The History of ' !OS ' Jail Breaking and world wide Participants of famous Jail Breakers .

Back in 2007, Steve Jobs used a famous quote from ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky to summarize Apple’s commitment to innovation: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” That’s long been true for Apple and products like the iPhone and iPad. But for more than four years, jailbreak has pushed the boundaries of iOS even farther.

If Apple skates to where the puck is going to be, then jail breakers have usually already been there and left. The hackers and tinkerers that find security loopholes in Apple’s software are some of the most brilliant, innovative minds in the tech world.
We’ll be covering Jailbreak Con 2012 this weekend in San Francisco, the world’s first convention dedicated solely to the jailbreak community. What better way to get ready for the future of jail breaking than to examine the past? Let’s start from the beginning:

What Exactly Is Jailbreaking?
For those who don’t know, “jail breaking” is the process of gaining root access to the iOS platform, effectively ‘breaking out’ of the restrictions Apple puts in place. You can then install apps that haven’t been vetted by Apple and tinker with the OS itself. Unlike Android, iOS is by default a walled garden. You’re supposed to play by Apple’s rules. Apps aren’t allowed to interact with iOS at the core level, and you can’t add to, remove, tweak, or enhance aspects of the operating system. That’s where jail breaking comes into play.

“Gaining root access to the iOS platform, effectively ‘breaking out’ of the restrictions Apple puts in place”

Jail breaking is free and legal in the United States and many other countries. When you jailbreak an iOS device like an iPhone, you gain access to Cydia, the jailbreak version of the App Store. (More than that later.) In recent years, the actual process of jail breaking has become pretty easy and straightforward. To jailbreak an Apple device, you usually need a desktop computer to administer the hack.
Since the original iPhone’s release back in 2007, jailbreak hackers and developers have been cracking new versions of iOS only to have their work later patched by Apple.
The Early Days

We all know about iPhone Dev Team , we have heard about Chronic Dev Team who created the famous GreenPoison Jailbreak for iPhone 4 [for iOS 4.1 and later] . Few names we hear quite often like MuscleNerd , Geohot , Sherif Hashim. Have you ever seen the guys who are behind all the jailbreak and unlock tools you use . This post will reveal the hot shots of the jailbreaking world  .

Lets start with GeoHot . George Francis Hotz, alias geohot was the first ever iphone jailbreaker and unlocker to bring the unlock solution at the age of 17 . [purplera1n year 2009 , blackrain year 2009 and the latest limera1n year 2010 ] .

Recently got himself into some serious trouble with electronics giant Sony over PlayStation 3 Jailbreak [ Read the whole story here]. Dont miss watching his Rap Video we have posted earlier. The guy is a professional rapper . CNN Covered the News back in year 2009 – watch the YouTube Video below .

MuscleNerd : Wow Muscles , Follow him on twitter @MuscleNerd .

The hairy dude you see here is Jay Freeman aka Saurik , the creator of Cydia [The jailbreak App Store ]. His twitter handle @Saurik

PlanetBeing : The first guy ever to reveal the world’s first carrier unlocked iphone 4 . Follow him on twitter @planetbeing

Sherif Hashim : The Egyptian iphone baseband hacker is a Neurosurgeon by professional . Follow him on twitter @Sherif_Hashim

Comex : The 19-Year Old iPhone Hacker Who Keeps Outsmarting Apple. He was recently interviewed by Forbes Magazine .

If you have more images of Dev Team Jailbreaks , do share with us . We will be happy to post it with due credits to the contributor . I you want to add and contribute extra information not listed above , I will be happy to receive and publish it in this post . Do Share this article and Support the Jailbreak Team for their hard work and dedication to serve the iphone users community .

Update : Here is a get together by jailbreak team in the recently held DefCon Conference for hackers and programming enthusiast from around the world . We can only identify three of them , JayFreeman , P0sixNinja (in green) and Geohot . Guess who are the rest . The image has been cropped to fit the width of the page .

Update 2 : This picture was taken few hours before the Hackers Developers conference . Featuring Chronic De Team on their way to HITB conference to deliver keynote on exploit being used in Absinthe 2.0 Jailbreak .

Left to Right : @pimskeks @iOPK @pod2g @p0sixninja and @planetbeing