Newb questions... Be gentle.
 

So I dropped my old school Droid and since I wasn't impressed with the Thunderbolt I upgraded to an iPhone 4. I've played with them before, but so far I'm pretty impressed. I've got some newbie questions. I did lots of searching, but wasn't able to come up with much in the way of concrete or understandable answers. 32GB iPhone 4 with 4.2.6 jailbroken with green pois0n RC6.1

What is an SHSH blob and why should I back it up? It's a unique hash for my device or something right? And pretty much so I can downgrade if I needed to?

Why are there so many VZW iPhone 4s on Ebay?

With the iPhone using iTunes does it report back to Apple if the phone is jailbroken or not? Using unofficial apps? (From Cydia for example.)

Someone had mentioned that green pois0n was detectable by Apple where redsn0w wasn't. Something to do with an iTunes authentication issue. Any info on this?

Re: Newb questions... Be gentle.
 

yes on the SHSH blob. You can also use it to downgrade your baseband sometimes, this is more for GSM iPhones though, since there doesn't seem to be a carrier lock on the CDMA version.

You can usually downgrade firmware just fine by putting the phone in DFU and flashing the older firmware.

I don't know that iTunes can tell Apple if you're jailbroken or not. I can research a little more but I think you're good either way. I think ultimately they know who's jailbroken and who's not, but there's no way for them to "prove it" in warranty issues if you've restored it back to stock because then they'd have to admit that they are violating your privacy. It is also legal to jailbreak your device so there's not much they can do other than patch exploits while the hackers find more.

Re: Newb questions... Be gentle.
 

The reason that their are so many verizon iphones on ebay is because CDMA phones have to be in the carriers system or approved to be put on a carriers system. If a phone is stolen or lost that phone cannot be activated. On GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile) you for lack of better words don't need the carrier you just pop the SIM card in and the phone works. No system to go through. Alot of those phones on ebay cannot be activated.

Re: Newb questions... Be gentle.
 

That doesn't make much sense...
If you can just pop a sim card into an ATT phone... Why would there not be more ATT phones on ebay?

There must be something going on with the Verizon iPhone.

I have Sprint which is a CDMA network... If I want to buy a phone form my carrier it must have a clean ESN in order for me to be able to activate it. If you steel my phone... I call Sprint and the ESN gets hosed. So that my phone cannot be reactivated on someone else's acconunt.

Any other ideas as to why so many VZ iphones on ebay?
p.

Re: Newb questions... Be gentle.
 

I dont think that there is a carrier lock on the cdma iphone. There might be more because its easier to move to a new network, or, its just more popular and more people are looking for it through ebay.

Re: Newb questions... Be gentle.
 

If you steal a CDMA phone you are stuck with it. You cannot activate it. Most people don't know that so they put them on ebay for other people who don't know to buy them.

Re: Newb questions... Be gentle.
 

I did not know that... I'm glad I haven't stolen any iphones then. LOL.
p.

Re: Newb questions... Be gentle.
 

Actually you could activate it on like Cricket, which happens all the time with phones. You just gotta go through the painful process of programming it and hoping you can find the directions online.

Re: Newb questions... Be gentle.
 

yeah but cricket service sucks pretty much everywhere, and they can't seem to get the right MMS and Data settings working on the i4 right now anyways, afaik.