You'll need the code, a PlayStation 3, and a USB microcontroller in order to open your system. Oddly enough, sales of such devices seem to be in the middle of a spike.

Once the PlayStation 3 was hacked it was only a matter of time before the software was made available free of charge; there are simply too many risks involved with selling this sort of thing via a standard storefront, and too many people more interested in the software's spread than profit.

One method the patent describes for detecting a stolen iPhone is checking whether it's been hacked (aka "jailbroken") or its SIM card has been yanked out - things a clever thief would do to override the iPhone's security.

"Ignoring the possibility that a false positive in Apple's proposed theft protection might activate the spy cam while the user is in the bath, or in the middle of some other intimate moment, this technology seems Orwellian for another reason: It gives Steve Jobs and Co. the means to retaliate when iPhones aren't being used in ways Cupertino doesn't expressly permit," The Register wrote over the weekend.

The really important point is that they did this in three afternoons (and remember, these machines are often left totally unguarded, in the open at polling places for days before elections) without breaking any of the "tamper-resistant" seals that are supposed to alert anyone to any foul play.

So now my only question is whether or not they get a cease and desist from NAMCO.

Federal regulators lifted a cloud of uncertainty when they announced it was lawful to hack or "jailbreak" an iPhone, declaring Monday there was "no basis for copyright law to assist Apple in protecting its restrictive business model."

Apple also told regulators that the nation's cellphone networks could suffer "potentially catastrophic" cyberattacks by iPhone-wielding hackers at home and abroad if iPhone owners are permitted to legally jailbreak their shiny wireless devices.

Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of ABC's "The View" (required viewing by so many who live their lives outside of office environments), confided to her co-host Joy Behar and guests that her iPhone 4 didn't merely keep dropping calls, but generally behaved like, well, a 1972 Datsun.

This was far more than some antenna problem. She explained: "It threw away e-mail that I got. It didn't take stuff in."