Piergiorgio Zambrini, the author of the ZiPhone unlocking tool, has allegedly come up with a way to crash iPhones remotely via a simple video. By playing the video, an iPhone would shut itself down, and iPods and Apple computers are also vulnerable.

The bug Zambrini found is in the audio portion of Apple's video format. Knowing the bug exists, someone could write a program that incorporates the bug into a video file and trigger a crash whenever an iPhone attempts to run that file. The bug, which is located in a shared code library that is used across most Apple operating systems and some Linux ones as well, doesn't appear to cause any permanent damage, but immediately sends the device into a panic that leads to a lengthy reboot.

Zambrini is trying to parley his iPhone hacking into a job at Apple, but so far he's not having much luck. He's released the technical info of this bug to Apple so they can fix it, but since he's done it the chances are good that someone else will be able to replicate it. Be careful out there, folks. It's a scary world. [Forbes]

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