Motorola Says eFuse Doesn't Permanently Brick Phones 294
radicalpi writes "Motorola has responded to claims that eFuse is designed to brick your device if you attempt to mod it or install unauthorized bootloaders. Yes, the device will still not operate with unauthorized software, but it will only go into recovery mode until you reinstall the authorized software. According to Motorola: 'If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can re-boot once approved software is re-installed.'"
Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead? (Score:5, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you. Bricked is permanent. Non-permanent "bricking" isn't bricking at all. If you can revive it, it was never bricked in the first place.
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you. Bricked is permanent. Non-permanent "bricking" isn't bricking at all. If you can revive it, it was never bricked in the first place.
It all depends on how easy it is to reinstall the software. MOST "bricked" devices could be recovered at a service center with specialised equipment for a fee (that may not make it a cost effective proposition). If an end user can make the phone unusable but can't reverse the situation using the same equipment (or at least readily available affordable - as in a few bucks - equipment) I would still call it bricked even if it can be revived.
I have no idea if in this safe mode it's easy to install the authorised software. If it is easy I wouldn't call that bricked either. I'd just call it nasty DRM that I'll steer well clear of.
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Informative)
This sounds exactly like it is on the CLIQ. In the past, if you were not careful with modding, you will end up with the phone bootlooping until you put the phone in USB recovery mode, and flash a signed SHX file. Now, you can most likely use nandroid and pull back to the last backup.
This bit people big time when a new radio ROM was available for upgrading, and people upgraded to it with a rooted/custom ROM, one had to reflash (losing root). Of course new ROM fixed the RAMDLD exploit that was used to root the phone in the first place.
Luckily, on the CLIQ, there was a ROM that had ro.secure set to 0 that was signed by a vendor. This allowed for a recovery image to be flashed, and new ROMS pushed to the phone. Had this not been the case, I'm sure it would have been an uphill battle to get the phone re-rooted, and likely people would have moved on to other platforms and not bothered.
All and all, this isn't great news, but it is better than having devices be rendered unusable until sent to a Motorola repair depot.
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Bricked is forever, as defined by perception and ability -- both of which are subject to change.
A few years ago, I really fucked up a WRT54G when playing with software. I was going to throw it away, when I stumbled across a process for programming it using its JTAG interface and a parallel port. (Which worked fine.)
So was it a brick? The answer is simple, but flexible: It was a brick until I learned that it was possible for me to recover it, at which point it ceased to be a brick.
And now that I know how to deal with these issues, I can't successfully brick a WRT54G in the same fashion.
A dozen years ago, I fucked up a PC by flashing the wrong BIOS. Was it a brick? Again, it's a matter of perspective. In this particular case it was not a brick, though most folks would have reasonably considered it to be completely and totally bricked. Why was it not bricked for me? Because I already knew how to fix it: Enable shadow ROM on another computer, and plug the improperly-flashed BIOS into it hot. Then, just re-flash with the correct image, put the hardware back where it was, and move on with life.
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Just because you have discovered an unbricking technique does NOT invalidate the fact that it WAS in fact bricked.
Bricking is not defined as forever.
Bricking means the device is hosed and cannot be recovered without breaking in and modifying the hardware.
Breaking into the JTAG interface of a consumer device and reprogramming PROM are definitely hardware modification techniques that are non-trivial.
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Breaking in? It's not like it took prybars and hammers to open the thing. A WRT54G opens with a quick tug using no tools other than a pair of reasonably-strong hands.
Modifying the hardware? A little. But the JTAG header was right there on the board, IIRC it was even labeled. All I had to do was solder some pins to it to be able to plug a cable into it. And I could have done it without even going that far: after all, I just needed electrical continuity, and nowhere is it written that this must involve physical modification. (Soldering is easier for one individual device, but if I had a lot of them to fix I'd have come up with something less invasive.)
Breaking into the JTAG interface? To reprogram the PROM? You've gone off of the deep end. JTAG is a bog-standard and rather simple interface for dealing with flash at a low level. And PROMs aren't reprogrammable.
