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."

Comments

Worst summary ever

[Captain Splendid]

Now people's heads will hurt. Great Job!

Re:Worst summary ever

[Sockatume]

I'm all for terseness, but this is ridiculous.

Re:Worst summary ever

[mcgrew]

The submittor (or possibly editor) seems to be unaquainted with simple electrical devices. Fuses blow, circut breakers trip. Epic fail for a nerd.

Re:Worst summary ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuses blow, circut breakers trip.

Whoa, not so fast chief, let me jot this down...

Re:Worst summary ever

[silanea]

Indeed. What is a Droid X? What is an eFuse? I gather it is a phone? Editorial fail. This should never have made the front page in this state.

Re:Worst summary ever

[maino82]

If something goes horribly, horribly wrong, circuit breakers do blow. In quite a spectacular fashion I might add, and certainly not by design.

Re:Worst summary ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Is your sister's name Fuse? Because she gives one hell of a job, if ya know what I mean.

Wink Wink
Nudge Nudge
Say no more

Re:Worst summary ever

[clone53421]

That particular quotation was taken directly from here.

While “trip” is not the correct word to use in correlation to a fuse, this isn’t really a fuse – it’s on-chip circuitry:

If certain sub-systems fail, or are taking too long to respond, or are consuming too much power, the chip can instantly change its behavior by 'blowing' an eFUSE. This process does not physically destroy the eFUSE, so it is reversible and repeatable, using JTAG programming.

As such (IMHO, at least), “trip” actually does seem to be a fairly acceptable word for this action.

Re:Worst summary ever

[mwvdlee]

It's all explained in the very last sentence of the summary. You should know to read Slashdot summaries backwards by now.

Re:Worst summary ever

[sumdumass]

well- you see, there is this conspiracy to force users to read the article. That way the site in question can sell ads and all that magical interweb crap. It's not a perfect setup, but it will at least cause one person to read the article to answer your question. (hmm.. Unless that one person already knows the answers... then this conspiracy crap is crap?)

Me, I just type this gibberish to avoid reading the article. It's my rebellion against those attempting to rebel against the norm. This is slashdot for crying out loud, we don't need no stinking article.

Re:Worst summary ever

[silanea]

I do, of course, realise that the /. summary cannot - and should not - have every finer point of TFA crammed into it. But if I cannot for the life of me figure out what general field it is talking about without consulting a search engine first, well, then I am inclined to simply skip to the next summary that I can make some sense of, skipping TFA (and the associated theoretical ad revenue) along with it.

Oh dear, I probably should not write that down, lest CmdrTaco gets taken to court because that website linked to just lost eleventyfive gazillion dollars in revenue. Damn those pirates! Ahem.

Re:Worst summary ever

[rumith]

Now people's heads will hurt. Great Jobs!

FTFY :)

Re:Worst summary ever

[Anonymous Coward]

I think i've blown a fuse after reading it...

Re:Worst summary ever

[khellendros1984]

But it requires extraordinary effort to "un-blow" the eFuse (certainly beyond what most consumers could do, and beyond what many techies would have the equipment to fix).

Re:Worst summary ever

[sumdumass]

I can't tell if your post was sarcasm or humor or both. Of course sarcasm and both make it even more humorous. Anyways, in case sarcasm was there, My comment was a stab at humor. Just so we are clear........you could skip the search engine and RTFA. Or you could do as you suggested and move along.

Re:Worst summary ever

[silanea]

It was a good third each of sarcasm, humor and seriousness. I did not take your comment as completely serious, but I did want to take up the point you made. This being /. I regularly come across articles from fields I know next to nothing about. That is OK, I am not the base metric of what is interesting for everyone. But this summary was one of the few times I was completely in the dark as to what it wanted to tell me. Even if it was a slashvertisement for some weird niche blog it was a massive fail. I guess Hanlon's Razor applies more than the theory about luring people in by keeping the information vague.

Your point still stands with respect to many entries on /., though.

Re:Worst summary ever

[mcgrew]

If something goes horribly, horribly wrong, circuit breakers do blow.

They will when they get old enough anyway, but they don't really blow, they simply fail; I had one fail in a different house 7 years ago, and just had one fail recently when a CFL shorted, and the fireworks were in the lamp rather than the breaker box. I had to replace the bulb socket, and I'll have to replace the breaker.

The bulb socket blew; it literally melted. It stunk like burned plastic, too. I was lucky I was home, it could have burned the house down. Don't leave CFLs on when you're not there, and if they start flashing replace them immediately; this one had been flashing for several weeks.

Re:Worst summary ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Most techies I know have the knowledge and equipment (if they don't - they can make it) to restore via JTAG.

You must never have played with *any* embedded systems...

Who cares

[thren]

Someone will find a way around this very quickly

Re:Who cares

[poetmatt]

this is actually damaging to the phone. that is a horrible idea for verizon and will very likely end up with a lawsuit again.

good job verizon/motorola!

Re:Who cares

[kjart]

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.

Re:Who cares

[NotBornYesterday]

I've already found a way to get around this. I'll never buy one.

Just add Motorola (and/or Verizon) to the list of companies that don't understand open platforms or respect end user rights. There are other pricey toys out there to choose from.

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

mod up, as much as I trust some dude named p3droid on some random forum, there needs to be some sort of verifiable source before this is news.

Re:Who cares

[mcgrew]

The way around it is simple -- don't buy one! It's not like there aren't any other Android phones out there.

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope it isn't accurate. I specifically bought a Motorola Droid a couple of months ago because it was very easy to mod.

Re:Who cares

[twistedsymphony]

Forget finding a way around it... I can't wait for someone to develop an "app" that intentionally blows the fuse.... that will be great fun.

Re:Who cares

[demonlapin]

p3droid is a reasonably well known guy in the Droid world; he's the producer of a lot of popular overclocking kernels for the original Droid.

Re:Who cares

[Sockatume]

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.

Re:Who cares

[marcansoft]

I've worked with security systems and I can definitely say that the guy who wrote that post doesn't know what he's talking about. I've hever heard of "resettable" eFUSEs. He keeps talking about eFUSEs as if they had some kind of power to control or supervise the boot procedure, which is bollocks - eFUSEs are storage elements, you need some kind of boot ROM to make use of the data and make decisions. And you don't "write programs in JTAG". Until someone writes something technically coherent about this issue, I'd take all of this with a huge grain of salt.

eFUSEs can indeed be used for this kind of self-destruct-on-tamper behavior, but honestly I would be very surprised if it were actually implemented this way on a retail handset. Deliberately designing brickage into a unit is just a bad idea overall (except for security devices, e.g. HSMs and smartcards).

Re:Who cares

[marcansoft]

Hacking the Linux source to change the CPU frequency registers is significantly easier than understanding a secure boot process.

Re:Who cares

[Shoeler]

Want to buy mod points. I was just about to post this very same circular reference and unverified information. Also pay close attention to Sockatume's post below.

Re:Who cares

[toadlife]

Someone will find a way around this very quickly

Not necessarily. The European version of the original Droid has the exact same bootloader and no-one has been able to crack it yet.

Re:Who cares

[yurtinus]

This is the exact same conversation that takes place regarding the iPhone closed platform - Somebody lists some restrictions they don't approve of and somebody else says "So? Don't buy one if you don't like it!" This misses the point entirely. The proper response to seemingly arbitrary restrictions on my (hypothetical) device is to not buy one, and then tell other folks who might be interested *why* I chose not to buy one. A handful of lost sales probably won't be noticed on a popular device, but some lost sales coupled with as much bad press as we can make might force some change. We first have Apple placing arbitrary restrictions on their device, now the primary competitor is doing the same - How many times does this story need to repeat itself until we're out of options?

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

the presence of an eFUSE is not in any way demonstrative of the functionality claimed.

The word you're looking for is "indicative," and yes, its presence is indicative of its functionality, since that's its purpose. It's like saying that a camera on a phone is not indicative of photo-taking functionality. Presence of the hardware is not conclusive evidence that the functionality works as described, but it is indicative.

Re:Who cares

[thegarbz]

Actually they are present in pretty much every microcontroller currently in circulation and have been for a good 20 years. Look hard enough and you may find the timing circuit in your microwave will also have this feature.

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Presence of the hardware is not conclusive evidence that the functionality works as described, but it is indicative.

Or maybe this difference is exactly why the GP used "demonstrative" instead of "indicative"?

Re:Who cares

[flyneye]

Yes, the best hack to one up the bastards is not to buy it to begin with.
Further if more people use this hack we will also avoid other "good ideas" like toilet seat sharpeners, nose floss and knee candy.
If you encourage a monkey to throw feces, don't ask him to play catch. If you cut off a monkeys hands, you can easily get out of range as he tries throwing it with his feet. OK ,bad analogy, but I hate monkeys as much as I hate being blackmailed by technology overlords who need taught a bitter financial lesson of grievous results. Do not sabotage the goods I buy from you or I will make sure your family is sold into prostitution in the Emirates.

Re:Who cares

[CoolVibe]

That or it's the ultimate denial of service attack.

Re:Who cares

[mcgrew]

Agreed.

failes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Failes.

iPhone Evil, Android Good

[VirginMary]

Oops, wrong way around!

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[MBGMorden]

In this case it's more a case of "Motorola Evil". Google provides the OS but the manufacturer still integrates it into the device.

My next upgrades isn't until December, but I can already say that Droid X is off the table. Hopefully HTC will have out something new and shiny by then. If not, I'll still go for the Incredible over the X. I've had nothing but trouble from Motorola phones anyways.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

Well, it's more of a Motorola issue than an Android issue. Just because an operating system is open doesn't mean the corporation that installed it isn't going to be a jackass.

It's not as if there's no precedent for this. There's a certain operating system based upon open source components from Mach, FreeBSD, GNU, and KDE, which is somewhat infamous for being closed. At least you can load and run your own programs onto the Droid X, even if you can't update the operating system to your own version.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Zantac69]

The thing is that everyone expects Apple to be evil, and Motorola has already displayed that they will bend over and take one shining from AT&T and cripple an Android deployment. I guess it was Verizon's (ironic since good phone/OS was one of the big draws to their network) turn to get some Moto...and Moto stuck it to Droid X'ers. Is Google the only one that will let us really have fun with things like the Nexus One?

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[AHuxley]

All evil but for real Linux phones or a Dell streak under your control.
From evil telcos to developers to drm to legal reach down, avoid them all unless for work.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[rwven]

You gotta wonder what they perceived the benefit was of putting this "functionality" in place. I can't think of a single thing they gain by doing this...

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[aesiamun]

There's also another OS that is based upon open source components from Mach, FreeBSD, GNU and KDE which allows me to install whatever I want without having to jailbreak, root, break bootloaders, etc...Clicky

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[aesiamun]

The Moto Milestone has a locked and encrypted boot loader as well and that was never on Verizon. It was an unlocked GSM phone.

I don't think VZW is behind this...

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Coren22]

I was on the fence between the X and Incredible. They both have pretty much the same specs, the X comes with a memory card whereas the Incredible does not, so I was thinking of buying the X, now I have no interest in it. I hope Moto backs off on this and disables it.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[aliquis]

Apple evil, Google good.

And it still holds.

Google can't be responsible for everyone else though.

(But they for sure could restrict usage for more open phones by pushing whatever demands they wanted. The risk for them of course would be that phone companies may decide to pick another product and hence Google would lose the data of their consumers. In a perfect world I would had preferred a "open" phone as far as the OS goes directly from Google, which is sure to run future versions. Stock everything would be fine. I trust them much more than any third-party provider.)

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[AndrewNeo]

Well they might be, after seeing what happened to the Droid. Except none of that makes any sense, because the one thing letting people mess with their own devices does is sell more units.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[nyctopterus]

Where's you god now, Googlebots? WHERE'S YOUR GOD NOW?

Come over to the iSide, it's shiny!

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

And, of course, the term "Tivoization" didn't exactly spring from the aether...

Embedded platforms in general tend to be pretty scary for anyone who values software freedom(or for the "too cool to be ideological" crowd, even the ability to do an OS update after the manufacturer has stopped supporting a device). Some implementations are far more evil than others; but all it really takes to turn "install an new OS" into a "nontrivial hardware hack" kind of project is a bootloader that can verify digital signatures before loading a firmware image, which is a feature available almost across the board...

In this case, though, I'm honestly confused about why Motorola(or Verizon, who has the power of the purse in this case) would spend the engineering dollars on being extra evil. If you get one of these on contract, Verizon already has you by the balls legally, so they don't need to use technology to keep you from carrier switching, and I can't see Motorola having any more interest in exactly what OS I want to run than Dell does.

Is this a play to allow Verizon to give certain of their apps (and associated monthly fees) an unremovable hold on the handset? Are they worried about nefarious baseband hackers buying expensive smartphons and service plans(with actual financial details that have to be stolen, or could be used to identify them) and then h5xx0ring the network, rather than grabbing cheap phones off ebay, or spending just slightly more for a software defined radio that won't even need to be hacked? What's the point?

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[aesiamun]

If they are then Motorola would probably have done it anyway. They sold a lot of Milestones and while they were rooted, you could never replace the ROM. Motorola said that if you wanted to use custom ROMs, go elsewhere.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Microlith]

"Brand protection"

They can ensure you don't remove MotoBlur, and the Verizon crap stays in place. Their branding is protected from you.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[aesiamun]

And just in case you I need a [citation needed] tag...

http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-Blog/Custom-ROMs-and-Motorola-s-Android-Handsets/bc-p/4290#M432title=Custom

3rd paragraph down

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case it's more a case of "Motorola Evil". Google provides the OS but the manufacturer still integrates it into the device.

Still, Google chooses the license terms. "The phone shall not self-destruct" seems like a reasonable one.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

That term is not compatible with the GPLv2, which is what the Linux kernel (an integral part of Android) is licensed under.

You fuckers all laughed at GLPv3, but look where it got you.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

Been a long time since I had a phone from any manufacturer I didn't have a problem with...

I'm surprised so many Android phone makers are leaping onto the lock-down bandwagon this early on. These are the early days of Android, where a huge amount of influence comes from the tech community. The inevitable result of this kind of thing is that word of mouth, as well as reviews on virtually all of the phone blogs, is going to be resoundingly negative no matter how good the Droid X actually is.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X also forced me to modify the boot loader for 64-bit support on a Mac Mini (which I needed to test on)
I can't really see any reason for the blacklisting

Could you perhaps link to the OS X bootloader source? AFAIK Apple does not make the source for boot.efi available

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

That opinion... You're holding it wrong.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[RCGodward]

Four legs good, two legs bad? Four legs good, two legs better?

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[some_guy_88]

Do you have a point?

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Intron]

You gotta wonder what they perceived the benefit was of putting this "functionality" in place. I can't think of a single thing they gain by doing this...

Verizon makes a lot of money by locking down their phones and selling services - download songs, ringtones, games, etc. If you could load those on the phone without going through Verizon, then they lose money. If you want to use the Verizon network, then buy a new, unlocked phone at full price and use it. There's nothing wrong with doing that. Just don't expect the Verizon branded phone to have the same capabilities.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's you god now, Googlebots? WHERE'S YOUR GOD NOW?

