How to tether your iPhone's EDGE Internet access with your computer

Windows

Warning - I have not verified this on 1.1.4 firmware. I last used it on 1.0.2 firmware.

Tethering is using your iPhone's EDGE Internet access to allow your computer to gain access to the Internet. You should know that this hack may violate your AT&T Terms of Service for your iPhone contract. Even modifying your iPhone to enable this service may be a violation. Please check before attempting this procedure.

The question that arises when people hear about this hack is, how does AT&T know you are tethering? AT&T can tell by examining the packets transferred through the iPhone. They can determine how the header is assembled, and they also note sustained data transfers and connections to chat servers as dead giveaways. Be careful. I would only use it to surf in an emergency situation, whatever that is.



This tutorial is based on the instructions provided by Nate True here.

Step 1.

Download Nate True's tethering kit here. Open the archive file, and double click the tetherify-windows.bat file.




A command shell window will open, and a script will run, displaying a lot of information very quickly.




During Phase 3, you will be prompted to turn off the iPhone and then turn it back on, and then off and then back on again a second time. Press any key as soon as the iPhone starts up.




In Phase 5 you will be promprted to restart the iPhone again. Press any key when it restarts and this window will close. You now have an open SOCKS server on your iPhone. To use this feature you need to create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network without a router. This way the iPhone will remain connected to both EDGE, and your laptop.

Step 2.

Double click the networking icon in your system tray.




This screen will appear. Click "View Wireless Networks".




Click "Disconnect".




Click "Yes" at this pop up.




Click "Change advanced settings".




This screen will appear. Click the "Wireless Networks" tab.




Click the "Add..." button.




This window will now open. Enter a name in the "Network name (SSID):" box. At the "Data encryption:" drop down box, select your encryption. Then uncheck the box next to "The key is provided for me automatically". Go to the box labelled "Network key:" and enter a five character password. Enter the same password in the "Confirm network key:" box. Also check the box at the bottom which says "This is a computer-to-computer (ad hoc) network; wireless access points are not used". Click "OK".




Tether now appears in the Preferred networks list. Click the "Advanced" button.




Check the button for "Computer-to-computer (ad hoc) networks only". Click "Close".

Step 3.

Click the "Start" button and select "Run...".




Enter the following in the text box: cmd   Then click "OK".




The command shell window will open. Enter the following command: netsh interface ip set address "Wireless Network Connection" static 10.3.3.1 255.255.255.0   You should get a response of "Ok."

You should substitute "Wireless Network Connection" with the name of your Wi-Fi adapter if it's named something different. Don't ask me how to do this if you don't know.

Step 4.

On the iPhone click "Settings" then "Wi-Fi". The tether network should be listed. Click on tether and enter the password to join the network. You selected this password earlier.




Once you enter the password, a check mark should appear next to tether in the "Wi-Fi Networks" list indicating that you have joined this network. You should also get confirmation on your laptop that you've joined this network.




Go back to the iPhone, and click on the blue arrow next to the tether network to go into the IP settings screen. Press the "Static" button. Set the "IP Address" to one on the same subnet as your laptop. I entered 10.3.3.2. The "Subnet Mask" should be the same as well at 255.255.255.0.

Step 5.

Start FireFox. Click on the "Tools" menu then select "Options", click the "Advanced" button, then the "Network" tab, and finally the "Settings..." button.




You should now be at this screen. Click the "Manual proxy configuration" button. Go to the "SOCKS Host:" text box and enter 10.3.3.2   In the "Port:" box enter 1080. Click "OK".




You'll come back to this screen, click "OK".




Go to the URL bar and enter about:config and press enter/return. You should get a list like this one.




Go to the text box where it says "Filter:" and type: socks_remote and press enter/return.




Double click where it says "false" under the "Value" field. It will change to true.




You're liable to see this until you do a few things first.




This is the part where what I did to get a site to load, gets fuzzy. It was repetitive trial and error that got me through.

• If a site doesn't load, go to the iPhone in the "Wi-Fi Networks" screen and try sliding the switch for turning "Wi-Fi" on and off at the top of the screen. When you turn it off, wait until the icon in your system tray confirms you have disconnected before turning it back on.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I also tried loading a site directly from the iPhone on EDGE, just to make sure that was working. It loaded a site just fine. I don't know if this helped in some way.


• I kept clicking the "Go" button in FireFox, which is a green arrow button by the URL bar, to reattempt loading the site. You know you are getting close when you see this at the bottom of the browser window.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I double clicked the network icon in system tray to check on the connection. I clicked on tether and then clicked the "Connect" button at the bottom of the window, and was prompted to enter my password, then click "Connect".
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I then got this screen for a couple seconds, and it connected.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It now said connected.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  My first website through the iPhone. Kind of a slow loader, but what do you expect? This is only EDGE.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

So you finally got connected through the iPhone and it works just fine. Now how do you get back to surfing the 'net from your home network router? Good question, wish I had an answer. I played around in every network configuration panel in Windows and could not get it to connect to my router.

I disabled the ad hoc connection, tried to release/renew the IP, rebooted, you name it. Since I don't use Windows on my Mac to do anything besides hacking my iPhone I just decided to reinstall the whole OS. It was less hassle, believe me. I was back online just fine in an hour. !#$!@#$!*%$%^ Windoze.

Update: A reader "Frank" wrote me with his method of restoring your previous Internet connection : "All I did was change the Internet settings so that it automatically configures the IP address."

Start.
Control Panel.
Network Connections.
Highlight "Wireless Network Connection".
On the left menu bar select "Change Settings of this Connection".
Under "This Connection uses the following items:" select 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)' and then properties.
Select 'Automatically Obtain an IP Address' and select OK.