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Sure, the Samsung Vibrant's a T-Mobile device and the Samsung Captivate belongs to AT&T, but there's no longer any reason you can't swap them around -- all you need is a simple script and a USB cable to completely unlock your phone. A cracker-jack team at XDA-Developers discovered that Galaxy S unlock codes aren't kept in a secure remote server, but merely stored in a .BAK file on the device itself, which you find with a hex editor and key right in when inserting a new SIM c... ard of your choice. We tested it out on both Vibrant and Captivate and were up and running in less than five minutes each time, and wonder of wonders, the Vibrant gave us a 3G data connection (with 2Mbps down) using an AT&T SIM. Sadly, we can't say the inverse for the Captivate, which pulled down standard EDGE speeds on T-Mobile, but this is already far more than the hacking community could have hoped for. The best part? None of this requires you to actually root the phone, and if you're worried about warranty you can re-lock the handset with the very same code.

[Thanks, Brad]

Myriam Joire contributed to this report.

Confirmed: Galaxy S unlock codes are stored in your phone, Vibrant capable of AT&T 3G originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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