Come over to the iSide, it's shiny!

Well, it's not with Motorola, the company doing this? What're you saying?

I mean, I know there's classic trolls who intentionally fail to comprehend the discussion at hand, but are you seriously failing to comprehend the trolling you're trying to do? Really?

*sigh* Internet, you're getting dumber and dumber every Eternal September...

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

This isn't the first Android phone Motorola has done something entirely against the spirit of open platforms to either. For AT&T, they crippled the Backflip, such that it can only load software from the Android Market. (The AT&T Backflip is, in general, a bad phone reportedly anyway, it has virtually all of the Google software replaced with relatively ugly AT&T equivalents for example.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: mobile phone makers are whores.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[thoromyr]

They saw all the press Apple has been getting lately, first for "not really having a retina display" then for displaying the wrong number of bars to indicate signal reception strength. They wanted in on this, so they... wait a minute, they had to have started all of this before the iPhone4 was released. Dunno, maybe they're just plain evil.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

He's saying that if you install an unauthorized, unsupported, version of iOS on your phone, using a set of convoluted hacks, you can run applications that were developed specifically for people who have installed an unauthorized, unsupported, version of iOS on their phones, using a set of convoluted hacks. Unlike the Droid X, where you can't install an unauthorized, unsupported, operating system on your phone, and so can only install any application you want.

Both the Droid X and iPhone are seriously screwed up, but if I were forced to choose, I'd... well, if I can get a UMTS version, I'd go with the "Droid X". Urgh. Verizon. "It's the Network! (...that makes you sound like you're wearing a ball gag when you're talking.)"

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[edmicman]

How does this keep you from putting songs, ringtones, games, etc. on your phone outside of Verizon - this doesn't lock you into Verizon's ecosystem at all. It locks you out of loading your own unofficial (unsupported) firmwares, bootloaders, ROMs, and operating systems. But as far as what you can do with Motorola's stock-ish Android, you can do anything any of the other Androids can do, right?

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Low Ranked Craig]

From where I sit, Motorola / Verizon are more evil than Apple / AT&T. Well, OK, AT&T is pretty fucking evil, but the reality is that Apple has never been about open devices and so has never violated any trust with any communities, because iPhone has always been a walled garden. On the other hand Android is wide open, yet they are coupled with Verizon, notorious for locking down phones and removing features, and Motorola who knows fuck all about good software. Android + (Verizon and Motorola) seems like oil and water to me. Plus the Droid-X software seems to not be getting good reviews today: http://gizmodo.com/5587225/motorola-droid-x-review meaning that hacking it is even more desirable.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"In this case it's more a case of "Motorola Evil". "

No, you are only half right.

It's very likely, given their past conduct, that Verizon asked for this.

Both are companies which will never get another cent from me.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW, MOTO & VERIZON ?

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[teh31337one]

Galaxy S. I have one, and it's awesome. Samsung even open sourced their code for it.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

And the information that is out there regarding the model offsets is out of date, too. During the past month I was rewriting a kernel extension to add 64bit support and couldn't test it on the mini for this reason. I never found offset information for the 10.6 bootloader.

Why does apple block booting 64bit on non-pro machines? That's easy -- it's to differentiate machine capabilities and preserve margins. Apparently, not all drivers are available in 64bit kernel space, either, so one could argue it's a slight support reduction.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's you god now, Googlebots? WHERE'S YOUR GOD NOW?

Come over to the iSide, it's shiny!

Will do. Just as soon as iProduct doesn't require iTunes and will mount as a standard USB storage device on any device that can use USB drives.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[jimicus]

It's not as if there's no precedent for this. There's a certain operating system based upon open source components from Mach, FreeBSD, GNU, and KDE, which is somewhat infamous for being closed. At least you can load and run your own programs onto the Droid X, even if you can't update the operating system to your own version.

Except large chunks of OS X (and hence iOS) are F/OSS, remain F/OSS and are distributed from a website under Apple's control.

Granted, they don't provide a complete stack from which you can put together your own OS based on OS X from scratch and run it on your own hardware - nor does the iPhone come as a piece of hardware which makes it easy to run some other OS on, but they can hardly be described as "infamously closed".

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

Why are you starting your comment with "Except"? Normally that means you're contradicting the comment you're responding to, but in this case it seems that you're adding useless information that doesn't add to the topic or in any way invalidate the point you're responding to.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, kudos to Mot for coming right out and stating it clearly. I won't waste any time/thought chasing them.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Lumpy]

Motorla razr you can load mp3 ringtones...

Verizon motorola razr, mp3 ringtones are not allowed unless bought through the phone and installed with the phones installer. the files can go there, but the ringtone DB is never updated..

verizon loves to screw the customer, they do it all the time...

But then so does AT&T.... Most AT&T branded nokias are missing 1/2 their features.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Lumpy]

embedded platforms got that way because the idiots in the Executive offices should have ZERO input into the design of the product. It's those assholes that demand locking it down and adding in features to keep the customer from gaining any extra value from the product. It all started when the scumbags made 1 product and sold it as 3 different products with 3 different prices but only software unlocked features...

you can buy the pro model that has 3 zone of audio... Yes it's the same hardware as the base model, we just enable everything in there.....

Kind of like windows 7... it's all in there, just not enabled...

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Lumpy]

News flash, most of us have known about motorola's evilness...

I knew they were evil in the 80's when they refused to release specs on some of their commercial radios... they even would grind off the chip numbers simply to screw with radio hackers and ham radio operators...

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[shutdown -p now]

To be fair, OS X doesn't implode if you recompile the bootloader

Android does not, either. The check here isn't on software side of things - it's hardware.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Even shinier with that duct tape to let it work properly.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[nine-times]

In this case it's more a case of "Motorola Evil"

Actually I suspect it may be more of a case of "Verizon is evil". Phone manufacturers have shown a little bit more willingness to open their phones when they're not trying to please carriers. Verizon probably wants to make sure you can't give yourself free tethering or something.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[shutdown -p now]

Android is free - which implies freedom for third parties to lock it down. It is an unfortunate but inevitable side effect of true freedom.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[delinear]

Yes, it's nothing new for phone manufacturers to team up with networks to try to prevent you messing with the bundled software. The only new part is that they're not just voiding the warranty, they're deliberately nuking the hardware (allegedly). I hope the contracts are bullet proof, it's one thing to say I lose my warranty cover if I modify the contents of a handset I own, quite another to say I don't actually own it in the first place (and honestly, if they want to knock a few hundred pounds off the phone contract because I'm no longer buying the handset, I'd be okay with that!)

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[delinear]

He's saying that if you install an unauthorized, unsupported, version of iOS on your phone, using a set of convoluted hacks, you can run applications that were developed specifically for people who have installed an unauthorized, unsupported, version of iOS on their phones, using a set of convoluted hacks. Unlike the Droid X, where you can't install an unauthorized, unsupported, operating system on your phone, and so can only install any application you want.

How did you get that when he was specifically talking about Mac OSX? He even said "which allows me to install whatever I want without having to jailbreak, root, break bootloaders, etc". I don't disagree with your point but I'm not sure it's the point GGP was making (or even that he had one other than not all "Apple OSs prevent you installing what you want").

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[macs4all]

At least you can load and run your own programs onto the Droid X, even if you can't update the operating system to your own version.

Are you telling me you are actually DEFENDING this?!?

Opine all you want about Apple; but in 4 generations of iPhones, has Apple ever BRICKED a phone ON PURPOSE for Jailbreaking? Think they couldn't do it if they wanted to?

Yay, Rah! Open Source Forever!

Even when it really isn't OPEN at all (Android, I'm looking at you).

BTW, your little list of Open Source-ish projects that you INFER Apple has "closed" not only is utter bullshit; but worse, completely and conveniently ignores the DOZENS of Open Source projects Apple has either CREATED or participated in as part of OS X and iOS development.

Now, how many OSS projects have Verizon and Motorola created and/or participated in (and LEFT Open!) in the development of the Droid X?

Idiot.

Oh, and mods: Score 3 INSIGHTFUL for THAT bullshit?!? Feeling like your precious FABLE of "Open is Everything" is falling prey to corporate evil? And even more threatened that someone made an ANDROID phone that is TRULY LOCKED DOWN (unlike the bullshit that passes for "insightful" about iOS devices around here, which at least don't PREVENT you from stepping outside the so-called Walled Garden by INTENTIONALLY and PERMANENTLY BRICKING YOUR PHONE)?

Now go ahead and mod me Troll all you want; but you KNOW I'm right.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[macs4all]

Why are you starting your comment with "Except"? Normally that means you're contradicting the comment you're responding to, but in this case it seems that you're adding useless information that doesn't add to the topic or in any way invalidate the point you're responding to.

Much like your idiotic harangue. However, out here in the real world of reading comprehension, we adults realized that the "Except..." beginning was simply a colloquial language pattern that really means "However, in rebuttal to your statement".

Fucktard. YOU are the one that was "adding useless information", not the GP.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

You still don't get it, huh? The whole point of open software is that when one company does something like this, there are plenty of other options. When Apple does something like this (which they do all the time), you're stuck with it.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[macs4all]

Well they might be, after seeing what happened to the Droid. Except none of that makes any sense, because the one thing letting people mess with their own devices does is sell more units.

Like any good slashdotter, you have a HIGHLY inflated idea of the size of the "geek" market.

To the Motorolas and Verizons of the world, you are as the buzzing of flies.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[AndrewNeo]

So one sale is not a sale? Just because it's not "significant" doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's you god now, Googlebots? WHERE'S YOUR GOD NOW?

Come over to the iSide, it's shiny!

sorry, couldn't hear you... I think you were holding your phone wrong.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

No, the GGP was adding useless information. Actually, I'm not even sure he did that, he basically restated my statement about Mach, FreeBSD, GNU and KDE in slightly different terms.

Kind of like you really. You're claiming that I didn't realize he meant "In rebuttle" to when my objection to his idiotic comment was that it wasn't a rebuttle. Note my complaint, which you even quote (yet appear not to understand): "Normally that means you're contradicting the comment you're responding to, but in this case it seems that you're adding useless information that doesn't add to the topic or in any way invalidate the point you're responding to."

The GGP was adding nothing of value. He began his comment with "Except", restated using different language my comment about much of iOS being made up of FOSS software, and didn't establish anything of interest. He appears, at the end, to think restating the comments he's replying to means he's come up with a brilliant argument demonstrating convincingly that iOS is not notoriously closed, but he makes no statements in support of that.

That wasn't a rebuttal, it was just dumb. As are you.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[omglolbah]

One simple example would be storing an encryption key in the eFuses. If the software experiences X number of failed login attempts the rest of the fuses are all blown rendering the key gone.

Nooo idea if this is the reason but in my eyes it looks like a way to do it.

One could also have a secure cipher processor in the device where the eFuses are located and have the chip only accepting decoding requests if the eFuses are in the correct configuration. This means that software can blow fuses to disable the chip without having to actually communicate directly with the chip lessening the attack surface of it.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

You're right, I misread his point (although now I understand it I'm even more annoyed by it because it doesn't have any relevance to anything!)

I suck!

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[aesiamun]

I was in a bad mood, I'm probably all QQ about Apple ignoring Mac OSX and is instead wasting (in my opinion) time and money on stupid endeavors such as all things iOS...

My point was that people seem to forget about the OTHER operating system that Apple has is based upon open source components from Mach, FreeBSD, GNU, and KDE...and it's closed as well...it's just not a walled garden of app store shit...

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

Are you telling me you are actually DEFENDING this?!?

Not in the English version, no. Although I'm told that aliens from the planet Todhsals, who speak a language that sounds exactly like English, but in fact applies different meanings to every word, have interpreted it that way due to that unfortunate English/Todhsalsian "sounding alike but meaning totally different things" thing. For example, where I wrote:

Well, it's more of a Motorola issue than an Android issue. Just because an operating system is open doesn't mean the corporation that installed it isn't going to be a jackass.

They interpret it as "My chickens are jellied mine leader catscan Motorola nuts, and I tore up my bus pass my Android I did."

And

At least you can load and run your own programs onto the Droid X, even if you can't update the operating system to your own version.

Apparently translates to: "Zounds! Coffee grounds Droid X is good wookie vodka, my underpants are off."

I'm guessing you're from that planet?

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[jimicus]

Eh?

I thought I'd made my point obvious enough, but clearly not.

Not only are Apple taking F/OSS, they're contributing back to the community - Webkit is the most well-known example, but there are plenty of others. There's nothing stopping you - or anyone - building their own OS on the Darwin core, and indeed at least one project which does just this exists:

http://www.puredarwin.org/

You'll wind up with an OS which is essentially Mac OS X under the hood, it just won't have the shiny UI. (Whether or not there is any point in OS X without the shiny UI is another issue altogether).

As I said, they don't open everything. Nor do Novell (ZenWorks isn't available in a F/OSS version, AFAIK) or IBM (DB/2 was still a proprietary product the last time I checked) yet you don't see people on /. decrying them because they haven't released every line of source as F/OSS.

I can only think of two counter-arguments to this:

1. You don't think this is enough. Everything should be open. Well, if the developers of projects from which Apple have taken code wanted every last bit to be and remain open, they'd have licensed it under the GPL. If you're a developer on such a project, the risk of someone taking your work, packaging it prettily and selling it was always there and you should have accepted that before you started. If you're not, what on Earth does it have to do with you?

2. You're a troll.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Smallpond]

My Verizon phone (Motorola) has bluetooth, USB and microSD disabled so I have no way to upload or download without going through the Verizon store. I could pay someone to unlock it and risk bricking the phone. Adding the eFuse prevents even that risky choice.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[agent_vee]

I couldn't even read more than 5 sentences from that review since it was written so horribly.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

I can only think of two counter-arguments to this:

The counter argument is that you're not making one. I said that despite iOS's use of open source components, iOS is notoriously closed. You said, to paraphrase, "iOS includes some open source components, look, see, Apple lets you download the code. Therefore it is not notoriously closed."

Now, repeating what the guy just said and saying "So n-uh! That means you're wrong" isn't a winning argument. Especially when you're wrong. Which you are.

iOS is notoriously closed, despite having open source components. It's fairly easy to prove, just run it against some obvious tests:

Test 1

While many manufacturers make phones running Android, Symbian, and FWIW J2ME/MIDP, only one makes a phone running iOS, who happens to be the developer of the operating system. Why is this?

1. It's because iOS sucks and nobody wants it
2. It's because iOS has strict hardware requirements and only Apple can afford to make phones with it
3. It's because market research has shown that people will only buy phones with iOS if they have a big fat Apple logo on them
4. It's because it's a closed, proprietary, operating system and thus isn't available to anyone outside of Apple

Test 2

My employer wants me to write an application that will connect all of our employees to the Asterisk VoIP system, so our employees will be on the office phone network whether in the office or off site. Can I make this application available for the iPhone?

