you need to do is to run Phone Activation Server V1.0 first, leave it running and then run iTunes. Now when you plug in your iPhone it will activate automatically in about 60 seconds.
Happy hacking!
-N. Noctis.
