Get your iPhone SHSH keys now!

Ok, so after years of swearing I'd never own an Apple product I caved in (thanks to Travis), held my nose, and got an iPhone 3GS. I must admit, it's far better in most respects than my Samsung BlackJack II I had for a couple of years.

So anyway, I'm new to the whole jailbreaking scene, but I did stumble across some good information, even for people that don't have much interest in jailbreaking *today*. The short story is that with the 3GS Apple digitally signs firmware when you try to restore your phone. Apple can prevent you from downgrading if they stop signing certain firmware versions. In early Sept 2009 they stopped signing 3.0. What's that mean? People that bought phones with 3.1 installed after Sept 9th can not downgrade to 3.0 and jailbreak the phone. Bummer for me.

Some cleaver people have created software which spoofs the Apple digital signature process, and lets you restore to a previous version at anytime in the future. The catch is that you must capture your "SHSH" certificate file while Apple is still signing firmware. Once you have your SHSH file, even if Apple stops signing that firmware version in a few months, you can downgrade! Who knows if 3.2 or later versions can be jailbroken, so it's good to know you can revert back to 3.1. Factory installs of 3.1 on the 3GS can't be jailbroken today, but rumors have it that a hack is due out shortly. 3.1.2 is already out, so it's only a matter of time before 3.2 comes out and they stop signing 3.1, so hurry.

So my advice is to grab your SHSH file TODAY, even if you aren't jailbroken today, or think you ever will in the future. The process is pretty painless, requires no iPhone hacking, and gives you insurance for the future.

The best process I've found can be read here. The short story is you install a USB sniffer to find your iPhone's ECID, which is a unique ID. You then run a Java applet that gets your SHSH file from Apple using your ECID. Then you can run a program which spoofs the Apple key server and do a test restore to make sure your SHSH file works. Worked great for me!

Be sure to back up your SHSH file and keep it safe, like on a couple of CDRs.