This will definitely worry folks planning to purchase a new iOS device and jailbreak iting off course. Here’s what has happened – a guy by the name John bought a new iPad (running iOS 4.2.1) and tried to jailbreak it using redsn0w 0.9.6 b6. But the newly bought iPad couldn’t be jailbroken. This unfortunate turn of events has led to a rather sad belief: Apple may have patched the limera1n exploit in newer iOS devices.

Here is the story from the man himself:

I made a trip to the Apple Store today to get an iPad for my old lady (Christmas present). She told me she’d love it jailbroken, so I sat down in front of my computer to redsn0w this 4.2.1 iPad.

One problem–redsn0w 0.9.6b6 could not upload a pwned iBSS (hanged at the white screen on OS X, upload timed out and rebooted into jailed state with Windows).

Furthermore, the device constantly stalls when attempting to dump its bootrom. This leads me to believe the injection vector used via USB has been patched in DFU mode.

Case in point: Any iOS device with a serial number xx050 (this week) or higher might be unable to be jailbroken via the limera1n exploit. Slightly older devices may be invulnerable as well.

So what makes us say that Limera1n exploit has been patched? Well, limera1n exploit which is also used in redsn0w, PwnageTool and Greenpois0n, is a hardware based exploit and only a hardware revision from Apple can close the highly used exploit, which might be the case if Jack’s observations are correct.

Wait a minute! Is this the reason why MuscleNerd deleted the tweet which confirmed Christmas period as the release time for the iOS 4.2.1 untethered jailbreak? Your thoughts are highly welcome and awaited.

Do share if you find yourself in a similar situation as Jack has found himself in.

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[via RedmondPie]