"To err is human, but to really screw up requires the root password," is an old Unix saying. That's because as the root, the super-user, of a Unix, Linux or Mac OS system, there's nothing you can't do. This includes an almost endless array or ways to really foul up your computer. Or, as appears to be the case with the iPhone, to let almost anyone abuse or brick your phone.

First, a mere three days after the iPhone appeared, the default root password was cracked. That's bad, but since there didn't seem to be any way to input the password because the iPhone doesn't have a conventional login system, it wasn't of much interest except to dedicated crackers. What good is a key, after all, if there's no keyhole to put it in?

Well, actually, it does a lot of good once you've pried open the iPhone's software with AppTapp installer. This is an installer program that lets hackers download and install other programs into an iPhone over the EDGE network. HDM, of the Metasploit Project, a hacking group, used this to quickly crack the iPhone and install OpenSSH and a VT-100 terminal.

OpenSSH is the Swiss-army knife tool of Unix/Linux computer-to-computer connectivity. With it, you can log in to remote systems—or iPhones—and send or receive files. VT-100 is a standard terminal program that enables you to enter commands to OpenSSH and other programs on an iPhone that will take character-based commands.

Read the rest of this analysis at eWEEK: "Why Does Every iPhone App Now Run as Root?"