How to (Unsuccessfully) Enable Tethering With 3.1b3 with non official carrier....

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LennonNZ

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#39086 8-Aug-2009 12:38

So you are a developer and you installed V3.1b3 on your iPhone and you are NOT using Vodafone as your mobile carrier and you find... tethering is now disabled on your iPhone (Tethering works fine if you are using a Vodafone SIM).

We find that some functionality of the iphone is disabled as we are not using Vodafone's Network.. Vodafone says iPhone are not locked at all but when 3.1 comes out people using their iphones on non vodafone network (2Degrees, XT, Compass, Orcon, B&W..).

Vodafone says they don't lock their phones to their network and they don't but if you don't use their network then important functionality is removed. This will be something I will be taking up ...

But back to the Issue.. tethering... how do you enable it..

I remember the days when I had a 2G iphone, the method (well part of it) to enable tethering on them unofficially (it didn't actually work but it gave you the option)

so look at the important file..

/private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MobileInternetSharing.plist

State - 1020

Ah.. that number should be 1023.. so lets change it.. to 1023 and reboot..

and the tethering option now comes up :-)

note: as I am only running linux at the moment I cannot test if tethering actually works.. but I presume it does..
also I have not yet tested what happens if you plug it back into itunes if the option goes away but someone please let me know if you want to try..

btw.. you have to jailbreak 3.1b3 to do this but I'll let you work out how to do this..

Thanks

Update.. plugged into windows machine.. and... tethering gets disabled.. and the state gets set back to 1020.. lets see if I can fix that..

Update: chmod -w com.apple.MobileInternetSharing.plist. reboot check. still there.. plug into windows machine via USB .. argh tethering disapears straight away and it goes back to rw back to 1020..... Maybe if I only tethering via Bluetooth it won't gets changed. need to test...

Update: connect via bluetooth.. Pair connection via bluetooth.. choose PAN access only connect.. you have been disconnected.. check phone.. it goes back to 1020 and tethering has been disabled again... back to the drawing board...

LennonNZ

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#244393 9-Aug-2009 11:40

WIth a liitle bit of looking.. seems under v3.1b3 the built in Carrier bundles iles have a signature in them which I didn't notice in the older versions... Seems we have to (maybe) have each APN "signed" maybe.. this will be hard unless we have the private key to sign ourselves. :-(

[apn]
[www.iphone-vodafone.net.nz
password

signature
rxXe2k9lCE1Z2uazaHVR9mIQJjjZRofLGI4E3iwin/hFaePyB2Al
vzjo4PdzZdBZ+YnG6by+DakB18bHKv0WJVJkUdVVvAC+LcGHPXP5
UYXQJ5JkFP4IbhZH8aIv4X09sPjLADjPVeBMvPKxZtV+7ZWeJrjt
/7GWUCIkj6La6Ko=
type-mask
1
username

This signature is base64 encoded string of 128 (decoded) characters as far as I can make out which is made up to do with the usename/password/type-mask and apn and encypted somehow...

oldmaknz

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#244538 9-Aug-2009 20:56

Good on you giving it a go. I'm sure the people at dev-team will be working on something as it'll affect EVERYONE not using an official carrier worldwide.

corksta

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#244548 9-Aug-2009 21:16

Is this situaton likely to remain once 3.1 is officially released or is it possible it's only disabled while it's in beta?

It concerns me a bit as I'm looking to change to XT and take up their iPhone offer, but if it's going to be disabled in 3.1 I'd be a bit annoyed.

LennonNZ

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#244555 9-Aug-2009 21:44

Yea.. well is going to be a problem yes when they release it and its like this..

Effectively the iPhone is missing some important functionality when not used with Vodafone NZ.

It is not Vodafone doing this.. but Apple as other carriers like AT&T don't want people to tether and MMS without actually paying for it via their iPhone

. Vodafone say they are not selling vodafone locked Iphones and they are not at the moment.. but when 3.1 comes out they will be selling phones which are effective locked to their network for tethering..

but _when/if _ this happens we can then complain. Maybe in the next couple of versions of the beta's if the iPhone is carrier is unlocked like we are in NZ then tethering will not be broken on other carriers in NZ.