seventeen-year-old George Hotz of New Jersey (not to be confused with McLovin of Hawaii) recently announced on his blog, with the generous PR assistance of the Associated Press, that he had completed a hardware unlock of the iPhone which makes it usable on T-Mobile in the U.S. as well as any number of European carriers.

What's truly hilarious is that he's selling the iPhone he unlocked on eBay, calling it "your chance to own a piece of mobile telephone history" - and the bidding is already up to $2,225.00 with six days left... anyone wanna bet how high the winning bid will go? As he warns on his blog, "If you are only bidding on this to get an unlocked iPhone, don't. There are much cheaper and easier ways to get one."

And he's right: Engadget's Ryan Block today pointed to iPhoneSIMfree.com's recently-announced software hack, which is unlikely to cost $2,225.00 ... as Block puts it, "We can hardly believe the iPhone's finally been cracked. No, scratch that - we just can't believe it took this long."

More here from Tech.co.uk ... more here from Ars Technica ... and more here from IntoMobile.