On the “two minute passcode cracking” claims

The “iPhone passcode can be cracked in two minutes!” linkbait headlines going around has been bothering me (see here for an example of one, and here for a bad example of an article teaching you how to “thwart” the hack). It seems that people don’t fully understand what is going on, and some generalized / misinformation is circulating about the issue. I’d like to clarify some things, as well as tell you some real ways to “thwart” their system.

The software from XRY and all similar software utilizes jailbreak exploits to accomplish their task

They do not use anything special that is “similar to” the exploits used in jailbreak programs; They are simply loading a custom ramdisk by utilizing the publicly available “limera1n” exploit by George Hotz. The ramdisk isn’t even very special, because anyone could put together their own using open source tools. The only “special” thing XRY has done...