Another reason why the device was not bricked was that it was not physically damaged: No eFuse was blown, no parts had turned to smoke, and never was it in any particular danger. It just had a bad firmware load. In other words, it was experiencing a software problem. So I loaded new software that worked, once I learned how.
*shrug*
In other news, some layfolk also think that a PC with a crapfested install of Windows is bricked beyond help. This opinion is, of course, wrong. But it is based on their perspective and ability.
To use a car analogy: I have a dead GM 4L30E automatic transmission out back which died suddenly in my BMW. I fixed the car by replacing the transmission, which I knew how to do, so at no time was the whole car a brick. Now: Could the 4L30E be fixed? I guess so, but I don't know how to do that, so the tranny itself is still bricked. To someone else with different perspective and ability, it might be a quick fix, but that someone ain't me. If the day comes that I gain the ability to understand and fix automatic transmissions, or I give it to someone else who already understands these things, then it may cease being a brick.
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Changing or attempting to change your phone's OS voids it anyway so its a moot point.
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:4, Insightful)
Bricking means the device is hosed and cannot be recovered without breaking in and modifying the hardware.
No, you seem to misunderstand the meaning of the word "brick". As defined by Wiktionary [wiktionary.org]:
Noun .
brick (countable and uncountable; plural bricks)
1. (countable) A hardened rectangular block of mud, clay etc., used for building.
This wall is made of bricks
A brick is something you build houses with. A device that is in a state of non-function is called a "brick" because that's about all you could do with it. A device that I don't know how to return to a functioning state to me is a brick. If you know how to fix it, then to you it is not a brick, and if you offer to help me fix it then it is no longer a brick to me either. That's what adolf is saying, and I agree. Take a second to let that sink in and maybe you will understand.
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Funny)
you know what'd be fun? Let's spends several hours debating the "actual" meaning of a slang term. Can we do hella next? Because my friend says it means "really really" but he's just a fucking retard because I'm positive it means "really really really".
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No you're saying nothing is ever bricked because by improving your ability or paying someone else you can always get it fixed. This is wrong.
In truth the 'normal' way of flashing your WRT54G can still brick the router because you can't fix the problem using the same technique that you got into trouble in the first place. OTOH JTAG flashing of the router does indeed seem to be unable to brick the device because you can always fix the problem.
That just leaves where you draw the line. IMO the requirements
Proper hacking. (Score:2)
Why was it not bricked for me? Because I already knew how to fix it: Enable shadow ROM on another computer, and plug the improperly-flashed BIOS into it hot. Then, just re-flash with the correct image, put the hardware back where it was, and move on with life.
You are a proper hacker. You're Doin' It Right.
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Insightful)
A "bricked" PSP that can be recovered using a Pandora battery is not bricked at all. It is far more useful than a brick. All it takes is a widget to tell the device to boot from whatever it is that is in the card slot instead of its internal flash. This widget happens to be known as a Pandora battery, and the only thing that is special about it is that its serial number consists of zeroes.
Bricks don't do any of that stuff: I have a pile of them out back, and none of them possess these abilities. A genuinely bricked PSP would resemble a brick, not an electronic device that can easily be brought back to usefulness.
Regarding "user perspective," I have bricked a lot of things (both electronic and mechanical) that I was simply unable to fix myself while being unwilling or unable to pay someone else to do it.
Nonetheless, I am a PSP user. And I am a WRT54G user. And a Droid user. I use them all in ways other than what the instructions say that I should be able to, but that doesn't make me less of a user -- I'm just a user with a different perspective than most have.
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I don't know, I can play games with a brick - can the same be said for a PSP? I don't think so.
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Informative)
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Funny... cause the USB cable is in the box the phone came with.
I was just about to post this. For my LG phone the wall charger is just an adapter for the USB cable. Specialist tool indeed.
