Stuck and lost

[dawumyster]

Hi. This is my first time on the forums.

I'm on T-mobile and my old phone took a trip through the washer and dryer

Since I needed a new phone, I decided what the hey and focused on getting an iphone off CraigsList. Found a seller for a 3G running 4.0.2. I did some basic research on unlocks and concluded that it was possible to unlock this thing, so I went ahead and bought it.
I used jailbreakme to successfully jailbreak but when it came for the unlock, I was having no luck. Finally loaded up fuzzyband, and it showed my baseband as 05.14.02 and bootloader six-point-something.

So what I think was that the seller upgraded to 4.1 one point in time and then downgraded/restored to factory conditions for the sale (maybe he's on the forums here too). Does this mean I'm stuck along with the rest of the folks that updated their 3G to 4.1? How long has it generally been once the jailbreak comes out that a unlock is released? I've seen some people that claim that the new baseband has no exploits and so is very likely never able to be unlocked. A general estimate would be nice. If the seller did downgrade from 4.1 to 4.0.2, is it possible that the SHSH was saved and a baseband downgrade to be done? Would snowbreeze work?
What about this article: http://www.machackpc.com/iphone/3g/p...s-4-04-0-14-1/

I still need a phone in the interim. I tried it out with my friend's AT&T SIM card and it works fine, so I was wondering if it was possible to just call up AT&T and get them to put a pay-as-you-go plan on the sim that came with the phone until the devs can work things out. Is this possible? I don't need data at the moment, just functional calling and voicemail.

[iYeow]

You will be stucked for quite awhile , maybe forever. Sure enough, the seller lied to you by downgrading the firmware and having known that your current baseband cannot be downgraded. My suggestion is to sell it away but be honest with the new buyer, you may lose some money but that is OK, honesty is the best policy. You have learned a lesson and you will be a smarter person with your gained experience.

[dawumyster]

You will be stucked for quite awhile , maybe forever. Sure enough, the seller lied to you by downgrading the firmware and having known that your current baseband cannot be downgraded. My suggestion is to sell it away but be honest with the new buyer, you may lose some money but that is OK, honesty is the best policy. You have learned a lesson and you will be a smarter person with your gained experience.

Why do you think forever? Surely apple will keep making and selling new iPhones and new firmware and the demand for them to be unlocked will always be there and maybe growing. Are you saying that the dev team are just going give up after jail breaking 4.1 and all the phones from about last month onwards will never have an unlock? I find this quite depressing.

As for the phone, I don't make many calls, so I'm going to head to an AT&T store and get a pre-paid sim for it. From what I can tell, this should work.

[eyeRobot]

AT&T will know you're not on an official plan I think..... I'm not sure the implications...

I used a gophone (is that right?) sim card on my unlocked phone when I was there without issue though. However, yours isn't going to be unlocked??

I don't think the dev team are giving up on new unlocks, but they are apparently not working on it at present and further, they may not be able to do it!!

[muzicstar]

Sorry to hear your problems OP, but I had a similar situation finding out that my phone's firmware was upgraded to the latest BB and Ios 4.1. It's a shame that the seller wasn't forthcoming about that as it's the baseband that's the biggest problem IMO. If I were you, I'd just resell it. The problem of course is going through all the hassle of getting another and also trusting that the new one is what it says on the tin. I'm in the same position awaiting a JB and UL phone today and keeping my fingers crossed that it's what it says it is in the advert.

[dawumyster]

Haha, yeah, I don't want to deal with going through with searching for, driving and then selling for a phone, but it might have to come to that. To the seller's credit, everything he said in the listing was correct. I just didn't know from my limited that the latest baseband could not be downgraded and so an unlock is not possible once a phone touches 4.1. I found several people saying that its possible to do the pay as you go deal. I also borrowed my friend's AT&T SIM (he's on a normal contract plan) and effortlessly made calls with it.

I'm wondering why it is not possible to downgrade the baseband. From what I understand, the jailbreak breaks the chain of trust that happens when the iphone boots, allowing it to load unsigned code. Since there is no chain of trust now, why can't I use one of the pwnage programs to create a modified ipsw with an old baseband and get my phone to accept it as an "update".

[ieatsheeet]

If you did research and the seller said everything truthfully then you must have not researched properly because the 5.14.02 baseband crisis is one of the top headlines.

[i.Annie]

Once a baseband is upgraded it can't be downgraded unless the 3G phone has bootloader 5.08. The only baseband downgraded can only downgrade 5.08 BL 3G phones. Custom fw can only preserve the baseband. It cannot downgrade it once it has been upgraded.