1. Yes, of course!
2. No, because the iPhone doesn't have a native TCP/IP stack.
3. No, because the iPhone is simply too slow to perform the compression needed to maintain a VoIP phone call
4. No, because Apple has banned distribution of these applications, and the only way to bypass this is through unauthorized, and quite possibly, illegal hacks

Test 3

A politician has made a particularly stupid comment about paying for healthcare by bartering for services. I want to write an app that ridicules the politician by letting users take photographs of objects and have the box tell you how many cancer treatments you can get in exchange. Can I release this for the iPhone?

1. Absolutely! And it's free speech damn it.
2. No, the iPhone doesn't have a camera
3. No, the iPhone doesn't have the processing power for such an application.
4. There's no way to know. Technically it violates Apple's rule against apps ridiculing public figures, but Apple has overturned rulings based upon that rule in the past when the outcry has been sufficiently large.

1. Test 4

   I want to write an application for my phone, but while I'm happy to use the native APIs, I'd like the code itself to be written in Java, because that's the programming language I'm most comfortable with. I'm quite happy to use something like GCJ to compile it to native machine code before release. Can I develop such an app for the iPhone?

   1. Why yes! Why wouldn't you be able to?
   2. No, Oracle hates iPhones. And Oracle hates Java too. They've banned Java from ever going near a phone.
   3. No, the ARM based CPU of the iPhone is simply incapable of running Java applications. Even Java programs that have been converted into ARM machine code
   4. No, Apple has banned developers from using anything other than Objective C, Objective C++, and C++, for installable apps.

   Test 5

   I'm not really a programmer but sometimes I want to put together tools for my own personal use, like I did on my old Macintosh with Hypercard. Can I do that on my iPhone?

   1. Yes, just download the iPhoneCard tool from the App Store
   2. No, nobody has developed a Hypercard like tool for the iPhone.
   3. No, the original developers of Hypercard have a patent on it, and nobody's been able to license the rights to produce anything remotely similar.
   4. No, Apple

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Hatta]

the reality is that Apple has never been about open devices

It was until Woz left.

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[krizoitz]

AT&T isn't evil, they are incompetent :)

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Miamicanes]

You might want to check out the Samsung Galaxy (coming to VZ sometime soon). HTC isn't entirely free of sin, either. Read all the complaints about them at xda-developers.com over their kernel source. Basically, the GPL2 requires source for anything that's compiled into a monolithic kernel, but Linus (and most reasonable people) have come up with a tolerable compromise for proprietary binary modules that involves neatly packaging them up as loadable kernel modules with a well-defined interface so you can rebuild the rest of the kernel around it without losing whatever hardware support is provided by those proprietary binary modules. The problem is, HTC compiled their drivers straight into the kernel instead of making them proper loadable kernel modules, then simply hacked them out of the source before releasing it. The net result is that you can't use the source HTC released to build a functional Android-ready Linux kernel for their phones, and we're STILL reduced to ripping rom images from newer phones in the same family in a desperate effort to get them to work on our phones.

I don't know whether Samsung does the same thing, or whether THEY release their binaries as proper .ko modules. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for now (planning to get an Epic4g myself, assuming something like this doesn't crop up at the last second to ruin it). I'm still trying to verify it myself, but if they do, then Samsung deserves major praise (if only because the rest of the handset makers are so completely fucked).

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[polywood]

Can you explain how it is holding wrong?

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[squiggleslash]

(Original comment has been hidden due to moderation abuse, reposting)

I can only think of two counter-arguments to this:

The counter argument is that you're not making one. I said that despite iOS's use of open source components, iOS is notoriously closed. You said, to paraphrase, "iOS includes some open source components, look, see, Apple lets you download the code. Therefore it is not notoriously closed."

Now, repeating what the guy just said and saying "So n-uh! That means you're wrong" isn't a winning argument. Especially when you're wrong. Which you are.

iOS is notoriously closed, despite having open source components. It's fairly easy to prove, just run it against some obvious tests:

Test 1

While many manufacturers make phones running Android, Symbian, and FWIW J2ME/MIDP, only one makes a phone running iOS, who happens to be the developer of the operating system. Why is this?

1. It's because iOS sucks and nobody wants it
2. It's because iOS has strict hardware requirements and only Apple can afford to make phones with it
3. It's because market research has shown that people will only buy phones with iOS if they have a big fat Apple logo on them
4. It's because it's a closed, proprietary, operating system and thus isn't available to anyone outside of Apple

Test 2

My employer wants me to write an application that will connect all of our employees to the Asterisk VoIP system, so our employees will be on the office phone network whether in the office or off site. Can I make this application available for the iPhone?

1. Yes, of course!
2. No, because the iPhone doesn't have a native TCP/IP stack.
3. No, because the iPhone is simply too slow to perform the compression needed to maintain a VoIP phone call
4. No, because Apple has banned distribution of these applications, and the only way to bypass this is through unauthorized, and quite possibly, illegal hacks

Test 3

A politician has made a particularly stupid comment about paying for healthcare by bartering for services. I want to write an app that ridicules the politician by letting users take photographs of objects and have the box tell you how many cancer treatments you can get in exchange. Can I release this for the iPhone?

1. Absolutely! And it's free speech damn it.
2. No, the iPhone doesn't have a camera
3. No, the iPhone doesn't have the processing power for such an application.
4. There's no way to know. Technically it violates Apple's rule against apps ridiculing public figures, but Apple has overturned rulings based upon that rule in the past when the outcry has been sufficiently large.

Test 4

I want to write an application for my phone, but while I'm happy to use the native APIs, I'd like the code itself to be written in Java, because that's the programming language I'm most comfortable with. I'm quite happy to use something like GCJ to compile it to native machine code before release. Can I develop such an app for the iPhone?

1. Why yes! Why wouldn't you be able to?
2. No, Oracle hates iPhones. And Oracle hates Java too. They've banned Java from ever going near a phone.
3. No, the ARM based CPU of the iPhone is simply incapable of running Java applications. Even Java programs that have been converted into ARM machine code
4. No, Apple has banned developers from using anything other than Objective C, Objective C++, and C++, for installable apps.

Test 5

I'm not really a programmer but sometimes I want to put together tools for my own personal use, like I did on my old Macintosh with Hypercard. Can I do that on my iPhone?

1. Yes, just download the iPhoneCard tool from the App Store
2. No, nobody has developed a Hypercard like tool for the iPhone.
3. No, the original developers of Hypercard have a patent on it, and nobody's been able to lice

Re:iPhone Evil, Android Good

[Low Ranked Craig]

I don't remember being able to use my Apple formatted floppy disks with my IBM PC, or run my TRS 80 code on my Apple II...

Logic enough

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it makes sense, unlike Nintendo does

'cause THEY can brick their consoles, legit

Yes, and...

[Minwee]

An eFuse is... what exactly? Why should I care about it? How is it connected to a "Droid X", whatever that is?

Really, what's the purpose of an article summary if not to summarize the important bits of the article? If this keeps up I'm going to need more red pens.

Re:Yes, and...

[jra]

The Droid X is a new model of Android phone.

An eFuse is a, well, a *fuse*, dumbass; it *blows* when it's told to, and -- like all fuses -- it cannot then be reset.

If You Didn't Get It, It Wasn't For You.

And this is pretty E-vil on Moto's part.

Re:Yes, and...

[Zironic]

It's pretty old technology, it's basically a transistor that can self-destruct.

Re:Yes, and...

[Anonymous Coward]

You may now hand in your geek card.

Re:Yes, and...

[Superken7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFUSE "By utilizing an eFUSE (or more realistically, a number of individual eFUSEs), a chip manufacturer can allow for the circuits on a chip to change while it is in operation."

I understand how someone can decide not to officially support modding since that could translate into more costs, but actually investing time and money to prevent modding?
Seriously, whats wrong with them? They are supposedly part of the Open Handset Alliance.

Hey moto, most people actually want to run other andriod "mods" (such as cyanogenmod) in order to have the latest and greatest android version, since you guys are obviously too uninterested in keeping your own phones updated. Most of them don't actually care about platform development.

I hope you realize you should actually support - at least not make it difficult to - flash alternate operating systems. Providing an unlocked bootloader is a big first step which should be almost cost-free to do and can IMHO only bring you benefits. (Ever heard of the Nexus One's "oem unlock" command?)

Re:Yes, and...

[Spad]

It's Slashdot's new plan to make people RTFA by picking a random paragraph to quote out of context in the summary, thus forcing them to visit TFA in order to work out what it's about.

Not that it's worked in the past, of course...

Re:Yes, and...

[91degrees]

The point was it was a bad summary.

Yes, you can find all this information out by reading the article, but if you must do that why have a summary?

Considering the summary could be written "Motorola's 'Droid X' Android based mobile phone has been fitted with an 'eFuse' which will blow if the phone has been tampered with, bricking the phone." which is more terse and contains more information, why not provide the information?

Re:Yes, and...

[mlts]

Certain handset makers want their phones to have a short lifetime. I'm sure the handset maker views it if the phone is not rootable, nor flashable to a newer version of Android, it eventually gets thrown out, as opposed to being used a longer time. Plus, blown phone == more new phone sales.

This appears to be a very short term profit attitude here, and if this is true, this will ensure I never buy a Motorola device again and will actively tell people to go HTC or another vendor who does not put self destruct mechanisms in their devices.

Re:Yes, and...

[Son of Byrne]

Well...see above comment regarding the important bits, but I'll repeat it for you since you could not be bothered to RTFA.

Motorola built this phone called the Droid X. They then loaded software onto the phone. Lastly, they thought, "Hey, wait, we need a way to stop people from loading whatever OS they wish on their phone (that they *bought*)." So, they implemented a piece of firmware or semi-firmware that would monitor the bootloader and write gibberish to important bits of the phone's memory when the bootloader is tampered with (read: changed however the fuck the *owner* of the phone wished to change it).

What that means for you is: don't buy this phone.

Re:Yes, and...

[LingNoi]

An eFuse is a, well, a *fuse*, dumbass; it *blows* when it's told to, and -- like all fuses -- it cannot then be reset.

Not in this case. I actually read the forum post and it doesn't blow anything. Theres a chip that prevents the boot process from continuing if it doesn't get a certain signature. It's simply DRM under a name new.

It doesn't make your phone explode or ruin your phone apart from bricking it.

Re:Yes, and...

[bickerdyke]

I understand how someone can decide not to officially support modding since that could translate into more costs, but actually investing time and money to prevent modding?

It would make sense if -and only if - motorola plans selling the efuse as security feature. I don't know if there is an actual thread of evil spies flashing your phone with bugged firmware while you're sleeping (or more likely: while you're distracted by that hot russian/chinese/whatever girl/guy on your buissness trip).

But wheather it's a security feature or just a matter of truth in advertising: There should be a big red sticker on top of the box. "Warning! Contains self destruct mechanism". Sometimes it's not enough to put larks vomit in the fine print next to monosodiumglutamate.

Re:Yes, and...

[clone53421]

Motorola's 'Droid X' (1a) Android based mobile phone (1b) has been fitted with an 'eFuse' (2a) which will blow (2b) if the phone has been tampered with (3), bricking the phone (4).

Vs.

Droid X (1a) Self-Destructs If You Try To Mod

If the eFuse (2a) failes to verify this information then the eFuse receives a command to "blow the fuse" or "trip the fuse" (2b). This results in the booting process becoming corrupted and resulting in a permanent bricking of the Phone (4). This FailSafe is activated anytime the bootloader is tampered with or any of the above three parts of the phone (1b) has been tampered with (3).

Okay, so they didn’t put them in quite the order you wanted them in, nor did they state them quite so concisely as you did. What’s your problem?

P.S. I prefer yours, but the original summary did contain all of the information you asked for. Just saying.

Re:Yes, and...

[mlts]

This is assuming this is true on release phones, and not pre-release models (which might have some self destruct feature for trade secret reasons.) Moto has been slimy by signing bootloaders on the Milestone and others, but I want to suspend judgment until there are concrete and reliable reports about blown Droid X phones. There is a good possibility this may be a rumor, similar to the one about iPhones phoning home if jailbroken.

Re:Yes, and...

[camg188]

eFuse is also used on printer ink cartridges to disable the cartridge after a predetermined number a pages have been printed so the user cannot refill the cartridge themselves and keep using it.

Re:Yes, and...

[PalmKiller]

No its not. It is simply programmable logic and the "damage" can be reversed via a JTAG interface. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFUSE

Re:Yes, and...

[mcgrew]

Really, what's the purpose of an article summary if not to summarize the important bits of the article? If this keeps up I'm going to need more red pens.

How can you tell if a blond has been using your computer?

There's whiteout on the screen.

Re:Yes, and...

[mister_playboy]

or ruin your phone apart from bricking it.

How is bricking the phone not the same as ruining it?

Re:Yes, and...

[Minwee]

Well...see above comment regarding the important bits, but I'll repeat it for you since you could not be bothered to RTFA.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough for everybody.

If I have to read the entire article just to figure out what the article is about, then what is the point of the summary?

If the summary assumes that I already know everything that is in the article, then what is the point of linking the article at all?

My point is not that I demand that all articles be pre-digested and rewritten in terms understandable to even the most mentally incompetent mouth-breather (There's always C-Net for that), it is that the quality of that summary was abysmal even by Slashdot's traditionally subterranean standards. It was nothing more than a cut-and-paste of a section which had itself been cut-and-pasted from another source, and made no effort to convey any information at all being "Wow, look at what I can do with control V!" Considering the average lifespan of a slashdotted web server is measured in minutes with mirrors and caches being unreliable at best, posting a link and going to the effort of attaching a summary entirely devoid of useful information is just a waste of everybody's time.

What that means is: If you're going to write, then write. If you're not going to bother writing, don't.

Re:Yes, and...

[Son of Byrne]

Wow!

I find your angst to be refreshing. I generally agree with you, but you must admit that (since you took the time to comment) your curiosity was piqued enough that perhaps you should have just read the linked article.

In conclusion, stay classy (and angry).

Re:Yes, and...

[svirre]

The wikipedia article is inaccurate. There are efuse technologies that are reversible (Typically OTP floating gate design that may be reprogrammed a few times before the oxide become too contaminated and fuses the gate), there are also most certanly efuses that are not realistically reversible (Metal or poly fuse or antifuse elements).

In addition, even if the technology may permit reversing a efuse burn, the logic may not permit it. It is a simple matter to dessign logic that checks the fuse state and prevents resetting it.In fact it is common to disable the all JTAG access to to internal TAP/DAPs based on efuse settings.

If the efuse is based on a floating gate, then in principle there must be a way to clear it after manufacture as a floating gate may have an unknown state. Devices with such efuses that also have embedded NVRAM (This is quite common as you may want to use embedded NVRAM for your efuses, if you do not have embedded NVRAM real fuses are often cheaper) will typically clear off any embedded bootloader/software when you clear the fuse forcing you to flash it from scratch from JTAG.
This class of device does however not encompass your typical mobile application processor as they are invariably built on high performance CMOS that does not have embedded NVRAM.