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Funny)
Frankly, I'd be interested in knowing how they rooted the phone and then changed the boot ROMs without using a USB cable...
up up down down left right left right B A
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A USB cable is a specialist tool when it comes to mobiles, most users have never, and probably will never, connected their phone to their computer. This concept is alien to most users.
Huh... what?
Every mobile phone with a camera comes with a USB cable nowadays. How would otherwise those pictures be transfered to a PC? Furthermore, most if not all phones are nowadays capable of playing MP3 files, which, again, need to be transfered from a PC to the phone. Finally, most (all?) smartphones have calendaring functions which allow/require syncing with a PC. For which they use a USB cable.
A USB cable is absolutely not alien to current mobile phone users.It hasn't been for the last 5 years, in
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You could use bluetooth, at least Nokia phones can do all that. My E65 didn't came with an USB cable nor have I ever required one, usually I just use Wifi to transfer stuff.
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Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:4, Interesting)
This is another term that has entered the popular lexicon and got warped. If a device is bricked, _no one_ can reactivate it - it is dead. If someone can revive the device for a fee, it's not bricked.... it's just something you probably should not have bought in the first place. Bricked means bricked - and I've had a few devices go that way on me because of mistakes.
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I hear you! There's a former Asus 500w Premium router I bricked once that I regret. But all in all it was worth it to me. The cost of doing business.
I really like running DD-WRT on cheap routers, and over time, I've bricked one or two; and I accept I broke the manufacturer's warranty by attempting the 'upgrade' in the first place. Those things deliver international office VPN/VOIP functions that more than offset the cost & loss of a few bricked routers overall. I can accept a few br
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If a device is bricked, _no one_ can reactivate it - it is dead
If you throw enough money at a thing you can revive even a dead hunk of clay. By your definition nothing is ever bricked, since there is always some way to revive something. The only useful definition of "bricked" is the one where a bricked device needs special tools for recovery that weren't needed for installing the modification in the first place, aka your path of recovery is blocked. One can probably make a few exception if the special tools aren't so special, but common household items, but once it inv
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You say the term 'bricked' got warped, which is true enough etymologically, but the reality is also that it got appropriated to fill a gap.
There isn't a punchy little word that's quite as appealing and new and appropriate to technology (specifically) that describes a device getting temporarily but catastrophically ... um .... hosed/trashed/corrupted.
People were wanting a word to fill that gap and they grabbed the handiest, sweetest-sounding one around. If there's a beter sounding (and definitionally more so
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Bricked means the software in programmable ROM is no longer operational. The only way to recover is having access to factory hardware rigs or other special tools that are used to program the devices at the factory.
If you can't plug in a standard USB cable and run the official upgrade process then the device is bricked.
install the authorised software (Score:2)
I have no idea if in this safe mode it's easy to install the authorized software.
It's as easy as copying a file called update.zip onto the sd-card and then reboot. But you probably need a specialized equipment called an sd-card reader ;-) .
Re:Permanently brick sort of like permanently dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Bricked is permanent.
Well then by your definition it's pretty much impossible to "brick" a device without otherwise destroying it, as it's always possible to "unbrick" it by replacing code (whether via JTAG, secret button presses or other means) or swapping components.
Back in the real world, it's a relative term. If you can't unbrick your device then as far as you are concerned it's bricked, even if the manufacturer or someone with a bit more brains could actually fix it for you.
News at 11 - beige box = hard drive (Score:2)
I've used it today in the context of a device that HP techs could not get working again after return and that's the sort of thing a lot of readers expect here when they see "brick", good as a doorstop but not good for the original purpose.
In my mind it's t
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I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or arguing with me (or the parent)...
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If you mashed up your phone, mixed it with clay, shaped the mass into a rectangular prism, and left it in the sun to dry, then I'd call it bricked.
To unbrick, just reverse the process.
Definitions. Why can't people keep them simple, like me?
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There, fixed that for you. Bricked is permanent. Non-permanent "bricking" isn't bricking at all. If you can revive it, it was never bricked in the first place.
They newer said that you can revive it.
