By December 2021, Apple had heavily invested in Hardware Lock improvements. The release of iOS 15 introduced a new "Recovery Contact" feature and made tethered bypasses harder by changing the activation challenge-response mechanism.
Consequently, the GitHub landscape shifted. New repos uploaded after October 2021 carried stark warnings: "ARCHIVED - No longer working on iOS 15+." The search term "activation lock github 2021" now points to a specific, brief moment in tech history—a six-month window where checkm8 gave users hope before Apple's cloud-based patches closed the gap.
Throughout the summer of 2021, GitHub saw a massive "forking" event. When one popular bypass tool was DMCA’d by Apple, developers simply forked it to a new account.
The most notable forks in 2021 included: activation lock github 2021
Important caveat from 2021: These tools required a Mac or a specific Linux USB boot drive. They also required disabling SIP (System Integrity Protection) and often broke the SEP (Secure Enclave Processor), meaning Touch ID/Face ID would never work again.
Author: Siguza (Independent Security Researcher) Context: Released/Prominent throughout early 2021 discussions.
Why it was interesting: In 2021, the tool "PurpleSn0w" (and later tools utilizing the same exploit) gained massive attention on GitHub. This allowed for a "checkm8" hardware-based bypass of Activation Lock on older devices (iPhone X and older). By December 2021, Apple had heavily invested in
Siguza’s writing wasn't just a "how-to"; it was a deep dive into SEP (Secure Enclave Processor) security. The "Demon" exploit was fascinating because it challenged the assumption that the Secure Enclave was impenetrable.
Key takeaways from the 2021 research:
If you were looking for a more "news-style" blog post, 2021 was also the year of the "Deleted GitHub Repo" saga. Important caveat from 2021: These tools required a
Many tech blogs (like 9to5Mac and Redmond Pie) wrote posts about how GitHub repositories containing tools like iCloudBypass or Sliver were frequently taken down in 2021 due to DMCA requests from Apple.
Why this was interesting: It highlighted the cat-and-mouse game between open-source developers and Apple. Developers began hosting their code on anonymous or decentralized platforms to avoid takedowns, marking a shift in how "gray hat" security tools were distributed.