Pwn20wnd takes down the official GitHub repository of Odyssey jailbreak! Here’s all you need to know about it.
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Odyssey Jailbreak’s GitHub repository goes offline
In a sudden turn of events, Pwn20wnd has taken down Coolstar’s Chimera13 (Odyssey) repository. GitHub has now locked and disabled public access to the repository.
However, this temporary ban shows signs of a rather hasty decision on the part of the GitHub moderation team.
To regain access to his repository, Coolstar has filed a counter-notice against Pwn20wnd’s “false” DMCA takedown. The developer also claims that Chimera13 had been open-source for months and does not contain infringing material.
I have filed a counter notice against pwn20wnd’s false DMCA of Chimera13https://t.co/A7prQx1xLg
Chimera13 has been open source for months and uses techniques originally by Ian Beer.
By knowling submitting a false DMCA notice, pwn20wnd has committed perjury (a felony) pic.twitter.com/YyUAZB16Z0
— CoolStar (@CStar_OW) July 8, 2020
This is corroborated by the findings of security researcher Brandon Plank.
Here is a thread that is going to describe this, i was going to wait for pwn to directly come out in public to explain this.
well here it is
Today on r/jailbreak Pwn20wnd directly threatened a DMCA of the Odyssey jailbreak(Upcoming) because apparently @CStar_OW stole leaked 1/5 https://t.co/jo93kcCydH pic.twitter.com/UwUeM4F4yL
— Brandon Plank (@_bplank) July 7, 2020
Did Coolstar really steal unc0ver’s code?
Here’s what developer Pwn20wnd posted in the official jailbreak subreddit:
I am not making this post to spike drama, I am making this post to share this frustrating situation with the community and to hear your opinions about it.
The upcoming “Odyssey Jailbreak” and its open-source components from the public “Chimera13” project are largely based on a stolen copy of the original unc0ver jailbreak tool. We have obtained recordings of the private Discord voice channel where this attack against us was organized at by the lead developer of the infringing project.
We have also investigated this issue with GitHub and found that the stolen source code was obtained by an attacker that stole access tokens of an authorized individual. The attacker was also successfully identified.
We have already submitted DMCA takedown notices against the public and infringing content and are waiting for them to be processed. We will take this to the court if necessary.
I would also like to debunk the claim that the Swift programming language makes alternative products superior. Swift only has a performance advantage against the Objective-C language, while the unc0ver jailbreak’s internals (Including substitute) are 100% written in pure C, which is roughly 10 times faster than the Swift programming language.
Additionally, the person behind this has indicated that they had shared the techniques found in the private unc0ver source code with Apple to help them break the internals of the unc0ver jailbreak in future iOS versions, which directly harms the community :/.
This is all I have to say about it for now, any further information and evidence is currently reserved for the legal process.
In his Reddit post, pwn20wnd claims that Odyssey uses several components from unc0ver source code leak.
However, this couldn’t be further from the truth as the exploit used in Odyssey has nothing to do with unc0ver.
It is developed by Coolstar and Tihmstar based on a publicly available sandbox vulnerability.
Coolstar, in his defense, claims that the techniques used in Odyssey are based on Ian Beer‘s work. Beer’s work was originally used to develop Electra and LiberiOS jailbreaks.
Additionally, Pwn20wnd does not provide any concrete evidence to support his arguments.
For instance, he claims to possess recordings of a private Discord channel but fails to post them online. He also fails to share the infringing material publicly.
Our Take
This is not the first time Pwn20wnd and Coolstar have been at loggerheads over jailbreak releases. Both of these developers have had a lot of disputes while developing Electra jailbreak.
Since then, Coolstar has matured into a responsible developer and stayed away from the drama on social media. The developer has also agreed to open-source his code.
The upcoming Odyssey jailbreak will also come with built-in migration support for unc0ver users. In addition, it will also allow you to install the package manager of your choice in the spirit of jailbreaking.
Users will be able to install Cydia, Installer, or Zebra instead of Sileo – the mainstay package manager of Odyssey jailbreak.
All in all, it will be a viable alternative to unc0ver jailbreak for iOS 13.0-13.5 users.
So, Pwn20wnd’s DMCA takedown is an attempt to prevent a competing product from entering the market.
If Pwn20wnd initiates a lawsuit against Coolstar, he will only end up losing. Furthermore, his social media antics will only push more users to search for alternative jailbreak tools.