Thanks for the clarification Motorola, (Score:5, Insightful)
but I will decide what software is "authorized" to run on my phone!
No sale for you.
Re:Thanks for the clarification Motorola, (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yet apple does it every day.
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Unfair business practices != illegal. Frowned upon, yes. Illegal, not exactly.
Additionally, Microsoft controls a significant portion of the desktop market. Anti-monopoly legislation comes into play there. Motorola (specifically the Droid X) is far, far, far from a monopoly.
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Google may not be a traditional monopoly, but you have to admit they are a *major* player in the industry.
I can see where an investigation is justified. I have no doubt that Google has the power to shut someone out and royally screw up smaller operations.
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This is true, but I still fail to see how it's unfair enough of an action on Motorola's part that it warrants government intervention and investigation.
Nobody's forcing you to get or use a Droid X.
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And nobody forces you to use Google - yahoo, bing, askjeeves lol.
The biggest reason I think that there is reason for investigation is that you become locked into a contract if you so choose to use a motorola phone.
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Locked into contract, yes. Locked into phone, no.
You're free to change phones whenever you like - the only difference is you'll pay full, non-subsidized price for the new device. That's entirely a business decision.
The reason Microsoft was targeted for monopolistic activity is because of their pervasiveness in everyday computing. When 90% of the computers out there run Windows (horrible exaggeration, I know) your business would be absolutely destroyed if Microsoft somehow stopped your application from ru
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Actually, uhm.. yes they do. My employer does for one.
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Actually no, "antitrust" is from the US. The Sherman Act was called "The Anti-trust act", in 1890, way before the EU was even a thought.
The original text is:
Hence "anti-trust".
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Will they be sued when Windows Phone 7 comes out? I don't think so, but predict their market share will fall to approximately zero and most of their remaining customers will jump ship to Android.
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Motorola doesn't have much of a monopoly to leverage.
Re:Thanks for the clarification Motorola, (Score:5, Interesting)
How naive can you be ?
Suing IS the only option. Any individual consumer boycotting a product will do nothing, because they don't care about individual users ... this is why they're quite happy to deal with your "customer service" requests by letting you talk so someone in Mumbai reading from a checklist of approved questions but offering no real answers.
Any percentage less than a certain amount are also "don't care" metrics, it simply won't make a dent on their overall sales, and is not cost effective enough to affect a recall or revision to the product.
But a court case, together with it's bad publicity and public perception that the company isn't being totally honest, WILL have the CEOs taking notice, and might just change something to the benefit of all users.
You are one of nearly seven billion people on the planet ... no one cares what you boycott or otherwise, no one will even know about it. Make a class action suit, and entire countries can hear about it on the six o'clock news.
Amen! (Score:2)
I've no idea why people who might want fancy features like VoIP on the phone are still buying phones from these asshats. We all needed to hack our phones once upon a time, but now we've got the N900 that comes out of the box with terminal, sype & voip integration, etc.
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Really now... (Score:2)
I wonder if this was brought on by the likes of Cyanogen bringing Froyo to the G1 (Hence extending it's life span greatly)?
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
If it works like it does on the Xbox 360, signed system images will check how many eFuses have been blown and refuse to boot if it's more than what it's expecting. During an update, an eFuse will blown to prevent downgrading to a previous system image that may have some sort of vulnerability. "Vulnerability" in this case likely meaning something that lets you get root access.
The eFuses are in the CPU so it's not like you can just bridge something with a wire.
NOTE: I'm not entirely sure of the specifics with the 360, I think it may be more complicated than simply the number of eFused blown.
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The idea is that cryptographic signatures are stored inside the chip, namely CPU in all cases I know of, so that it only runs properly signed code. Blowing efuses will change the accepted signature to something new, thus setting back the goal of people who've just broken the system.
Microsoft do it with the 360, which keeps unsigned code at bay with each update. It also causes issues with legitimate machines, seeing as one resistor that was faulty caused a huge swathe of console not booting after an update -
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This makes sense.
Dedicate one chip to validating the boot code, if it detects monkey business blows the "eFUSE" that shuts off power to the other processors.
