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The unofficial iPhone DevTeam has recently issued a warning to those looking to have an unlocked iPhone 3G. They have come out claiming that the hardware based SIM card hacks are not really a good option to consider, which is not the best news, because currently they are the only answer as a software method has not been found yet.

According to the details, the DevTeam is not claiming that they will not work, but instead they may have some unintended consequences, so if you are using one of these you may want to read on and think twice about continuing its use.

The member of the DevTeam has stated that in order for these chips to work they are required to send fake identifiers to fool the 3G baseband chip. This sounds innocent enough, however these fake identifiers are often leaked into the existing networks and in turn can cause errors to be reported. While this sounds like it would be bad for the person managing the network, these errors can come back to haunt you also, because they could possibly be considered tampering with the network.

In Germany this type of tampering could lead to a three year prison term and in the US it could be considered under legislation designed to combat terrorism. Suddenly it does not seem as nice or important to have an unlocked iPhone 3G.

[MacNN]