You've Been Rickrolled, Apple

Astley's mug is appearing on iPhones Down Under thanks to ikee, an
invasive bit of software code that installs a photo of the pop singer
on a vulnerable handset and then establishes it as the default
wallpaper with the message, "ikee is never going to give you up," eWEEK reports. RickRolling has never been so insidious.

What looks like a joke could quickly become a problem for those
who've used software to free their iPhones to work with any carrier
they choose, a process called "jail-breaking." Only jail-broken iPhones
are suffering from the ikee worm.

If this seems like good news for Apple, trust me, it isn't. But I
understand why some would think it is. Each time a worm affects an
unauthorized iPhone, it argues for the safety and comfort of preferred
providers such as AT&T (NYSE: T) here in the U.S.

The problem with this argument is that there are some users who loathe AT&T enough to cut the umbilical. And not just AT&T; jailbreaking is a worldwide phenomenon. China Unicom (NYSE: CHU), an authorized iPhone partner, badly trails China Mobile (NYSE: CHL), whose network could be serving as many as 1 million jailbroken iPhones.

Hackers have to like those numbers. My guess is they'll soon be
targeting gray-market iPhones with worms designed to steal, rather than
prank.

Where does this leave Apple? Stuck. The Mac maker can't reasonably
be asked to support iPhones that aren't under warranty. But imagine
what happens if worms become sophisticated enough to jump from
jail-broken iPhones to more legit models. Apple needs to get ahead of
this issue before it becomes a selling point for Palm (Nasdaq: PALM), Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM), or even Dell (Nasdaq: DELL).

© 2009 UCLICK, L.L.C.