If a floating gate design is used on a high performance process for efuse it will therefore normally not include the erase support circuitry. Erasing the fuse in then done on probe test and the used pads may be left unbonded. Unless you have expertise in etching the package and probing the device you will not be able to clear such fuses after the device have ben placed in a capsule.

Re:Yes, and...

[Tacvek]

I believe there may be more than one type of e-Fuse.

Most processors have special fuses, which can be set only once, at the factory, usually via jtag, that are set to disable any components of the processor that are not working, embed the unique serial number, etc. On setting a bit, the chip is physically changed, so it cannot be reset. We used to call this PROM technology, but I have seen the label eFuse used for it before.

The UltraSparc chips for example have an array of poly fuses that can be blown by an electrical pulse, which is used to store data configuring the system to avoid any defective subcores, etc, as well as specifying the serial number Sun called this part of the chip the eFuse.

Then there is the technology currently in question, which sounds to me more like configuration bits stored in EEPROM, like the "fuses" of a PIC microcontroller, which are specified in the bitfile downloaded to the processor, which can be reset via JTAG.

Re:Yes, and...

[LingNoi]

It can be undone using jtag where as 'blowing a fuse' destroys the hardware.

Re:Yes, and...

[PalmKiller]

I got that impression also, by TI description of the chip, it appears to be an flippable bits in an eeprom.

Re:Yes, and...

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

The reasons is that having the phone be predictable from their point of view can also save time and money on their side. QA is easier when there's less variables.
This has been known well before smartphones became popular but we can see what happens when people are motivated.

Look at what happened with the original iPhone.
1) iPhone got released SIM-locked to AT&T.
2) Jailbroken. (Not a big deal)
3) People wrote apps and mods that wern't well written and could crash your phone or severely impact battery life when they interact. (Look at MobileSubstrate which monkeypatches stuff. It's the basis for many modifications like Winterboard, etc.) There are plenty of people who've jailbroken, then installed a bunch of apps, and then complain about battery life. Some of the people who do it "cuz it's cool and make me feel l33t" will invariably blame it on the hardware and try to force a return.
3) (Here's the big one) The first round of SIM unlocks for the iPhone corrupted part of the cellular modem's firmware. Flashing it with a legit firmware bricks the cellular modem. Despite it being the fault of the modders screwing up, Apple got blamed for "bricking" in 1.1.1. They knew it was going to happen, but they had no reliable fix ready. It makes no sense to screw your legitimate customers by delaying updates. Apple did release a fix later, but it was on the other of months with little press. I'm guessing it was once it was understood what kind of damage anySIM did. Not surprising since it'd require understanding the compiler-optimized version of the firmware as opposed to the source code.

So, if letting people mod your product can result in bad press AND extra work for fixing other people's bugs? Then yes, it could make sense to utilize a lockdown feature that already existed in the CPU product Moto chose.

This is great news

[Anonymous Coward]

This simplifies my phone shopping -- I now know what *not* to buy, under any circumstances. Nice going, Droid X team!

Verizon 1 ;; AT&T 0

[bigfootchick]

Verizon has just scored a goal against AT&T. It's not yet halftime folks!

Sounds like

[Dunbal]

A great excuse to stay away from Droid.

Re:Sounds like

[ShadowRangerRIT]

A great excuse to stay away from Motorola. It's not the OS, it's the hardware, and only Motorola (that we know of) is doing this crap.

Re:Sounds like

[Enry]

No, just an excuse to stay away from the Droid X. The Droid line has a number of phones from different manufacturers that make it. The original Droid and Droid X are made by Motorola while the Droid Incredible is made by HTC. Only the Droid X (so far) suffers from this problem that will likely have a way around it soon enough.

Re:Sounds like

[NekSnappa]

Actually the "Droid line" is from Motorola.

The "Android OS" is on a number of phones from different manufacturers.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is basically what he was saying. Droid is a line of Motorola smartphones, and this certainly is a good reason to stay away from it. Where did the OS even come into this?

Re:Sounds like

[dangitman]

A great excuse to stay away from Motorola. It's not the OS, it's the hardware, and only Motorola (that we know of) is doing this crap.

Right. Droid is the Motorola trademark (licensed from Lucasfilm) for their hardware that runs the Android software.

Re:Sounds like

[AndrewNeo]

Except for the Droid Eris and Droid Incredible, which are HTC.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

The Droid moniker is licensed by Verizon from Lucas Arts. It is used for Android phones on the Verizon network, including those produced by Motorola (Droid, Droid X) and HTC (Droid Eris, Droid Incredible)

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Droid line" is from Verizon. Motorola and HTC both have Droids, but they're only called that because Verizon licensed the term from Lucasfilm.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, not Motorola.

Verizon.

Motorola makes Droid and Droid X. HTC makes Droid Eris and Droid Incredible. Verizon names them all.

Re:Sounds like

[Drathus]

As others have stated, that's incorrect.

Verizon has licensed Droid from Lucasfilm. Every Android handset they have is named with Droid.

The Moto Droid is the only one of them to not have any further qualifier in the name, however Droid Eris, Droid X, Droid Incredible, Droid 2, etc. are not all Motorola.

Re:Sounds like

[Skuld-Chan]

No doubt - it seems like when Sprint/Verizon come out with a new Android phone they have to do *something* to screw it up for the geek in me.

For Sprint's EVO it was the 10$ data tax - which has to be paid even if you don't live in a 4G area (and never will).

I have a nexus one right now and its perfect, but it only works on AT&T :/.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

"Droid" is actually a Verizon brand moniker they use for their Android phones. It's not vendor specific.

Re:Sounds like

[Enry]

I forgot about the Eris.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure the Droid name isn't licensed by Verizon? Droid Incredible - HTC; Droid Eris - HTC...Motorola isn't the only one making "Droids"

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, if you know others have stated it already, why are you repeating it? Are you fishing for redundant moderations?

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, Verizon licensed the Droid trademark, not Motorola. There are a couple of Droid-labeled handsets on the Verizon network not made by Motorola, namely the Droid Eris and the Droid Incredible made by HTC.

Re:Sounds like

[3dr]

/me makes awkward arm gesture: Motorola is not the Droid you are looking for, hackers.

Re:Sounds like

[Internal Modem]

How does a comment that is factually incorrect, obviously so to anyone with a passing knowledge of Verizon Wireless, earn a +3 Informative rating?

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever. Sorry, HTC, but this just goes to show you how another company can cripple a trademark's reputation and value. Next time, get it in writing, that if anyone else licensing the name deliberately goes out of their way to make their product (which shares the same name as yours) be perceived by the public as inferior and defective, that you have some way to redre$$.

Re:Sounds like

[ichthyoboy]

I have a nexus one right now and its perfect, but it only works on AT&T :/.

Except the original version of the nexus one works with T-mobile

Re:Sounds like

[Drathos]

Wrong. Droid is Verizon's naming scheme for Android phones on their service only half of which have been Motorola phones. Droid Eris and Droid Incredible were by HTC, not Motorola. Even the "Droid by Motorola" is officially the Motorola A855.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah the Eris, the Android phone that will connect to calls and not transmit any sound.

All of a sudden, that shiny iphone looks very good...

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds staggeringly similar to the iPhone when you hold it like they do on the commercial.

Re:Sounds like

[Mr2001]

Droid is the Motorola trademark (licensed from Lucasfilm) for their hardware that runs the Android software.

I think Verizon is the company that licensed it, actually. They don't only call Motorola phones "Droid": the Droid Eris and Droid Incredible are made by HTC.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but I was specifically referring to Motorola's Droid phones, since this discussion is about Motorola and not HTC. Also, most things have "friendly names" and then also a "model number", so that really doesn't matter.

Basically you were being a word-mincing, pedantic smartass. Hope you had a great day!!

Re:Sounds like

[Keebler71]

WRONG... the DROID trademark has nothing to do with Motorola, it covers VERIZON's branding of any ANDROID phone (including those made by HTC)

It's a wonderful New World

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't the android phones meant to be the openish alternative to the wall^H^H^H^Hputrid compost offered by Apple?

Everywhere I turn all I see are platforms backed by people who hate developers.

Re:It's a wonderful New World

[bickerdyke]

Wasn't the android phones meant to be the openish alternative to the wall^H^H^H^Hputrid compost offered by Apple?

No.

The Android operating system was meant to be an openish alternative for the phone manufacturers. It's up to them to repeat apples ways by walling up their phones too.

Butthey shouldn't forget that people who trade in a stable system with a hand-picked selection of possibel apps for a locked down system tend to buy an iPhone in the first place.

Re:It's a wonderful New World

[macs4all]

Butthey shouldn't forget that people who trade in a stable system with a hand-picked selection of possibel apps for a locked down system tend to buy an iPhone in the first place.

If 250,000+ apps (and growing by the second!) is your idea of "Hand-picked apps", then I think that the term "Slightly restricted" would be MUCH more accurate than "Hand-picked" (which implies a very limited, exclusive set), don'tcha think?

Re:It's a wonderful New World

[bickerdyke]

Probably yes, but "slightly restriced" wouldnt reflect the sometimes arbitrary selection (or rather non-selection) of some apps.

How is this even legal?

[HungryHobo]

If the company which manufactured my washing machine included a termite charge in their hardware booby-trapped to melt the contents of the casing should I try to open it I'm fairly sure that would be illegal in some way.

Re:How is this even legal?

[gstoddart]

If the company which manufactured my washing machine included a termite charge

Termite? Methinks maybe thermite?

Re:How is this even legal?

[bannable]

I know I wouldn't be pleased with a termite charge. Imagine all the structural damage!

Re:How is this even legal?

[HungryHobo]

no no!
Metal termites!
they'll break a home appliance down within minutes!

thermite would work too though... weird... my spell-checker doesn't like the word thermite.

Re:How is this even legal?

[bannable]

I think the termite might have eaten your thermite.

Re:How is this even legal?

[maxume]

What if it is just a charge for not putting termites in your phone?

Re:How is this even legal?

[HungryHobo]

twice as deadly!
Metal termites filled with thermite!

Re:How is this even legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dugg for "termite charge"... I guess when the washing machine is loaded past capacity or when you add too much bleach it flings a plague of termites around the room?

Re:How is this even legal?

[clone53421]

Nanites?

Re:How is this even legal?

[numbski]

...though, I want to be there when when this charge of termites blows, and they scurry around trying to melt down the insides of your washer. Would make for a fun show. :)

Oh...THERMITE! Silly me. :P

Re:How is this even legal?

[guruevi]

If you let these industries do what they want, they would put in termites. Ah, you modded your washing machine without authorization - let's see how your house holds up within a year.

Re:How is this even legal?

[jfoobaz]

Yes, but in that scenario your washing machine would actually pose a physical risk to you and your well-being, as it would be able to start a fire (and a thermite charge large enough to melt the contents of a washing machine would almost certainly start a fire). Bricking your phone, while an asshole move, isn't actually dangerous.

Re:How is this even legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dugg?

Re:How is this even legal?

[Utoxin]

Until the first person needs to call 911 with their newly bricked phone because their house is burning down because of the thermite charge they just set off in their washing machine.

Re:How is this even legal?

[Cro Magnon]

That would be doing it the long way. I don't think termites would do much to my washing machine, but they'd go to town on the wood timbers in my basement, causing them to collapse ON my washing machine. :-P

Re:How is this even legal?

[rwv]

If the company which manufactured my washing machine included a termite charge

Termite? Methinks maybe thermite?

They make the washing machine out of metal so they can charge you extra for protection against failure due to a termite invasion. Otherwise they'd just sell you a standard wooden washing machine and call it a day.

Re:How is this even legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who thinks that termite charges would be much more hilarious? Or maybe I've just watched too many cartoons as a kid.

Re:How is this even legal?

[gstoddart]

Am I the only one who thinks that termite charges would be much more hilarious? Or maybe I've just watched too many cartoons as a kid.

Only if it happens in that really cool cartoon way where the termites come out, and immediately eat all of the wood and things collapse.

Otherwise, it just sort of fizzles and isn't nearly as hilarious. :-P

Re:How is this even legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both would work... One would just take longer and not be as fun to watch.

Re:How is this even legal?

[gwjgwj]

Bricking your phone, while an asshole move, isn't actually dangerous.

Unless you need to call 911 in emergency - would they be liable in such a case?

Re:How is this even legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the washer actually explodes with an swarm infestation of termites which demolish your house. They *really* don't want you to open that machine.

Re:How is this even legal?

[GumphMaster]

Where I live a termite charge is far more of a threat because it will take out the whole house, not just the washing machine.

Ouch

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch. The whole advantage of a Droid over an iPhone was supposed to be that the Droid wasn't locked, so you could modify it. Now we find that not only is it locked, but it has a hardwired kill switch that goes off automatically if you tamper? Ouch OUCH ouch.

Re:Ouch

[geoffrobinson]

In reality, the main appeal of Android operating systems is that they give phone manufacturers a serious competitor to Apple and they don't have to pay Microsoft. Not to mention, they probably don't care for Windows Mobile.

Re:Ouch

[Anonymous Coward]

In reality, you don't seem to know anything... HTC pays Microsoft to use Android.

Re:Ouch

[Attila Dimedici]

In reality, the main appeal of Android operating systems is that they give phone manufacturers a serious competitor to Apple and they don't have to pay Microsoft. Not to mention, they probably don't care for Windows Mobile.

The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If a phone running Android is locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.

Re:Ouch

[Cougar Town]

The Droid (and Droid X) are just smartphones made by Motorola. They can lock them or do whatever they want with them, it's their business. We can just not buy them if we don't like them. There are plenty of other Android-based phones to choose from, and Android is still fully open.

I don't think anyone ever claimed that using an open OS would mean the hardware it ran on would be just as open? That would sure be nice, but I don't ever remember that being a promise of the Android platform.

Re:Ouch

[mlts]

Don't forget that Motorola phones only have a few die-hards working on ROMS. Compare the forum for the CLIQ on modmymoto.com to the ones for HTC devices on xda-developers. The iPhone also has a big jailbreaking/modding scene, and I'm sure there will be a bunch of cool apps on Cydia once iOS 4.1 comes out and is jailbroken.

If I were to buy an Android phone, I'd go with an N1, or the "official" Google stuff. Second choice will be almost any HTC device because they actually put out source and tools to help with modding.

Re:Ouch

[DWIM]

The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If all phones running Android are locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.

Fixed that for you! ;-)

Re:Ouch

[Rayonic]

The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If a phone running Android is locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.

You can still load whatever apps you want, so it'll never be locked as tight as an iPhone.

Re:Ouch

[Attila Dimedici]

The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If all phones running Android are locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.

Fixed that for you! ;-)

That fix is not necessary. This phone is trying to compete with the Iphone. If it is locked I may as well get an Iphone as this phone.

Re:Ouch

[slriv]

In reality, the main appeal of Android operating systems is that they give phone manufacturers a serious competitor to Apple and they don't have to pay Microsoft. Not to mention, they probably don't care for Windows Mobile.

The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If a phone running Android is locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.

Nah, openness had nothing to do with android being a serious competitor.

