When he was 17, George Hotz poured hundreds of hours of his summer vacation into a special project: learning the iPhone's secrets. His unpaid labor eventually paid off.

With the help of a soldering iron, he was the first to unlock the iPhone, delivering the handset to international networks before Apple had a chance to.
He got some perks, too. His unlock catapulted him to internet stardom, catching the eye of an entrepreneur who traded his Nissan 350Z car for Hotz's restriction-free iPhone.