Here’s a $.99 app that will let you tether your iPhone for free

You remember Handy Light, right? It was a flashlight app, with a built-in “feature” that would allow you to tether your iPhone via your carrier’s data service. Well, Handy Light got Apple’s screws turned down on it pretty quickly, but it appears that we now have another contender in PayUpSucker.

PayUpSucker is a trash application. It’s fairly worthless, in and of itself. From the description:

“You can quickly make an I.O.U or an U.O.Me and show it to them or save it an send it as an e-mail MMS or post it on your social network site. The note will be in your camera roll to do with as you please.”

But from rumors that we’re hearing around the Internet, there’s a trick up the sleeve of PayUpSucker, so we downloaded it to give it a due investigation. Sure enough, if you know the right code, you can enable USB tethering. The code? It looks a lot like this:

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

Your email address*

• I agree to TNW storing and processing my personal data to receive the requested newsletter(s). For more information check out TNW's Privacy Policy.

  *

Now, things aren’t so simple. If you remember the method for enabling tethering via Handy Light, it’s very similar with PayUpSucker. I won’t get into details (but these guys will) other than to tell you that it requires you to create networks, change IP addresses and use a proxy.

A word of warning – When you do this, you are violating the terms of service to which you have agreed with your carrier. In short, you’re stealing, because your carrier charges money for the ability to use your phone as a modem for your computer. We are not responsible for whatever might happen to you if you choose to use this method, we’re simply reporting that the method exists.

So there you have it. Download it if you want, and get things running. But watch your data use. Remember, even with a tethering application, you’re still under the constraints of your carrier’s data plan. Oh, and you can bet that Apple will have this removed very quickly.