“Secret” key not SDK related, decrypts ramdisks

So much for the theory that this is the key to sign apps for iTunes deployment. George Hotz has figured out just what it does. From his blog:

Strip the first 0×800 bytes from your >= 1.1.1 firmware ramdisk

Run:
openssl enc -d -in ramdisk.dmg -out de.dmg -aes-128-cbc -K 188458A6D15034DFE386F23B61D43774 -iv 0

Ignore the error. Then there will be some garbage, signatures and certificates, at the end of the file. Remove it and mount your ramdisk.

Zibri (iPhone Elite member and the one that initially leaked the key) posted the following:

Where it came from?
We dumped it.

How.
God knows.

Now i wonder why it took a week to people to figure out what it was..

I also have a RAMDISK picture in my blog

P.S.
I don’t know who is/owns Austin Heap but i think he just found the key on my blog and posted it.
We got that key 2 days before my original post on my blog ( http://zibree.blogspot.com )

A note:
Finally someone took the time to see what door a key opens..

Learning that Austin Heap is not an insider explains the confusion. It was on that site the key was on a page titled “iSDK”… which likely contributed to the rumors this key is related to that upcoming release.

Now that we know what this “secret” key does, the impact is still unclear. Is this a master key that will enable us to quickly decrypt all future firmwares? Or will it be easily revoked?