Teen who unlocked iPhone gets car, job Louisville's CertiCell hires him as consultant
A Louisville company that repairs cell phones will give a consulting job and a $40,000 car to a teenage computer hacker who spent his summer "unlocking" an iPhone.
Working with a team of other techies around the world, 17-year-old George Hotz of Glen Rock, N.J., spent an estimated 500 hours reconfiguring the iPhone so it can be used with wireless providers other than AT&T.
The device so far is available only in the United States through an exclusive two-year service agreement with AT&T. Officials with both AT&T and Apple, which makes the iPhone, have not commented about Hotz's unlocking project.
He made international news when he unveiled the results of the project on his blog Thursday, and it wasn't long before officials with Louisville-based CertiCell were in touch.
Hotz announced on his blog that he would trade an unlocked version of the phone to CertiCell in exchange for a "sweet" new silver Nissan 350Z, a consulting job and three unmodified iPhones. (Here's CertiCell's take on the agreement.)
"This has been a great end to a great summer," Hotz wrote on the blog, at http://www.iphonejtag.blogspot.com/....
This from the Courier-Journal, Photo by Jeff Christensen/Associated Press.
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