You may have heard or read about Fabius. You might even be using one of his apps he’s cracked for you to use free of charge. Fabius is known around the jailbreak scene as being a highly skilled Cydia store app cracker with a current 65 k’s under his belt.

Today you’ll get to know a little about the famed underground hacker thanks to the fellas over at SinfuliPhone. Lets take a look at the interview shall we:

Hello Who are you ? How old are you ? Where you are living ?

I’m 26 and i live in Italy.

What do you do in your life ? What do you like in your life (passion) ?

I’m currently attending pharmacy science at univeristy. But my real passion, as you may have guessed, is computer science, and i hope, once i’m done with my pharmacy studies, to have the chance to study and get a degree in computer science too.

How many iDevice have you got ? other mobile device ? other multimedia as Apple TV or XBOX or PSP3 for example ?

I went across 3 iDevices: i bought my first iPhone3G in october 2008, then in november 2009 i sold it to buy an iPhone3GS and finally in october 2010 i sold my 3GS (to my girlfriend’s mom lol!) to buy an iPhone4. Currently i dont own any other mobile device nor videogame consoles or multimedia stuff (last thing i bought was a PS2 really long ago!)

(I would send you a photo of my iDevice, but it would be like searching for “iPhone4” on Google Images… I restored my device a couple of months ago and didnt have time to install anything except for the apps/tweaks i cracked, which i uninstalled immediately after doing so)

Pc or Mac ?

PC for the life! I think i’d never get used to close windows by clicking on top-left corner

Joking aside, the only reason for me to buy a Mac would be to develop something for iDevices, but at the moment i’m not really interested in that (and i wouldnt even have time to spend on that). But, who knows, maybe in the feature i’ll leave the dark side and start developing something!

Why do you crack tweaks or apps Cydia?

I believe in the “try before you buy” philosophy. People should always have the possibility to test a packgae before spending money on it. This is very important especially when talking about Mobile Substrate addons, cause there are tons of incompatibilities and issues of any sort, and no one likes to waste money on something that doesnt work at all, or maybe works but it is not as you may have expected it to be by seeing screenshots or reading description. But i crack time limited trials too: i really hate time limits when testing something.

What are the knowledge to hack a tweak or apps from Cydia ? What are tools in order to hack a tweak or apps from Cydia?

Reverse engineering bases are almost the same when cracking anything (Windows or Mac or iPhone apps). In the specific of Cydia apps it’s necessary to know ARM architecture assembly language, and hexadecimal equivalents of assembly functions. The knowledge of other programming languages such as obj-c and PHP is usefull as well.

The tools i use to work on Cydia apps are IDA, gdb and UltraEdit as hex editor (one of the best in my opinion).

Do you know that it is harmful to the developers? this bother you?

Well, i dont think my job is so harmful for developers. I think there are 3 categories of people:

- The ones who dont ever use cracks. They just buy the apps

- The ones who test the cracks and, if they enjoy the app, they buy it and support the dev.

- The ones who only use cracks (because of the choice of doing so, or because payment methods are not available in their country).

Users of this last category simply wait for the crack, they can wait for months, and avoid spending a single dollar, even at the cost of never having the app they’re looking for on their device.

So this is not such a loss of money for the devs, it’s just money they would never earn.

Can you tell me what are apps or tweak you can’t hack because good protection ?

I admit there are several apps that, with my current knowledges, i’m not able to face. The “big ones” are basically SpiritOfLogic’s apps (PwnTunes, iRealSMS and so on) and Celeste, which are highly encrypted. But fortunately there are other talented crackers with a bigger knowledge then mine, who will certainly manage to crack those apps too, even if this could take some time. Or maybe i’ll be able to crack them on my own in the feature: i learn lot of usefull things by every new app i crack!

Do you know to make a tweak or application for iDevice ?

I know some about iOS developing, as it’s useful for my cracker job, but i’m currently not interested in it. If in the feature i’ll decide to start developing i’ll surely have to learn a lot more things about that.

Whats your project on iDevice’s world or computer’s world ?

For the moment i think i’ll go on with my cracks, keeping all of them up to date (at the moment i have 75 Cydia cracked apps to maintain!) and provide new cracks as new apps come out.

What else something to say ?

Yes! BUY APPS AND SUPPORT THE DEVS! They are the ones making iDevices world to grow!

It could sound a little hypocritical if these words are spoken by me, but i truly believe in this.

I post usually Forums x Sellize, Sinful iPhone, CyDevice, iHacksRepo, i4iPhones, Banned iPhone insanelyi. I also post and BiteYourApple HackYouriPhone.