I wonder if this can be bypassed with a simple short?
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Motorola really needs to (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Motorola really needs to (Score:5, Interesting)
This is basically what the nexus one does. You can unlock it, but it voids your warranty, and adds an unlocked padlock icon to the boot screen to show that you have unlocked it.
Let hackers identify the offending chip(s)... (Score:2)
I am waiting for hackers to identify the offending chip(s) then have them incapacitated. Afterwards, we can mod the beast.
Or is it that I just do not understand the issues here? Does my suggestion even make sense?
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The chips are identified, already.
I've already been working on POC code to exploit that eFuse and make it so once activated you CAN'T possibly install anything on the phone any longer. Once it works, Motorola is going to suffer, hard.
Ahh, the joys of exploiting semiconductors for various purposes. Some grow plants, others can be used to annoy someone, and even more can be used to force unfair business practices.
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Once POC works? No, because then the phone is truly bricked, nothing will work, at all, except the power button.
So... (Score:2, Insightful)
...it's about as locked as the iPhone then, and still requires jailbreaking?
Go go open sou....waitaminnit...
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Much more locked than an iPhone in fact.
DDoS Possible? (Score:2, Interesting)
OMG! Whatever shall we do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OMG! Whatever shall we do? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is sad, that's for sure, but at the same time it's unfair to blame Android for this debacle. Android is the OS, and it's not Google's fault that Motorola is so blatantly circumventing the spirit of the OS. Apple, on the other hand, controls the entire system, hardware and software. Thus, anything you don't like about the iPhone can be squarely blamed on them.
Personally, I just hope the rest of the industry doesn't think Motorola has had a bright idea here, and try to follow suit. I also can't see myself getting any of the Motorola phones in the future... I love my Droid, but damned if I'm going to support a company that's pulling stunts like this.
Re:OMG! Whatever shall we do? (Score:5, Interesting)
it's not Google's fault that Motorola is so blatantly circumventing the spirit of the OS
I disagree. Maybe at the beginning Google had to bow to phone manufacturer's wishes, but I think it is popular enough now that they can add a few more requirements in return for getting all the Google apps. For example:
* You have to provide Android upgrades for a year after the EOL of the phone.
* You can unlock the bootloader in the same way as the nexus one (but it can void the warranty).
* You have to provide a non-skinned ROM option.
* The phone has to pass some kind of conformance test. Maybe they already do this, but it's clearly not a great test if the they do; e.g. most phones don't support call recording, behave very differently when they are sleeping, and so on.
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The fault is Google's as well. They could demand that the OS remain open source, instead they went with profit. Google does own the rights to Android do they not? They can also set the terms for it's license.
To claim that Google isn't at fault here is a bit disingenuous, when they are the ones who have the ability to enforce openness and failed to do so.
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When you get hours and hours, lot off news pages of free advertisement before lunch, and you as a company has a culture of overhyping and nurture others desire to hype your product, do not cry when the contrary happens: exaggerated or great emphasis on your mistakes or what you do not delivered
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To be fair, if you want an Android phone you don't have to get on from Motorola, you've got a huge amount of choice, but if you want an iPhone, you've only got one choice; buy from Apple.
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You're right - the iPhone would get more press and more criticism for this.
This is because Apple are so good at marketing and manipulating the press. Great when it helps the company sell products, but not so great when things are going wrong.
There is plenty of "real news" going on when Apple launch their newest product line, but they still get an amount of press out of proportion to the importance of their products.
RS
Pay attention, Motorola. Masonry lesson. (Score:5, Insightful)
No approved software -> one kind of brick.
Approved software -> another kind of brick.
Any questions?
No excuse (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as a device or any part of a device is sold with a feature that says "you are prohibited from doing what you want with something you paid disgusting amounts of money for" Then something is wrong.