Gah, not you necessarily, but so many people latch on to a company/product just like they would a sports team. This isn't sport, this is business, and most people buy what's convenient (standing around at a phone store...walmart, radio shack etc...) and what is seemingly cool (shiny graphics... yay), and more and more, what is cheaper than their current stuff.

The coolness factor is probably a bigger factor than anything else. Apple has sexy commercials for their products. The lesson to be learned here is that sexy sells, technobabble mostly sucks by itself, but throw in cute people and wow, I gots to have that 10g phone with xyz widgets now!

Re:Ouch

[gotpoetry]

With Android you can install any software you want. With Apple, all apps have to be approved an bought from an Apple App Store.

With Android you can choose from multiple Markets (Android app stores) or install applications directly yourself. That is the big difference.

Also, I have a Nexus One made by HTC. All HTC built phones do not have the e-Fuse BS that Motorola is pushing. If you are the type of person who wants to run custom non carrier produced builds of Android, but an HTC phone. This issue has nothing to with Android.

Re:Ouch

[westlake]

The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked.

That is the Android's appeal to the geek.

But is it really what sells the Android based phone in the larger cell phone market?

Re:Ouch

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you miss the idea behind an Open OS. Open OS = free. Most Open OS software = free. This is why open source if a good thing. If the company doesn't want you to change thier proprietary software (of which motorola runs its fare share) then they have every right to stop that from happening. It doesn't mean you can't go to someone other than motorola and get an application....which is what would have to be for your gripe to be valid (disregarding the whole jailbreaking community).

Re:Ouch

[krizoitz]

Sorry but no, most consumers couldn't care less whether a phone was open or not. Android's openness is only a significant factor for the tech community, which makes up a small (but vocal) fraction of the population. The things like "openness" that geeks live and die for is not even on the radar for most people. Trouble is, those people get the flawed idea that their view is the dominant one because its what they see all the time on the tech blogs they visit (talk about your self-selection bias). However if it were true that the types of factors that power users demand were the deciding factor in a products success or failure we wouldn't b seeing the success of the iPhone or the Nintendo Wii that we have. Whether geeks like to admit it or not, most people aren't like them, most people don't have the same demands, needs or priorities than them. Doesn't mean they are right or wrong, they are just different. If phone makers can be succesful using Android, great, but the open-ness is not going to be a key factor in whether its a wide spread commerical success or not. If it were we'd all be running Linux and Open Office now, which isn't remotely near the way the world atually is.

Re:Ouch

[macs4all]

With Android you can install any software you want. With Apple, all apps have to be approved an bought from an Apple App Store.

With Android you can choose from multiple Markets (Android app stores) or install applications directly yourself. That is the big difference.

Ok, so with 250,000 (and growing by the second!) apps in the Apple App Store, and an estimated 50,000+ Android Apps (plus an insignificant additional number NOT in the Marketplace), I'd say, FOR THE AVERAGE USER, that the "Walled Garden" of the App Store is pretty fucking HUGE compared to the "Fully Open World" of Android Appdom.

In fact, over FIVE TIMES BIGGER (and the difference is getting LARGER with each passing SECOND, not smaller).

And, oh, BTW, HERE's what your precious "Freedom ton install any software you want" vs. "all apps have to be approved and bought from an Apple App Store" REALLY buys you. That is not a theory, it is fact.

"Liberty" on smartphones is NOT the same as "Liberty" in government. And, just so I don't get some sort of snippy retort, TRUE "Liberty" would mean that I could hunt you down and kill you for not agreeing with me. Do you really think THAT's "1337"?

Re:Ouch

[macs4all]

(disregarding the whole jailbreaking community).

Which of course would render your entire argument moot; so let's just disregard it, shall we?

Tool.

Re:Ouch

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Right and wrong.

Locked? Sure. Locked down OS wise? Wrong. The fact that any given lousy OEM could bundle Android on to their lousy useless phone for free is why Android took off, not the OS openness.

Re:Ouch

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a different Android phone that does not have this problem. Your original comment was saying that because this particular Android phone is locked, there is no difference between going with Android vs the iPhone (from a lock-in perspective). That is an incorrect conclusion and the motivation in my "fixing" your original comment.

Re:Ouch

[Anonymous Coward]

But HTC sold out to MicroSoft. Every HTC sold results in money being funneled to Ballmer's pockets to avoid being sued by MicroSoft. There is really no Android phone on the market today which isn't in some way evil.

Re:Ouch

[Attila Dimedici]

You need to work on reading comprehension. I said that if a phone running Android is locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get an Iphone. It being implied that I meant instead of getting that phone. br. From a marketing perspective, you compete only with the mind share leader in your market.

Re:Ouch

[Attila Dimedici]

No what sells the Android based phone in the larger cell phone market is the geek recommendation.
As an aside, it is amusing how often my non-geek friends ask my opinion on non-computer technology items (digital cameras, cell phones) that they know more about than I do. Over the years I have become an expert at getting people to tell me what I need to know about technology items in order to tell them which one will best fill their uses for the device.

Re:Ouch

[Attila Dimedici]

Your mistake is in not realizing that geeks have a significant impact on the attitudes of other users toward technology devices. There are a large number of geeks who think that the Iphone is a wonderful device and happily tell all of their friends that. There are also lots of geeks who tell their friends how wonderful Android phones are because they are open, "but not that one, it's not really open."

Re:Ouch

[selven]

50,000 applications vs 250,000 applications doesn't really matter. In both cases, it's enough to cover basically everything you'll need, and many applications are redundant copies of each other. Apple's 250k is in fact worse because Apple's policies prevent certain kinds of applications from being made at all. Android has multiple music players for it, the iPhone has just the one Apple makes. Android has applications with political and/or sexual content, the iPhone has practically none.

And, oh, BTW, HERE's what your precious "Freedom ton install any software you want" vs. "all apps have to be approved and bought from an Apple App Store" REALLY buys you. That is not a theory, it is fact.

Something about temporary safety over essential liberty and deserving neither comes to mind...

TRUE "Liberty" would mean that I could hunt you down and kill you for not agreeing with me.

What part of "you can do whatever you want as long as you don't infringe on anyone else's right to do the same" don't you understand?

Re:Ouch

[macs4all]

50,000 applications vs 250,000 applications doesn't really matter. In both cases, it's enough to cover basically everything you'll need, and many applications are redundant copies of each other.

Oops! Your logic slip is showing! So, what you are saying is, the Walls of the Garden are so far away that the average user cannot see them, right? And you know what? You're right!

Android has multiple music players for it, the iPhone has just the one Apple makes.

I guess you didn't see the iOS4 Keynote, nor the iPhone 4 Keynote, where Jobs specifically mentioned Pandora (and I believe even had the CEO of onstage to DEMO). It was one of the apps he SPECIFICALLY mentioned in his introduction of iOS4 multitasking.

Android has applications with political and/or sexual content, the iPhone has practically none.

Sorry, you have blown it with your first statement about "cover(ing) basically everything you'll need." Strawman argument. Next!

Something about temporary safety over essential liberty and deserving neither comes to mind...

Which is why I pointed out (and you conveniently DIDN'T copy into your reply) that ""Liberty" on smartphones is NOT the same as "Liberty" in government. And, just so I don't get some sort of snippy retort, TRUE "Liberty" would mean that I could hunt you down and kill you for not agreeing with me. Do you really think THAT's "1337"? ". But instead, you ignored that, and the example I pointed out about a BANK SCAM APP being approved on Android Marketplace, and came back with the lame-ass "argument" that:

What part of "you can do whatever you want as long as you don't infringe on anyone else's right to do the same" don't you understand?

So, which part of a BANK SCAM APP do you think is not "infring(ing) on anyone else's right(s)"?

So, let's recap:

First, you ADMIT that the "Walled Garden" is sufficiently large that it contains "basically everything you'll need." Next, you IGNORE that Jobs DEMOed PANDORA running on iOS4. Then finally, you attempt to besmirch the hallowed memory of one of our country's Founding Fathers (Ben Franklin) by invoking his words (which I OBVIOUSLY had in mind when I clearly delineated "Liberty in Government" from "Liberty for App Stores"). THEN, you actually IGNORED an OBVIOUSLY PERFECT EXAMPLE (Bank Scam App) of just exactly WHY a "Curated" App Store is actually BETTER for the USER (name me ONE identity-theft app on the Apple App Store). Wasn't there just a /. article on "Fifth of Android Apps Expose Private Data"?

In fact, one app was SO egregious that Google felt it necessary to REACH INTO USERS' PHONES and DELETE IT!

But, that's ok, because they can apparently PUT IT (or anything they want to!) INTO YOUR PHONE as well (without your knowledge or consent. Just like the deletion).

Yeah, Android's "install any app" thing is working out JUST fine for the USER, and is SO MUCH BETTER than Apple's "Curated" approach. Riiiiight.

BTW, with an average of over SIX HUNDRED NEW apps being APPROVED EVERY SINGLE DAY (given the average 95% approval rate), just exactly WHAT is your problem?

So, are there reasons for this?

[gstoddart]

Not to defend a company which builds stuff which will brick your phone if you mod it, but ...

Might there be legitimate reasons why Motorola would be required to do this? Patents they've licensed? Covering their asses against the RIAA et al? Perhaps Verizon wanted this?

Or, is this truly a case of a company taking an open platform and buggering it up by locking it? It sounds shifty, but there might actually be strong reasons why they did it in the first place.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[HungryHobo]

I can't see how it could be to do with patents.
the whole point of patents is that you have to disclose the design to get your patent.
requiring people to include an auto-destruct in anything which contains your technology would seem pointless in such a situation... of course if the patents in question are just bullshit laywer-ese patents on a general idea explained through flowcharts or interpretive dance something like what their tech does then it might make sense.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[characterZer0]

More likely covering their asses against the FCC.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[TheRaven64]

It's possible that this is designed to prevent malware from installing a rootkit - if it succeeds, brick the phone and have the data extracted by another machine if required. If so, it's a very poorly thought out feature.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Verizon find a way to cripple all its phones, usually as a way to force you to buy services that you shouldn't need? (i.e. requiring you to pay data charges to transfer your phone book or pictures from your phone to a PC.)

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

It's possible that there are legal requirements on Motorola to do this. That doesn't make it a good idea.

How long do you think it's going to be before someone creates a virus that modifies the phone's software _just_ enough that this eFuse protection system gets tripped? Bricks for everyone, including mass quantities of bricks being shipped back to Motorola to fix. If Motorola charges for the fix, I imagine SOMEONE is going to start a class-action suit; if not, it'll be a costly lesson for Motorola.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[DJLuc1d]

I have a hard time seeing what it would have to do with the FCC. I'll put my money on Verizon wanting this. Don't want anybody rooting their phone to get free tethering (much less actually OWNING a device they have paid for.)

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

to disallow mods mandated by verizon so tethering only works through their overpriced mifi option?

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[ColaMan]

I have a hard time seeing what it would have to do with the FCC.

You basically have a software programmable 2-watt transmitter that can easily stomp over lots of spectrum if some clown mucks about with its code. This is also the reason there is a semi-retarded "AT" interface to the phone on most devices doing the call placement etc. The code that actually connects to towers, does the signaling etc is well programmed, fairly well tested by the FCC for compliance and then locked up out of harms way with a simple API.

This gives you a robust phone that plays nicely with others instead of (god forbid) a Windows Mobile device having to manipulate the air interface directly.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Suzuran]

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!

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Microlith]

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.

The code that actually connects to towers, does the signaling etc is well programmed, fairly well tested by the FCC for compliance and then locked up out of harms way with a simple API.

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.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Microlith]

This is Motorola's doing, as HTC's phones have similar security features in the CPU (bootloader encryption is enforced by TrustZone) and yet they don't use it.

Go back a couple years and you can find papers from Motorola discussing how to lock down the user environment against modification. They're all about locking users out of their property.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Orange Crush]

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."

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Andy Dodd]

In most Qualcomm processors (The MSM series used in most smartphones/PDA phones), there are dual ARM cores. This isn't a "dual core" system in the traditional sense, the cores are NOT identical and one is designed to handle radio functions and one is designed to handle application functions. On every phone I've seen, the radio is very well protected and the application side far less so. (Which is why, for example, WinMo phones tend to be "SuperCID" unlocked long before they get SIM-unlocked.) The dual-CPU nature makes this kind of protection approach (one side heavily protected, one far less so) much easier than trying to protect only certain code within a single CPU.

However, the Droid X apparently uses a TI OMAP. I'm not sure if these have the same dual-core architecture that the Qualcomm MSMs do. For this reason it may be much harder to be confident about locking down the radio side to enforce SIMlocks and FCC rules without locking down the application side too.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, It's called profit.......

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

He corrupted the "bios" the phone is not bricked.. If you Modded the bios on your pc and screwed it up, is it the companys fault? No its the morons fault who didnt know wtf he was doing. Now the guy broke his own phone and wants to put the blaim back on the company who made the phone. Think about it If you corrupted the Bios on your PC your mobo is dead and you need to buy a new one. This story is not a MOD issue. Its a id-10-T issue.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we should pass a law that carriers cannot lock phones to their networks.

To look at this another way, it would be like buying a car that is exclusive to BP, and the car will run ONLY if you fill up at a BP. People would not stand for that, yet somehow we accept that if we buy a given phone, it will only work with that carrier. I understand that there are phone network issues that keep certain phones on a given type of network, but if I buy a phone, I should be able to use it on any network I want and long as the phone network is compatible.

How loud would people yell if your tried to gas up your Ford Mustang at a Shell station and find it is now useless because Ford was "exclusive" to BP?

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[bennomatic]

Please put the blame where it belongs!

Steve Jobs!

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[bennomatic]

Wait, so is locking down phones OK then? What about that devil Steve Jobs?

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[intheshelter]

But if there is a legitimate reason why Motorola would do this with a Droid phone, then couldn't there be a legitimate reason for Apple to do it with an Apple phone?

I know you never mentioned Apple in your post, so my reply is more for the community at large, but I think we're starting to see that open isn't even open.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why idiots like you get modded up I'll never understand. you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about cellphones yet you flap your lips as if you are an expert...

The cellular part of the phone is SEPERATE from the OS part of the phone... Cellular chipsets are standalone... No motorola did not make a super hybrid processor cellphone chip, they use off the shelf chipsets and modules because it's cheaper that way. Even the worlds greatest hacker can not send a command to the phone interface of the phone and make it blast all over the band... You would need to crack the firmware for the radio portion AND get around the hardware limitations built in that wont let you do that anyways!

Quit being a stupid fuck and actually LEARN about how cellphones work.

you are 100% wrong, dont know a fucking thing about cellphones, and have zero clue to how they work even in the most basic way. STOP TALKING!

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Suzuran]

Well, Motorola is doing it, but they are doing it because Verizon wants them to do it. Motorola doesn't lose anything if you mod your phone, they still sold a phone. Verizon is the only one who stands to lose anything, so Verizon must be the one behind this.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[MistrBlank]

People were blinded when they heard Android was open. What they didn't realize is IT'S NO MORE OPEN THAN i(Phone)OS and never was and is that way because the carriers SUCK.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Microlith]

If that was true, then Verizon would be demanding as such from HTC as well, yet even their newest HTC devices aren't locked down.

