Jon Lech Johansen, also known as “DVD Jon” and as the software engineer who released software code that cracked the DVD content-scrambling system in 2002, apparently has found details about iPhone and iTunes activation data and as well as a first key to open up the iPhone.  

Readers have notified us that Johansen has published the information on his blog, where he claims to have discovered a way to activate the iPhone without going through the regular activation process in iTunes.

Johansen’s “Phone Activation Server v1.0” software so far only enables iPod and Wi-Fi capabilities on the iPhone, not the actual phone. While the opened feature set is limited - and reduces the iPhone to an expensive Wi-Fi iPod - it is more than what has been available before: The iPhone is designed to only provide access to emergency phone calls, if a user decides not to activate the phone.

Johansen did not say if iPhone users can still go through the regular AT&T activation process once the phone has been activated through his Phone Activation Server.