The Explorer edition of Google Glass has already landed in the hands of such developers who were among the earliest to sign up for it. Saurik, a rather well-known iOS hacker/developer, has claimed that he has jailbroken Google Glass.
Quite interestingly, only hours before Saurik’s achievement, Google’s Eric Schmidt had stated that the company was specifically focusing on the security of Google Glass. Schmidt had further stated that any apps for Google Glass will need the approval of the search giant.
Saurik has posted a screenshot which shows that the Google Glass unit has been jailbroken. This essentially means that circumventing Google’s controls, developers may be able to develop apps for Google Glass. Saurik is credited with the creation of Cydia app store, which is an alternate apps marketplace for jailbroken iOS devices. If indeed Google Glass could be jailbroken this easily, developers may eventually developed a Cydia-like app store for it.
Saurik’s original name is Jay Freeman. According to him, when he realized that Google Glass was running Android 4.0.4, he started testing the exploits in Android Ice Cream Sandwich and was eventually able to find one that gave him root access on Google Glass.
Other developers and hackers are also tinkering with Google Glass and before soon, we may see such apps for the gadget which may not even be approved by Google. This may compound the privacy-related issues and the question of legitimate use of Google Glass. Although Google seems determined to control the ways in which Google Glass may be used, it would be a fairly difficult task for the company.
Courtesy: CNET
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There’s no reason to assume Jailbroken users have more privacy risk than regular users.
That’s because Google controlled privacy is subject to the government being able to make wholesale demands for data without having to obtain a warrant or even a probable suspicion.
With unleashed intelligence agencies able to access whatever, whenever, people with a jailbroken device are more likely to be able to block the rampant tracking.
Nothing against Google, but people should have a look at the various companies coming out with similar concepts. Specifically, concepts where owners / users are able to pull down data but the collecting and sending of data is curtailed.