When you buy something, it should be yours to do whatever the fuck you want with it. There is no reason that someone else has any right to tell you what you are allowed to do with your possessions. Hell, if someone came into my house and forced me to stop using super glue to attach everything to everything
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When you buy something, it should be yours to do whatever the fuck you want with it. There is no reason that someone else has any right to tell you what you are allowed to do with your possessions.
So I guess that you also have issues with laws against use of fully automatic machine guns.
It's also illegal to use a spark-gap transmitter these days. Hell, I have commercial Motorola radios that I hack but it's still illegal for me to use them on frequencies that I'm not licensed for. But hey, I bought it and
Main problem would be EOL-ed devices (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition to marketoids demanding that you use Blur, there's a bigger problem. Once the device is marked as End of Life (and original Droid already is, right? Been less than a year) I kinda doubt that Motorola will dedicate any resources to bolding Blur onto newer revisions of Android. :) )
Which means users will be stuck in a certain version. Even though new ones could theoretically be used, as hardware is powerful enough (or it could be stripped down by geniuses from XDA Dev
At least they need to disable eFuse on "no longer supported" devices. Otherwise, just another example of planned obsolescence (and even worse than iPhone).
Fuck your software. (Score:4, Insightful)
how do you like this as the opinion of customers ? distasteful isnt it ? well, you asked for it.
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Even more broadly, the engineering time they waste maintaining an undesired feature is time not spent making the product line better. So far, the MOTO Droid line isn't pulling the company back to profitability last I checked.
I thought GPL 3 forbade this kind of activity of preventing firmware changes, it undermines one major point of open source while still exploiting open source code. Maybe that language didn't make it into the final license.
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I thought GPL 3 forbade this kind of activity of preventing firmware changes, it undermines one major point of open source while still exploiting open source code. Maybe that language didn't make it into the final license.
It does. Android is GPLv2 and Apache 2.0 licensed, therefore that does not apply here.
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http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=164034
Android has saved their bacon. And this new model is doing very well, and probably will continue to. The numbers of people who are into running custom ROM's is not enough to make a dent in the sales.. The custom ROM users will go elsewhere, and there will be awesome alternatives for them.. and they will turn their technical noses down on the people who purchase the phone, because they (those idiots) can't do something that most of them would no
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The key pieces that make the phone go are under the GPLv2.
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Linux is licensed under GPL v2.
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First, they don't want to deal with them in warranty. Even if people knowingly bricked their phone by attaching a car battery to it they will still hit up the warranty department with a cock and bull story about how it isn't their fault. Clogs up the warranty department and costs the company time and money.
Second, they cannot allow hacking the device to become mainstream. We aren't talking about people loading Linux on their phone to get a shell, the primary reason people want to hack their phone is theft o
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i dont care about their problems. i am the customer, i make the decisions. i decide upon what i want. not what they want or they can give. if they cannot provide me what they want, what's left for them involves their product, and their ass.
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I think you are missing the futility of not buying it based solely on the fact you don't like them coupling the the software and hardware. Every phone on the market running Android or iOS already implement some level of cryptographic lock out. This isn't going to diminish over time for the reasons I mentioned and a few I am sure I missed. I am going to guess 99+% of customers don't care to hack their phone and they aim to keep it that way.
They will all sell millions of phones with or without your help and I
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thats whats happening in the market i am at least.
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That is exactly what they are doing. For the non-tech affluent they are providing a phone that won't brick. It is guaranteed to work exactly the way it did the day you bought it.
If you want a phone to hack maybe you should buy the Google Developer phone [brightstarcorp.com] from HTC. There the only limitation is screwing with the bootloader and the fact that the current model only supports 1.6 of Android and that you are on the now ancient HTC Magic.
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In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
that is all well (Score:2)
shove your fucking product, up your ass. let me wake you up to a very important point of free market :
CUSTOMER MAKES THE DECISIONS. NOT YOU. ITS THE RULE OF FREE MARKET.
it is as fucking simple as that. we do not care about your woes, your problems, your issues, what you can give, what you cannot give, what rights you think that we deserve, what rights you think that you deserve, this or that.
if you dont give us what WE want, we wont buy your product. y
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I seem to remember there was much more public outcry when they tried to do similar things to lock down control of PCs and laptops to software authorized by one manufacturer. Everyone just sort of laughed it off saying "that'll never fly".