Motorola has a history of doing this, so it's no real surprise. That they didn't try out of the gate was a surprise.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Microlith]

I'm not sure if these have the same dual-core architecture that the Qualcomm MSMs do.

They do not. On OMAP based platforms, the baseband is a separate processor isolated from the applications processor. Qualcomm chips provide both in the same package as they create the baseband itself, while TI does not provide any baseband solutions.

For this reason it may be much harder to be confident about locking down the radio side to enforce SIMlocks and FCC rules without locking down the application side too.

And for the second time today, someone spouts this crap line. If this were in any way true, Nokia's N900 would need to be locked down just as hard, yet it is not.

This is not an FCC mandate forcing this lock down. This is Motorola trying to protect their (and Verizon's) branding against the owners of the devices.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[ep32g79]

While it is technically true that they did "sell a phone", allowing the user to mod their phone extends the overall life cycle of the hardware and locks moto out of a secondary sale when they arbitrary choose to not support the device anymore.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Fratz]

They did it for Verizon. Here's my reasoning: Android 2.2 includes a free feature to turn the phone into a WAP. With Droid X, you can pay Verizon $20/month to do the same thing. Droid X starts out as Android 2.1 but will be updated to 2.2. I'm sure that its 2.2 will disable stock Android 2.2's free WAP feature, so as not to compete with the $20/month offering. If Motorola allowed modders to install a stock Android 2.2, Verizon might not make as much money off this new feature.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Suzuran]

Point taken, I didn't think of that.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

All the propritary radio crap is in the RIL which runs from an entirely separate image than the phones operating system. There is no justification.

If nothing else google does control the name and should not allow vendors to use their marks who are willing to do crap like this. Let Motorola call their devices 'fake human' and watch as the market ignores them.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is incorrect, the baseband rom is on the same nand flash chip as everything else and is loaded into the second core at boot time.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[lowrydr310]

I just bought a new Android-based phone (still awaiting delivery) and through my research learned that Android really isn't "open platform." My primary reason for wanting an Android-based phone over an iPhone was the belief that it's open and I can anything I want, or anything I write myself - I discovered this isn't the case. To truly open it up, it needs to be hacked, just like the iPhone. It appears that the main reason is that the carriers still want control over what can be done on their networks. Fortunately there's a huge community dedicated to a truely open platform. It's only a matter of time before the eFuse gets DeFuseD.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[poofmeisterp]

Might there be legitimate reasons why Motorola would be required to do this? Patents they've licensed? Covering their asses against the RIAA et al? Perhaps Verizon wanted this?

I'm no expert, but I'm a-thinkin' that the ultimate failure of many devices, made by companies that the government and civil safety agencies have become reliant upon, could help said corporations get free money and easy rides.

I'm just sayin'.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Achromatic1978]

No its the morons fault who didnt know wtf he was doing.

whereby the definition for the above is "decided to do something the manufacturer of the device had placed an undocumented and artificial limitation upon that was not reversible once tripped". Okay...

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[yuhong]

To be more precise, yes it is more open than iPhone but not as open as it could have been because the carriers SUCK.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[TrancePhreak]

That's not true in some areas, and especially not true of the older Windows Mobile phones where you could always install over stock rom. So now, where do I download the source to iOS4 then? I already have Android straight from Google.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[Miamicanes]

As painful as it is to even imply that I might defend Verizon against anything, this is Motorola's doing first and foremost. I'm sure Verizon isn't *DISPLEASED* by it, but it actually goes straight to Motorola's corporate culture. They were making Linux-based phones locked down tighter than Tori Speling's 90210 chastity belt when the iPhone was just the wet dream of Steve Jobs. Their first Android phone, the Droid, wasn't locked. Their second, the Milestone -- sold unlocked, to end users in Europe, at full retail -- WAS locked.

On the brighter side, if the fact this has been on Slashdot for a few hours and is almost up to 7 or 8 pages by now indicates anything, early sales of the DroidX aren't likely to make Verizon happy, and might very well induce some Verizon execs to make an angry phone call or two over to Motorola and demand a new bootloader and public apology *yesterday*. The *last* thing Verizon wants right now is a "hold different" debacle of their own, especially with Sprint selling Evos as fast as they can and the Epic4g around the corner as soon as the Evo's exclusivity period runs out in a few more days.

Re:So, are there reasons for this?

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

The TI OMAP is simply an application processor. There should be another Qualcomm chip in the phone to handle cellular communications.
They are separate chips.

This is essentually the same as a PC/Mac with a Modem. One handles your apps. The other handles communications. They talk to each other via UART or USB.

Locking down the modem part is a good thing for the most part since control over this can screw up connectivity for you as well as others on your cell network. But it also is where the SIM-lock goes.
Locking down the app processor is more debatable.

Droid Does...

[thittesd0375]

Does your phone self destruct if you mod it? Where others don't... Droid does!

Re:Droid Does...

[xtracto]

Sooo...
is there an app for that?

Re:Droid Does...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you want to mod your phone don't go with a Moto X then. Get your ass an HTC. Simple as that folks! Simple...as...that.

Re:Droid Does...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is Motorola/Verizon, not Android. This would be like blaming Microsoft if HP bricked your computer because you tried to get into the Bios.

Unlike Apple that owns the process from front to end, You have Android software runing on HTC, Motorola, etc. This only is happening on one phone (for now, this might change)

Re:Droid Does...

[bennomatic]

Another feature that Apple will probably copy!

Re:Droid Does...

[Anonymous Coward]

They've guaranteed I won't tamper with this phone, as I will never own one.

Re:Droid Does...

[twebb72]

As demonstrated at the 2010 Mobile Droid Conference, the Droid X will brick itself faster than ANY other phone currently on the market.

Re:Droid Does...

[Pollardito]

I dunno, supposedly there's an app for everything

Goodbye Moto

[Coopjust]

Seriously, I can understand your warranty being voided if you do unapproved modifications to a device, but designing the device so it blows up if you try to modify it is just wrong.

Why do hardware companies think they should have the right to own the device forever? Why should I buy a device that has a time bomb built in that may trip if the official software gets corrupted due to a bug?

The whole thing reeks. I'm done with Motorola. What is the point of this exactly? What does Motorola lose by you running a custom ROM? New phone sales when they decide after a year not to provide any Android updates?

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Drakkenmensch]

The whole thing reeks. I'm done with Motorola. What is the point of this exactly? What does Motorola lose by you running a custom ROM? New phone sales when they decide after a year not to provide any Android updates?

The point is that with all phones, money is lost on the hardware but made on the stringent phone contracts attached to them. Even if the hardware manufacturers could make a sliver of profit on the phones themselves, they'd lose their lucrative contracts with the phone companies if they did not do everything they can to satisfy the shareholders that they're slapping the handcuffs and ankle restraints on the clients. Why do you think Apple is STILL locked on to AT&T after all these years?

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Jeng]

I'm thinking they want to give the carriers the option of selling advertising on the Droid X.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[ergrthjuyt]

i think this is indicative of a new business model that is emerging - one of an intangible "service" coupled with, or made possible by, hardware. In this case the service is the cell phone plan, and the handset is the hardware accessory that makes it possible. The problem is that providers want more control over the hardware and how the service is used.

This is perfectly within their rights, but it would have to be clearly spelled out in the contract -- and again, this all gets fuzzy because the business thinks they can control the phone, even though the customer has purchased and legally owns it. For comparison, look at XBox live and the fiasco with modded xboxes.

Should be an interesting thing to watch for.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, I can understand your warranty being voided if you do unapproved modifications to a device, but designing the device so it blows up if you try to modify it is just wrong.

And as far as I know, this is also illegal. I hope someone gets sued over this.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Anonymous Coward]

Because both companies agreed to a five-year contract with each other. Look it up.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Devrdander]

Its designed obsolescence. I learned this the hard way with my Samsung behold II, Samsung wants you to buy a new phone, and tries hard to lock you out of self updates so that the only option you have is to buy a new piece of hardware. The market has designed itself in such a way that its business model is dependent on people buying a new device every 2 years. If they let you openly hack your phone they cut into their bottom line. Hopefully the new players like HTC that are a bit more open will help change the marketplace.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Coopjust]

Even the official builds from Motorola allow you to install APKs not blessed by Google, correct? So what reason would Verizon have to block a small but vocal minority from getting super geeky with their phones? What reason would Verizon have to say "don't allow non-official firmware"?

If you're going along with the theory that they'll stop Android upgrades as a reason to upgrade, I doubt it'll work. The headlines I'm reading now are "Motorola puts self destruct chips in phones", not "Droid X does not permit reflashing." These are the headlines that scare regular buyers away.

Even if the nerds are a minority of your buyers they're still the group that people come to when they want to get a new phone. Given the lockdown, would you recommend a Droid X to anyone, even if they weren't planning on unlocking it? No, out of principle, and the fact that there are numerous other great options for Android, I would recommend someone against buying a Motorola phone at the time being.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[tukang]

From AT&T's point of view, you would be correct. But we're talking about Motorola here. They do not lose a penny on phone sales because AT&T (and other companies) subsidize them.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Coopjust]

His point is that if they don't sell a phone with the features (or restrictions) that a carrier wants, the carrier will buy from someone else instead.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Yvanhoe]

Why should I buy a device that has a time bomb built in that may trip if the official software gets corrupted due to a bug?

You shouldn't

Why do hardware companies think they should have the right to own the device forever?

Because you still bought it.

Note : 'you' is a figure of style of course, apparently Coopjust has enough sense not to fall for this but seriously, most people complaining today about not having the benefits of openness and transparency now are the same who were mocking them a few years ago.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[TheRaven64]

The point is that with all phones, money is lost on the hardware but made on the stringent phone contracts attached to them

Uh, what? You can buy phones directly from the manufacturer without any kind of contract. If you buy one 'subsidised' by a network, it typically works out as if they'd given you a loan at 10+% APR.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Drakkenmensch]

Of course you can buy unsubsidized phones, but how good is that for the bottom line of the company? If the jailbroken version is *too* succesful, then the phone carrier with the contract will decide that they have no interest to pursue this relationship since no customer will have incentive to purchase a 3 to 5 year contract with them - so they'll move on to another company that will sign them an exclusive phone model. This is the whole rationale of the iPhone-AT&T relationship.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[westlake]

Seriously, I can understand your warranty being voided if you do unapproved modifications to a device, but designing the device so it blows up if you try to modify it is just wrong.

That I think depends on what your mod does.

The cell phone service - the cell phone network - is not the geek's private playground.

If your cell phone purchase is tied to your contract of service what you probably have is something that looks less like ownership and more like a lease.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[idiot900]

Does the monthly fee (with its built-in subsidy) become any cheaper if you supply your own phone?

Re:Goodbye Moto

[daid303]

I can see the fuzz. But why now? Why on this device? It's not like the Wii for example doesn't try to lock you out. Which doesn't allow you to run unsigned boot code. Only difference here is that when you 'flash' your Wii wrong you can flash it back to a working version.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[TheRaven64]

Yes, from most carriers. In the UK, it's common for a SIM-only contract to cost £5/month less than one with a cheap phone included for 'free', meaning that you are paying £60-120 for a phone that costs the phone company £30. If you buy the same phone retail, it will typically cost a bit less than buying it with a contract, but people still seem to go with the bundles.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Oscaro]

Simply because different phone models only differ in their software. Android is a big PITA for all the marketing guys, because it makes all phones the same.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Lumpy]

No it's not. Even the $500.00 you "finance" with the 2 year contract on a iphone adds up to $20.00 a month during that contract.

They make money of overcharging you for data, SMS and talk minutes.

Smartphones guarantee them the $25.00 a month data charge that is nearly free money to them. You will know when it starts being less profitable when you see them up the rates for the data plans.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Anonymous Coward]

Because when your mod causes the phone to explode in your hand you will want to sue Google and Motorola for 1 gazillion dollars because you will never be able to get a girlfriend with the way you look now... and you have to tape your glasses back together. Of course this is just silly as now that you know its there I am certian it will take about 2 days to get around it.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Lumpy]

You get a 10% discount on your service if you dont get a phone? AT&T gives you no difference in monthly price if you brought your own phone, or got one of their subsidized ones. It's the same monthly cost no matter what.

Honest phone companies would make a BYOD phone plan 15% cheaper than getting the phone from them for only $99.00

Re:Goodbye Moto

[djdbass]

Using a hacked ROM will allow wifi tethering. Verizon wants to charge extra for wifi teathering. This is my guess.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[denobug]

I truely wonder if this spec is more or less designed for high security requirements from government and some corporations than for general consumers. Except Moto decide to just build into the phone itself and not arm it unless it is a government order?

Re:Goodbye Moto

[StikyPad]

It depends. In the US, most carriers (including AT&T) won't give you a discount just because you own a phone; the only difference is that you're not locked into a n-year minimum contract. For most people, it doesn't make sense to buy a phone outright for 3x the cost when you'll be paying the same service fees either way.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do hardware companies think they should have the right to own the device forever?

Why not?

Why should I buy a device that has a time bomb built in that may trip if the official software gets corrupted due to a bug?

Much better question, and the real answer to question #1.
Motorola could build a phone that self destructs if it doesn't recognize the voice talking into it.
Verizon could charge $20/min when you go over your plan.
They will do these things if it makes them more money. They will avoid these actions if it causes them to lose money.
The behavior of the vendors is not that difficult to understand.
The behavior of the consumer can sometimes be baffling.

OK. Sometimes the behavior of a vendor can be baffling when they seem to ignore the obvious behavior of consumers.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[Hadlock]

I think they tried to solve this by creating branded skins like HTC's Sense and Motorola's "Motoblur". I think Samsung and a few others have their own skins as well. But yes, it's difficult to tell all but the flagship android phones apart these days.

Re:Goodbye Moto

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Not to rain on your parade mate, but those contracts don't exist globally, the phone makers make a sizable profit on the phones, it's the resellers that get boned

Re:Goodbye Moto

[AmonTheMetalhead]

iPhones are sold without any lock-down (except the iTunes store) in Belgium & France, probably also in the rest of Europe

sounds abusable

[Anonymous Coward]

If the trend continues, next generation of mobile viruses won't even need payloads, they'll just have to be there

Easy for hackers to fix?

[Teppy]

TFA doesn't explain what an "eFuse" is, but if it's anything like an actual fuse, then shorting it should be easy enough. If it's not protecting anything (in the traditional sense), then the equivalent of "jamming in a penny" should be safe and effective, and would allow hackers to tinker until it gets rooted.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Coopjust]

eFUSE is a chip technology developed by IBM is a special type of chip where the code isn't completely static- based on the operation of the device, an eFUSE can blow itself. This can reroute the logic in a variety of ways, or be used as a self destruct mechanism.

