Gizmodo is reporting that the iPhone has been unlocked in Europe to work with other carriers, including incoming and outgoing calls.
The hack apparently uses a SIM card reader, a SilverCard (a special reprogrammable SIM card) and a V1 SIM. The process then supposedly uses software to extract the Ki Key (a special encryption key that the phone network uses to authenticate the SIM), which is then written out to the V1 SIM.
Comments on the forum post claim that the hack has been succesfully applied in the UK, but we haven't heard of anyone trying this in the US yet, and the components required to do it are not things that most users will have readily available. Although SIM card readers are widely available, the SilverCard SIM is not.
This hack is also somewhat questionable on legal grounds; it involves writing to the SIM card and changing the data it uses to identify itself to the network, something that could be detected by the mobile network. At the very least, this could get your account disabled, and there is also a chance it could be regarded as an illegal attempt at cloning a SIM card.
