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Droid X Self-Destructs If You Try To Mod
An anonymous reader writes with some discouraging news for hack-oriented purchasers of the new Droid X phone: "If the eFuse fails to verify [the firmware information (what we call ROMS), the kernel information, and the bootloader version], then the eFuse receives a command to 'blow the fuse' or 'trip the fuse.' This results in the booting process becoming corrupted, followed by a permanent bricking of the phone. This FailSafe is activated anytime the bootloader is tampered with or any of the above three parts of the phone has been tampered with."
"Written in JTAG" implies a program written in a language called JTAG.
The problem is that JTAG is a standardized electrical communications protocol used to support debugging of ICs, and often also used to program them.
Nothing can be "written in JTAG" because it isn't a programming language. I question whether the poster on that forum has any clue what's really going on. So far the only evidence of this is one forum post that has very little detail and has some glaring technical/grammatical errors (see above). I'll believe it when I see a more in-depth analysis.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
To be fair, OS X doesn't implode if you recompile the bootloader, which is open source under Darwin. You can either download apps for OS X (many free), make your own using Apple-supplied tools (XCode), third-party paid tools (why?), or use free-as-in-speech-and-beer OSS tools.
This can be done in any combination of interfaces, from CLI and X11 to Cocoa and Carbon.
None of this, or even (to make an accurate analogy) installing Windows or Linux on your Mac, is going to make the Mac go boom. In fact, if you buy the system and install the exact same Linux distro as you did on your IBM or Compaq... it'd work.
Someone will find a way around this very quickly
It's not even clear if this information is real. TFA links to a forum post which doesn't seem to actually contain a source of the information (the OP states it's a mix of "hard information" and "conjecture"). Said forum post then links to the eFUSE wikipedia article, which lists Droid X as having an implementation of eFUSE. However, if you look at the Droid X wikipedia page linked to from there, you'll see the original mobilecrunch.com is what is cited for the eFUSE inclusion bit.
I'm not saying there is something fishy going on, but this could easily not be true.
Except for the Droid Eris and Droid Incredible, which are HTC.
You can thank Motorola for this gaff, not Verizon. Motorola Bootloader Lockdown Explained It seems that, since the Droid X is using part of Motorola's code along with the Android OS, they did not want that open. Part of protecting their IP I suppose.
So a guy [p3droid] few know posts a speculative comment
and /. takes it as fact? At least p3droid has the courtesy to warn his readers what a conjecture is and that's all his post is.
This is not the FCC's doing, this is Verizon's. The FCC has no laws against having an open phone. Please put the blame where it belongs!
is that Verizon will be the first one out of the gate with Block C 700MHz LTE service -- which will put them on the spot: they are *required by the terms of the license* -- thanks, Google -- to allow any device that meets their published tech specs to connect to that network.
So if the do this to their handsets for LTE700, then they'll just lose sales *directly*.
Fun to watch massive corporations try to turn on a dime.
Microsoft couldn't do it.
Betcha Verizon can't either.
If that were in true in any way, shape, and form, then every other vendor would be doing the same. Only Motorola is taking this stance.
Which is isolated from the Android environment via serial or USB connection. This lockdown has -nothing- to do with the 3G baseband, which runs on its own processor with its own memory and storage.
Baseband firmware's separate from Android. Nobody else locks it down like that, and if Moto was so worried about fiddling with the baseband, then burn it into an non-writable ROM chip. The eFuse is watching for any modifications to the OS Kernel and Bootloader, the "computer bits."
I would like to take this moment to give a shout out to T-Mobile, which actually offers a bring your own phone plan for less than the subsidize your phone plan.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
In fact the "eFUSE" feature is present in a staggeringly common component in many different Android (and other...) devices, so the presence of an eFUSE is not in any way demonstrative of the functionality claimed.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The use of open source software, such as the Linux kernel or the Android platform, in a consumer device does not require the handset running such software to be open for re-flashing. We comply with the licenses, including GPLv2, for each of the open source packages in our handsets.
(my emphasis)
This is exactly the sort of thing GPLv3 was intended to circumvent. Whether that's because the FSF foresaw a future where there were so many locked down devices that most people simply wouldn't buy a general purpose PC any more or because they simply thought it was a bit disingenuous to provide source but no way of running the compiled code is another matter altogether.
Apparently this is blown out of proportion: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/15/reality-check-modding-the-droid-x-may-not-lead-to-a-bricked-phone/ "This breaking news may not be as dire as many are claiming, as a google search of OMAP3 and e-fuse reveals that current OMPA handset already have e-fuse in place as part of the M-Shield hardware security technology built into TI’s OMAP system on a chip. It is on the very hackable DROID and the not-so-hacking-friendly Milestone, but it is not being used by Motorola to lock the bootloader of the handset. " etc...
"Tivoization"
Tivo
GPL v3, which, if it had been the license of Android instead of the Apache License, might have prevented this travesty.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Welcome to Slashdot, you must be new here!
In case you hadn't noticed, this is a technology site where a large number of people are dedicated to "fucking with stupid shit" on a regular basis. So talking about modding your phone is kind of right up the proverbial alley here...
"But this one goes to 11!"