But I guess mobile phones have always kinda locked down. Still, the difference a generation makes!
Developer/tinkerer friendly Android device? (Score:4, Informative)
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know of any android device that's meant by the manufacturer to be tinkered with? No protected bootloaders, read only filesystems, or any other such shenanigans that are meant to make the task of installing custom ROMs as difficult as possible.
I know the Nexus One is supposed to be very easy to root, and thus developer friendly, but unfortunately it's not available everywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
And equally unfortunately, it's only available to some carriers as it doesn't support all the right frequencies and is a GSM type phone.
If the customer can't unbrick it, it's a brick. (Score:2)
Bricking is when I can't recover it using tools normally available to the public.
Sometimes I test devices in the place where they make the firmware.
I "brick" the product all the time.
Depending on what type of product it is, I take it to the unbricking lady or to a guy named Jim.
And they unbrick it.
Ask any of the lab rats or developers--if you break it in such a manner that it's stupid until they fix it with developer/mfr tools, it's a brick.
Welcome to trusted computing (Score:5, Insightful)
If this works--which is to say that the phones still sell and Moto suffers only tolerable humiliation, expect to see more.
And if it does fly, look for it be in your general-purpose computer, soon.
Let's hope the popular blogs make a big stink about it. /.
'Cause nobody is listening to the crackpots on
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
google or wikipedia can help you with the concept of a general-purpose computer.
With regard to your personal attack and argument from adverse consequences [rationalwiki.org], resorting to this sort of thing shows you have no real basis for your position.
My Dad can exercise his rights under copyright law with his VCR. Not with his comcast DVR (CGMS). Certainly not with his HD recorder (HDCP). If he wants to hack around these restrictions, he must develop everything himself. Nobody can sell him equipment to circumvent an ac
Ordered Sprint HTC EVO 4G on Friday (Score:5, Insightful)
Too late. I don't know if I'll ever need to root my phone, but I want to know that I can. I was considering the Droid X and the HTC EVO 4G, and eFuse was the leading reason for selecting the HTC phone.
It's my phone, if I didn't want control, I would get an iPhone.
No problem (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Original Droid is pretty nice. I love mine anyway. Of course part of that is the ease at hacking it to run custom ROMs, so I'll stay away from the Droid X until that flaw is solved.
Re:But but but its android... (Score:4, Informative)
> Um, the contract that you agreed to that allows access to the carriers private data/voice network. Laid down by the same carrier that you are contracted with.
And, in the United States, if your carrier happens to be Verizon or AT&T, they're subject to the same consent decree that broke up AT&T's monopoly 25 years ago & forced them to allow consumers to own their own phones. At first, it didn't matter much, because all phones were... well... phones. But within a couple of years, phones started to pick up new features, some of which had absolutely nothing to do with being a "phone", and other devices that were never conceived as phones began to acquire the ability to act like phones.
> These are not standalone devices, and have different risks to whom you have a contract with, thus different rules.
Newsflash: a hacked DOCSIS3.0 cable modem can cause WAY more service disruption than the most hacked Android phone to have ever existed on planet earth. Yet, by law, you can walk into Best Buy (or some other store) and buy your own anyway, whether Comcast likes it or not. Cable modems are literally radio transmitters (and fairly powerful ones, at that), and their broadcasts share cable with customers over a shockingly large area that makes the area served by a single cell tower look small by comparison.
If the carriers want that much control and are that concerned about protecting the integrity of their networks, let them get together and define the specs for a mobile network interface that's basically a "black box" wireless network card having the approximate form factor of a thick SD card whose external connectors consist of power, RF, I2C, and ethernet. Then I can buy whatever pocket computer I like, stick their network interface into it, and then users and carriers can peacefully coexist on opposite sides of a well-defined wall of separation.