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CNET’s Crave has a really fascinating post about a gentleman in Vietnam who has figured out how to unlock 3G iPhones–as of this writing, there is no software way to unlock this phone.

Unlocking iPhone 3Gs–the Vietnamese way

There are some interesting pictures showing some methods used by the Vietnamese technicians to remove and replace the flash memory device. They use a cheap hardware store heat gun, which is normally used to strip paint, to heat the solder until it melts, and then they remove it with tweezers. One of the problems with this sort of rework is that the adjacent components often loosen and shift or even fly off completely.

Look at the last picture in the article. The technician is using some small metal plates to protect the other components from the blast of hot air. Genius!