Paul Morris·

Will Electra iOS 11.3.1 Update Offer Untethered Jailbreak?

Tim Michaud, a “Security Nerd” from Texas, has thrown the cat amongst the pigeons in the jailbreak community by speculating that a newly discovered launchd bug could theoretically pave the way for an untethered iOS 11.3.1 Electra jailbreak.

The tweet has been picked up and shared online with the poster quoting Michaud in saying that an untethered iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak should be “straight forward.”

What it doesn’t show is that Michaud then qualified that statement by confirming that he is not an exploit developer and that the whole process “might not be very straight forward” at all. So, like we are used to in the jailbreak community, one hand gives excitement and then the other seems to snatch it away as quickly as it was given. But, what is the actual truth?

It seems that it lies somewhere in the middle, @nullriver, one of the esteemed developers involved in the creation of Electra, has replied to the topic confirming that they are aware of the upcoming launchd bug but that they don’t know a great deal about it at this stage, and therefore cannot comment on the possibility of bringing an untethered experience to iOS 11.3.1 devices based on its integration.

(Image: Cydia shown running on an iOS 11.3.1 iPhone X)

Michaud had originally suggested that he believes that big would “allow rejailbreaking at boot”, which is the essence of an untethered experience.

@nullriver has also taken to the online thread to suggest that it’s a “possibility” that Electra could benefit from this but that the original assumption was on a similar bug being consumed by the Evasi0n jailbreak which was able “to do extensive kernel patching during their jailbreak.” He has also poured a little bit of sour milk on the theory by suggesting that extra_list doesn’t offer the reliability levels needed to come as an untethered package.

So, where does that leave us? Well, probably in the same position as we were before this information filtered into the public domain. We can still expect an updated version of Electra with the ability to jailbreak iPhone and iPad running iOS 11.3.1. Whether or not an untether will emerge down the line is still anyone’s guess. If anything solid progresses on this front we will be sure to let you know.

(Source: Twitter [1], [2])

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