Ron Paul hacks iPhone to run Ubuntu, installs in plug-in Prius!

WASHINGTON (July 26, 2007) - Ron Paul, Republican Congressman and 2008 Presidential hopeful, announced today that he had successful modified an off-the-shelf iPhone (AAPL) to run Ubuntu, an open source Linux distribution popular with technology aficionados worldwide. With the aplomb of a hacker, Paul described in broad strokes the steps he took to alter the popular phone's operating system in an hour-long press conference in the nation's capital.

"It started off as a weekend project," stated Paul, who has been shuttling between the nation's most hotly-contested primary battleground states, over six months before primary season opens. "I was able to tease through crash reports, which contained the contents of registers and what libraries were loaded, allowing me to cherry-pick those for download through the iPhone interface. I exposed a few vulnerabilities, and was able to uninstall the standard OS. A few more hours of tinkering allowed me to install a tweaked Ubuntu distribution that has managed to avoid a single crash over the past 36 hours of heavy use."

Likening the ponderous and closed iPhone operating system to the country's current foreign policy woes, Paul suggested simple ingenuity and the right tools might allow a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from "the Iraqi quagmire", with simple replacement of low-cost troops from Mongolia and Mozambique.

"As many of my constituents in Texas know, I have always favored small government and an avoidance of unwieldy bureaucracy. I encourage iPhone users to download instructions on how to hack their phones from my campaign website."

In a nod to environmentalist concerns about man-made climate change, Paul suggested that rapid keystrokes could be harnessed by the iPhone and used to charge a plug-in Prius hybrid vehicle. "The more I pinch, unpinch and stroke my iPhone, the fewer stops I have to make at the gas pump to get me from one campaign speech to another," said Paul, noting that the iPhone's touchscreen can be easily modified to act as a transducer. The iPhone's lithium ion battery can discharge into a plug-in hybrid vehicles battery through a simply retrofitted cable.

Paul's announcement invited the scorn of fellow Republican presidential contender, Rudy Giuliani, who dismissed the news without comment. In response, Paul challenged Giuliani to read the report on how it was done, freely available on his campaign website.