It's reversible, but only by Motorola directly via JTAG. They have the custom code needed to flash the chip back to its original state.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like your usual fuse, only the 'e' means it's electronic.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[gstoddart]

TFA doesn't explain what an "eFuse" is, but if it's anything like an actual fuse, then shorting it should be easy enough.

If you follow the link in the story to here, it says:

The eFuse is coded with information that it either looks for or is passed to it from the bootloader. The bootloader is loaded with information it looks for when it begins the boot-up process. (I have seen the sbf file look for a certain bootloader when it begins so its safe to assume that this is the process).

Once the the eFuse verifies that the information it is looking for or that has been passed through to it by the bootloader is correct then the boot process continues. What type of information is written to the bootloader? So far i've been able to verify that the firmware information (what we call ROMS), the kernel information, and the bootloader version.

If the eFuse failes to verify this information then the eFuse receives a command to "blow the fuse" or "trip the fuse". This results in the booting process becoming corrupted and resulting in 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.

Basically, they've added trusted computing to a phone.

The eFuse is the gatekeeper -- if it detects that you've done something they haven't approved, it causes the phone to self destruct.

So far, it doesn't seem like this is an easy thing to work around.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it's like a ordinary fuse bute it is integrated in the main cpu.
opening up the cpu chip to bridge it is really not a option, well unless you have acss to top notch equipment.
but then the equipment to make a cpu is most likley cheaper and easier to find.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[foo1752]

then the equivalent of "jamming in a penny" should be safe and effective

Except that the "eFuse" is inside one of the ICs, probably one of the processors, and is completely inaccessible. Since you won't be able to modify the code that checks the state of the fuse AND you can't physically "jam a penny" into the fuse, you're still shit out of luck.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA doesn't explain what an "eFuse" is

Could be as simple as a FLASH or EEPROM bit that is set

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they implemented it like sony in the ps3 you will just have to put your 'penny' into the circuits inside the cpu. 45nm shouln't be a problem for you.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[locallyunscene]

Crap, I just ordered some Droid X's for my upgrade. I wasn't planning on modding it right away so hopefully by the time the OS updates are no longer supported it will be moddable.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Ihlosi]

TFA doesn't explain what an "eFuse" is,

That's because it should be known to someone who's qualified to mess with the software of the phone.

It's basically a write-once memory cell that says "I work" (if not written to 0) or "I'm bricked" (if writen to 0). And since it's sitting somewhere on a custom chip and is only a few microns large, good luck at trying to short that. You might be able to pull of stuff like that if you have specialized tools to mess with ICs, but you can probably by a truckload of cellphones for the price of those tools.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, unless it is a semiconductor fuse (polysilicon, metal, or some sort of one-time-programmable fuse). These could be virtually impossible to access and/or jumper...

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Charliemopps]

Oh, so we just have to wait a couple of weeks for some teenager to crack it. Awesome.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Svartalf]

Unlikely...

If they've put eFuse stuff on the phone, you might be able tapdance around the issue a bit- but the odds are good that if you're modding the phone you'll brick it. And it's liable to brick a few un-modded phones as well. There was a reason they quit using it a while back (this stuff is from the early part the last decade...)- and I'm kind of surprised they brought it back on this phone.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Coopjust]

I've heard that Cyanogen and other groups that do this sort of technical work on Android phones have sworn off the Droid X because options that are equally good as phones and won't make getting a custom ROM on a process that will destroy several phones and be risky every time someone flashes it themselves exist.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Return the devices for refund. Tell Verizon why.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was that easy to crack blown e-fuses and return them to the original state, then we wouldn't have to scramble for old xbox 360's to jtag them.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Andy Dodd]

I guess the question is - can the eFuse state be read back using a JTAG verify/read operation, or will an attempt to do this be treated as a "brickable" operation?

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[tgeller]

eFUSE can blow itself.

Lucky eFUSE!

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[xtracto]

If the eFuse failes to verify this information then the eFuse receives a command to "blow the fuse" or "trip the fuse".

So, I assume there is a possibility to change the hex value of this command from "Blow The fuse - 0xFD" to "NOP - 0x4E71".

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[xtracto]

Haha, that reminds me. I recently bricked my Wii, *real* brick by erasing IOS60 (the main "function" that makes the system boot), not even the "preventive" homebrew apps were helpful.

However, it was revived by a simple re-flash of the NAND chip using an specialized programmer.

I doubt this "fuse" brick will be unbreakable

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[kav2k]

Wikipedia to the rescue. It's a chip with programmable logic, and commands to reset it are unknown, plus it needs special hardware to reset it.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[PRMan]

Return them and tell Verizon that you're returning them because of the eFuse.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[spazimodo]

Basically, they've added trusted computing to a phone.

It's too bad that they've opted for the "screw the customer" side of TPM.

I have an original Droid and wish it had some kind of secure key repository. having to type in a 20 character mixed case password on a mobile device is a huge pain in the ass - being able to use say a 4 char PIN which then grants access to a TPM repository with the longer password or certs, etc. would be enormously useful (and which locked out after a certain number of tries.) As it stands, there's stuff I don't copy to my phone because it can't be secured without being completely inconvenient.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[kaiser423]

Not to mention having to take the phone apart to even get to the JTAG port, and then having the fairly expensive JTAG hardware to accomplish the flashing.

Over 30,000 unique people download custom ROMs for the original droid. I see nearly all of them passing over this phone. That's not a small loss of sales.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[gad_zuki!]

>TFA doesn't explain what an "eFuse" is

Its what robot dads blow when their robot kids do something especially stupid.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[asvravi]

Wrong. There are lots and lots of different eFuses. An example - http://www.toshiba-components.com/ASIC/eFUSE.html

The story most probably refers to an actual fuse inside a chip that is made by a layer of polysilicon - it can be made to melt and blow just like the common electrical fuse. In this case, there is no return.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[daid303]

BootMii as boot2 would have saved you. But indeed, this is not much different. So I wonder what all the fuzz is all of a sudden, it's not like this hasn't been done 10.000 times before.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtually every large IC has a fuse bank that is used to program static values to the IC after manufacturing. These are not fuses in the traditional sense and can employ a variety of mechanisms(such as using high voltage to burn through an insulator) to allow one-time programmable values. They cannot be reversed once blown. In a phone there are many uses for such logic:

* Allowing product differentiation by disabling certain hardware blocks for lower priced devices.
* Disabling blocks that failed testing after fabrication. This is commonly done for microprocessor caches.
* Chip serial numbers.
* Disabling certain test features after production testing is complete.

Keep in mind these are not simply software readable registers. They can have whatever effect the chip designers want them to have.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

:))

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[RightSaidFred99]

I doubt it. That would be ridiculously asinine. Better hope nobody compromises the phone and finds a fun way to do this remotely. Instead of a nightmare of having to have people bring their phones in to fix them, you have a nightmare of having to replace them or do more extensive (and expensive) repairs.

If Motorola did something like this, they're even more moronic than I expected.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[FrankSchwab]

Completely OT, but...

What were you using the 20 character password for? /frank

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[svirre]

efuse is actually used as a general term for small banks of one time (or few time) programmable structures that have a known state (either through structure or through procedure) after manufacture.

IBM may have labeled one such technique but this does not in any way make such a structure unique to IBM.

efuses are commonly used for device configuration which include security, feature configuration and calibration. They are normally not reversible, and they do not imply programmability or even the presence of JTAG (Though it would be natural to use JTAG)

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[svirre]

Poly fuses are commonly deployed in embedded processors and systems.They are not designed specifically to brick a device, but this can be a side effect of some security fuse bits which commonly disable JTAG interfaces and enable secured bootloader. If you corrupt the boot image such that the bootloader no longer works, and you have no way of getting a new image on the storage element the device will indeed be effectively bricked.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[svirre]

That is a crap description.
efuses are just nonvolatile bits that can be read by the software. Once the software reads these bits it may make some decision such as refusing to boot from an unauthenticated boot image. Efuse bits may also have some hardware implications like disabling debug/test from boot to prevent a debugger from interrupting the boot process.

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Miamicanes]

> Oh, so we just have to wait a couple of weeks for some teenager to crack it. Awesome.

If it's hardware-based 2048-bit encryption, it's not going to be hacked in a couple of weeks. CSS encryption used on DVDs was a complete joke of an encryption standard, and everyone knew it at the time. It was security by obscurity, and almost worked for a couple of years.

When it comes to military-grade hardware encryption, Motorola doesn't screw around.

If Motorola doesn't back down, realistically the best prospect for reflashing a DroidX is a homebrew JTAG programmer built with a FTDI 2232H on a breakout board -- http://ftdichip.com/Products/FT2232H.htm

About $30 worth of parts (plus shipping) from Digikey -- http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=768-1030-ND

God, talk about the Law of Unintended Consequences -- savor the irony if Motorola becomes the company that makes JTAG a household word :D

Re:Easy for hackers to fix?

[Miamicanes]

A little good news -- the cost of a ghetto-fabulous JTAG programmer has come down. WAY down. FTDI released a single-chip USB host a few months ago with onboard JTAG capabilities AND ready to use royalty-free driver DLL for Windows. It's around $12 for the bare chip, and around $28 for a breakout board with the chip and support components soldered to it ( http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=768-1030-ND )

It still sucks to have to even screw with JTAG for this, but it's not *completely* hopeless.

Now, what would be REALLY funny is if someone motivated by desire to root & reflash his DroidX ends up using his new knowledge and JTAG to crack something whose security really DOES matter to Motorola, like his cable box. The Law of Unintended Consequences has an amusing way of extracting periodic revenge ;-)

THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM !!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good thing for all concerned!!

Your Keeper
G-

How is this legal?

[macemoneta]

If I purchase the phone outright, wouldn't this be willful destruction of property on Motorola's part? Does a company have the right to destroy a purchased product - after the sale - if the consumer doesn't use it in a prescribed manner?

Re:How is this legal?

[Xelios]

Everything of this nature is legal, until it's brought before a court of law. Are you willing to put in years of stress and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to file a suit against a Telecom giant that might reward you the cost of the phone? I don't think I would be, and companies like Motorola count on the fact that most people aren't.

Re:How is this legal?

[OpenGLFan]

Does a company have the right to destroy a purchased product - after the sale - if the consumer doesn't use it in a prescribed manner?

Yes, if the company is big enough. Hell, Sony included rootkits on music CDs.

Re:How is this legal?

[ProppaT]

You can legally buy a gun that only shoots in the direction of the person pulling the trigger, but it doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I don't like this as much as the next /. reader, but if they put a visible tamper warning on the phone that the owner has to take off or, unfortunately, buries such text in a EULA then it's legally fine. It's unfortunate that there's so much that goes into being an informed consumer these days, but this is a slippery slope. As much as I'd like to say "there should be regulations against this!" there are an equal amount of items that Motorola et al think they should be able to get away with that I think are bad ideas.

Re:How is this legal?

[MrOctogon]

This is why class-action suits exist.

Re:How is this legal?

[MemoryDragon]

Actually no, it does not, and I see this ending up in court. As soon as you have bought the phone it is your property period and if motorola has a self destruct mechanism in then they clearly violated the law. As soon as this is proven, given it is trough I see some people having roasted their buttocks in court!

Re:How is this legal?

[Orange Crush]

They're not destroying it after the fact, they're booby-trapping it up front. Now, if an official update accidentally tripped the fuse on unmodified phones . . . well that would make for quite a show, I'll make the popcorn. But yeah, I think they can put whatever countermeasures they want to in a phone. I think it ought to be illegal, but I don't believe it currently is. I'm glad I know about this eFuse and Motorola's asshattery. I'll gladly give my money to Motorola's competitors when I get my next phone(s).

Re:How is this legal?

[XorNand]

So you take them to small claims court, where in many jurisdictions lawyers are not permitted. Motorola will have to send a corporate officer to represent the company. A much more likely outcome is that they'll settle with you prior to the hearing. All it takes is a few people to do this, and then blog about it and/or post info on social networking sites. Suddenly, Motorola is facing hundreds of small claims suits. They're still likely to settle them all out of court for the cost of the phone, but perhaps the next time they make a phone someone in the initial design meeting says "Ya know, the fuse function really seemed to piss off a lot of people, people who are now likely buying phones from our competitors. Maybe we shouldn't take that route again."

Re:How is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Donate the price of the phone to http://www.eff.org/

Re:How is this legal?

[L4t3r4lu5]

No. I'm just not going to buy this phone. I hope it flops.

Re:How is this legal?

[tehcyder]

You can legally buy a gun that only shoots in the direction of the person pulling the trigger

Please provide link + pix.

Re:How is this legal?

[powerlord]

uddenly, Motorola is facing hundreds of small claims suits. They're still likely to settle them all out of court for the cost of the phone, but perhaps the next time they make a phone someone in the initial design meeting says "Ya know, the fuse function really seemed to piss off a lot of people, people who are now likely buying phones from our competitors. Maybe we shouldn't take that route again."

No.

They are likely to petition to have all these Small Claims rolled up into a Class Action suit (or some intrepid lawyer will, hoping to cash in on money they will make by battling Motorola).

A judge is likely to grant the petition, and then Motorola can let their lawyers into the mix.

Flash forward 5-10 years before the results actually matter (although it always possible Motorola MAY learn from this before then).

Re:How is this legal?

[Idaho]

If I purchase the phone outright, wouldn't this be willful destruction of property on Motorola's part? Does a company have the right to destroy a purchased product - after the sale - if the consumer doesn't use it in a prescribed manner?

To my knowledge (IANAL etc.) many countries have laws against this, though I don't know about the USA specifically. Generally the line is crossed at the point when there are built-in additional features that serve no purpose other than to cause the product to "break" intentionally, in circumstances that are not advertised and obviously not intended by the user. The latter might be the case for e.g. self-destructing USB sticks and the like (in which case it would be an advertised and obviously intentional feature).

In other words, it's fine to build (shoddy) products that are "designed to have a limited life-time", to put it the corporate speak way, but intentionally adding "self-destruct" components is not - in particular if the customer could not reasonably have known about it (e.g., when that property was not advertised anywhere).

Re:How is this legal?

[Fnkmaster]

Nonsense. If you put a small explosive charge in the ECU module of a car that was set to blow up and take out the electronic system with it if detected any unauthorized modifications or tampering with the vehicle, you'd see a class action lawsuit in a matter of days, even though it only affects a small percentage of people who modify their vehicles.

This really shouldn't be so different. Sure, it's a matter of hundreds, not tens of thousands, of dollars, but that doesn't make the product any less my property. And it's still a reasonably large expenditure on a piece of equipment that while you may or may not consider "serviceable" by anybody other than the manufacturer, doesn't mean the manufacturer can actually forcibly self-destruct the device.

Re:How is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything of this nature is legal, until it's brought before a court of law. Are you willing to put in years of stress and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to file a suit against a Telecom giant that might reward you the cost of the phone?

No. I'll use a shyster lawyer that specializes in class actions. Costs me nothing up front.

Re:How is this legal?

[inca34]

Is this not the very reason for class action suits? File on behalf of everyone, make it worth your while.

Re:How is this legal?

[tunapez]

So you take them to small claims court

Best $38 you'll ever spend. Most times just faxing an unfiled, filled-out application to the other party gets you paid...fast.
Make an honest effort to resolve your issue, when all else fails don't get frustrated, file. Having trouble getting a company officer to accept the certified mail? No problem, use a lottery logo embossed envelope, everybody accepts reg/cert'd letters from the lottery. Lastly, my experience w/ arbitration is if you only want half of the claim, go with arbitration. That's what arbiters do, split the contested amount in half after wasting 45 minutes acting like he/she is weighing both sides earnestly.

Re:How is this legal?

[MorbidBBQ]

Class action suits are so disappointing. The recent comcast case in point. I had to deal with comcast throttling for months, troubleshooting my connection, getting stonewalled by tech support. Its a slap in the face to be offered $16 for the months my service was limited.

Back on topic, if that happens the victims can get a few dollars per phone while the lawyers get millions. I'd be interested to know if the small claims court theory holds any water. (never BT or DT) It just seems like its too simple, and the legal system is anything but simple.

If its reversible with a JTAG, the phone will still get hacked, just more time and materials needed.
Solution:Patience - Don't buy it until someone else does all the hard work.

Re:How is this legal?

[Hurricane78]

I learned a extremely important lesson some years ago, that might be just as important to you:

Does a company have the right to ...

In one sentence: If you ask, you’re already asking for trouble. :)
Becauso: Of course, if you allow them to decide that, they will rule in their favor. Makes sense. It’s natural.
So why do we ask in the first place?
Well, I think most of us are trained into not having a own system of right and wrong, but to always let others decide. (Guess who trained us that way in the first place? ^^)

So the solution is of course, to stop being passive, and stop letting others dominate your reality.
What do you think? Remember that laws are made by those who know what they think, and fight for it. We call them leaders, and we complain a lot about them. But somehow we never come up with the idea, of ourselves being the leaders.

What you think (after removing the distortion filters of social conditioning that we all have), is the most important thing to your whole existance. Don’t throw it away. :)
So decide. And then so be it. Because you know you are right. (If you don’t, find out what’s the actual reality. It’s fun. Like research with quick results.)

I, for example, entierly stopped asking others about rights and wrongs. I look at it myself, knowing that as a healthy human being I am more than able of deciding this, and then simpy decide. Based on MY rules.

A funny side-effect I noticed, is that people will automatically start to follow you, if you have a strong sense of reality and are confident. Now I don’t really want to tell other people what to do, but have them decide for themselves. But still, it was pretty cool, as it was the first time in my life, this happened just like this. I recommend trying it.

Re:How is this legal?

[nlawalker]

No, it's a feature, just like if you were to have a button on the outside of the phone that destroys the phone if you press it. Here, attempting to mod the phone is "pressing the button".

The company is free to put in such a feature. It's up to you as the consumer not to buy the product if you don't like it.

Re:How is this legal?

[StikyPad]

You can legally buy a gun that only shoots in the direction of the person pulling the trigger

I think Kurt Kobain et al have conclusively demonstrated that there's no such thing as a gun that only shoots in a given direction.

Re:How is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

> So you take them to small claims court, where in many jurisdictions lawyers are not permitted

You don't need a lawyer, but they do. No jurisdiction I've ever heard of actually forbids you from retaining counsel. You'd also have to show some actual damages, like an actually bricked phone, to have a cause of action in small claims. They don't really go in for reinterpretation of implicit contractual obligations and whatnot.

Basically, what they'll do is fire off a few forms to the court (basically free for them) to stretch out your filing some more, then eventually reimburse you the cost of the phone after the filing fees made it not worth it. They're probably insured for that small amount of loss, quite small considering very few are going to actually follow through on it.

More damaging to MOT frankly to just hop on your blog and show off the competitor's phone you just bought because you wouldn't buy motorola crap.

Re:How is this legal?

[ep32g79]

Here

Re:How is this legal?

[MorbidBBQ]

In looking for this form... an example from the armpit of the USA.

Following is a general list of claims which can be filed in Small Claims:
* Breach of a written or oral contract.
* Damage to or loss of property.
* Consumer complaints for defective merchandise or faulty workmanship.

Form on pg 8 http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/prose/10151_eng.pdf

Re:How is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Video demonstration would be cool too.

Re:How is this legal?

[iknowcss]

Really? How can I find one of these jurisdictions? Also, if you want to take Motorola to small claims court, can you require that the case be heard in your district, or do you have to go to them to have the case heard? Because last I heard, if you want to sue someone in small claims court, but they live in Utah and you live in California, you have to go to Utah to have the case heard.

Re:How is this legal?

[omnichad]

Well what do you say about someone selling you a car with C4 in the trunk rigged to a button in the front seat that said "don't press." They'd certainly be liable whether you press that button or not.

Re:How is this legal?

[Miamicanes]

If you went the small-claims court route, you'd really file a lawsuit against Verizon. They're the ones who ultimately sold the phone to you, and more importantly, they have a "nexus" in pretty much every state in America. Small-claims courts tend to be very, very unsympathetic towards large corporations seeking to change venue. Unless they can claim the court lacks jurisdiction because they don't have a legal nexus in the state, their odds of getting the trial moved are basically nonexistent. Not to mention that in the real world, it would cost more money to pay their law firm to file claims and responses seeking a venue change than it would cost to just refund the purchase price of your phone (or give you a new phone for free as a replacement).

The truth is, you don't sue over something like this in small claims court to get the money. At the end of the day, you'll lose a day of work and $50-100. The satisfaction comes from knowing that your little lawsuit ended up costing THEM a thousand dollars or more in legal fees and lost productivity. No company the size of Verizon or Motorola would ever DARE to not involve at least one lawyer to review the case, because they can't risk missing something serious and having penalties or sanctions blow up in their face.

Re:How is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Motorola will have to send a corporate officer

...that happens to be a lawyer.

Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[Svartalf]

Ah... I guess I won't be buying a DroidX then. Sad, really... I was looking forward to getting one when the contract was up on my Droid.

And I've been very happy with my Droid. Now, one wonders...was this done to suit Verizon or if it was on Moto's own thinking that it was done. I might not have modded my phone when I got it, but doing things like this are a real put-off. I bought the phone, it's mine to do with as I see fit- and putting in things like this take that away from me. It turns it into Motorola's device or Verizon's device and I'm just renting it. Sorry, you SOLD me a phone guys and if you're concerned about "user experience" or "risks to the network" design the damn phone to not need to be concerned about EITHER- and anything else is lying to the customer outright.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[San-LC]

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.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[L4t3r4lu5]

The HTC Desire is extremely capable and moddable. Check out the xda developers forum. They're running Froyo on it already, despite it not being available yet from most carriers.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[mlts]

That is an interesting article. It essentially means that Motorola is giving developers the middle finger and telling them to go elsewhere. Perhaps that is good advice. I'm sure HTC will be happy to sell phones.

Since the Droid X does not have a hardware keyboard, there are really no reasons to bother with it over a N1, unless you want a Verizon phone, and there, HTC offers the Droid Incredible. Sprint has the EVO as well. If you like T-Mobile or AT&T, just get the N1 model that works on their 3G band.

Since Motorola has expressly said it doesn't want the business of developers, that is just fine. It just means that Moto phones will end up being on the hind teat when it comes to being compatible with apps.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[MemoryDragon]

It was Motos own thinking I think the fact that the droid is unlocked was either an aftersight, or simply that google or verizone wanted it. The counterpart of the Droid the Milestone already has been tightly locked (although there is no tampering bomb in there)
Guess what, there are loads of people who did not buy the Milestone because of that fact. It is a pity because Moto currently produces the most solid android phones and their support track record regarding the Droid has been really good so far. But this is Motorola, once they have success they tamper around with pointless stuff until no one buys their phone again.

Now if the Nexus one just had a decent toucscreen. But I rather live with a mediocre open phone than one where the producer things it has to lock it down like fort knox.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[Life2Death]

I too was going to get the DROIDX when my time was due - maybe even two. And my old droids would be used for robotics or other interesting creations and this would totally rain on my parade. I paid money for both DROIDs I have, why do they self-destruct when I use it for legal uses on or off the network?

The droid was the last reason to stay with Verizon - I was from Alltel who had stock open phones from Moto, and my fiance had a VZW RAZR that wouldnt let you do shit. The open and moddable droid comes along, I sign up for a 2 year double contract, buy two phones, and sign my life over to VZW.

Then they pull this!

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[mcvos]

It is a pity because Moto currently produces the most solid android phones and their support track record regarding the Droid has been really good so far. But this is Motorola, once they have success they tamper around with pointless stuff until no one buys their phone again.

This is exactly why this is such a shame. Motorola makes really excellent hardware, that's perfect for the demanding power user, and then screws it up with crappy software that makes it useless for the demanding power user.

I don't get it. Why make such gorgeous hardware if you don't want people to use it? Go make cheap throw-away phones if that's what you want your customers to do with it.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[fermion]

And remember, companies like Motorola generally do not do things like this unless asked by the carriers. Just remember what Motorola had to do to get the Razr and similar products acceptable for Verizon and, to be fair, ATT.

This is likely a verizon ploy to gain control over what should be the more open choice in phones. Until the US courts establish that phones should not be tied to a carrier, possibly even not allowing subsidized phones, this behaviour will continue. Remember that this is one of the things that the original ATT in trouble, forcing customers to rent their phones, and pay the rent indefinitely. The carriers do the same thing. They say they are subsiding the phone, they say the charges help pay for the phone, but the charges do not drop when the contract ends, and the charges do drop if one buys the phone, only the contact is dropped.

If we were allowed to use whatever phone we wanted, then customers would save money and have better phones. Of course the carrier profits would decline, and companies like Verizon would be forced to find even more creative ways to nickel and dime their customers to death.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only Motorola would be arrogant enough to think anybody would want that crap. I've heard nothing but bad things about the extra stuff they put on the DroidX and I'm very glad they didn't do that to the Droid I have. However, my next phone will likely be an HTC or maybe the Samsung GalaxyS

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[Svartalf]

HTC's high-end is on the short list right now. I just wish they did a hardware keyboard- it's nicer and a bit more usable than the on-screen ones.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[Svartalf]

Oh, I'm sure I'll be considering an HTC phone in the future as I'm one of those selfsame developers you refer to.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[Svartalf]

Oh, no... The carriers are the ones that think that as much as Moto- else they'd not offer the phones up for sale.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[Anonymous Coward]

My only worry is that people would rate my app one star and slap "force closes on Motorola BLAH" on the App Store review list. Other than that, if this is true about the Droid X (as I want confirmation on released units on this), I'm just going to put in the app notes that this has not been tested on Moto hardware, nor any compatibility guaranteed, because Motorola has expressly told developers to not use their devices.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[h4rr4r]

The incredible was locked down too, it recently has been cracked though.

Re:Not a good idea, Moto and Verizon...

[L4t3r4lu5]

I use Swype on the Desire I'm testing. I'm absolutely gobsmacked by how accurate and intuitive it is to use. After 2 days use I was hitting 40 wpm with a keyboard 2" wide (use it in portrait), using only my thumb. You can type out words if you wish (spinning 90 degrees still brings up the landscape keyboard) but that's slower for me. One handed typing has become faster than two.

It's from the guy who designed T9. That man is a genius.

I do, actually...

[Svartalf]

Sure they will... But I don't appreciate having them try to transform it more into a rental of the device than a sale- and then framing it in as a sale. I'm sure there's other people that'll view it the same way as I.

Sadly, I'm fairly sure Verizon asked Moto to do this- they always seem to find a way to miss the point and try to assert "control" over everything.

Re:I do, actually...

[Shakrai]

Sadly, I'm fairly sure Verizon asked Moto to do this- they always seem to find a way to miss the point and try to assert "control" over everything.

Remember Verizon's "open network" imitative that was announced in 2008? Two years ago -- so where's my market for open non-branded devices that I can use on the Verizon Network? Surely they didn't make that announcement just to forestall regulation and maintain their walled garden, right?

Re:I do, actually...

[Lumpy]

Then dont buy it. Hell spread it far and wide that you WONT buy it and why. How it has a self destruct built in.

Give the Droid X a major PR black eye and suddenly companies wont try this crap again for a while...

Honestly, non nerdy friends do listen to us when we say, "oh god no, dont buy that, it has this major problem with it"

Re:I do, actually...

[delinear]

They'll listen so long as you don't start your explanation "If the eFuse failes 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'..."

Re:I do, actually...

[geminidomino]

Honestly, non nerdy friends do listen to us when we say, "oh god no, dont buy that, it has this major problem with it"

Unless [it] happens to be an iPhone 4, it seems.

Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be Nelson'd in the depths of the sloar that day, I can tell you.

Re:I do, actually...

[Z00L00K]

Figure out if you can do an OTA (Over The Air) push update to the phones and then start to spam phones.

Can be very interesting to see what they will say if a received SMS can brick the phone.

Re:I do, actually...

[Mister Whirly]

Exactly what I was thinking. This sounds like something that could be maliciously exploited and end up biting them in the ass big time.

Re:I do, actually...

[Lunix Nutcase]

Because your non-nerdy friends care about flashing a new ROM onto their phone?

Re:I do, actually...

[I cant believe its n]

"These aren't the Droids you are looking for."

Re:I do, actually...

[Zakabog]

Honestly, non nerdy friends do listen to us when we say, "oh god no, dont buy that, it has this major problem with it"

It's been my experience that most of my non nerdy friends don't listen to my suggestions regarding certain items. This would likely be one of those cases where my friends say "It's so shiny! I MUST HAVE IT" to which I reply, "But I said it has a self destruct mechanism built into it." A suggestion they will simply ignore, then 2 months from now they'll say "Hey can you hack my phone so I can get free apps, wait what do you mean the phone will self destruct? Can you try anyway?"

Re:I do, actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

They might listen if you recommended an equally (or almost so) shiny alternative. The other possibilities are that they don't trust you, you are bad at explaining the issues, you explain the issues properly but they don't mind, or they are plain stupid.

Re:I do, actually...

[Debian Cabbit]

You mean this kind of friend?

subject

[Anonymous Coward]

Just keep from off from buying the Moto X. These restrictions are good to know early. Thanks slashdot

Developers make the phone

[necro351]

If developers don't want to use the phone, the platform's potential will be limited to the imagination and the business model of the original vendor, which is usually very limited. Android phones like this one will be selected against. Users will want to 'unlock' their phone's power by clicking the install button in the windows program they download from that .org site everyone they know goes to, and phones that brick when they do this will eventually not be bought. Really its a stupid move for Motorola.

It was only a matter of time...

[zLaSh]

Something similar always happened with the Milestone (Droid's brother outside US). Motorola is surely gaining a lot of enemies.

Invitation to brick?

[swanky]

Because of this setup--isn't it entirely possible that some sort of malware can be created to actually attempt to brick the phone by triggering efuse?

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlocking bootloaders usually has to be done with physical access to the phone via adb/console. So no, shouldn't be possible.

Still, this whole thing reeks. So glad I have a Nexus One instead.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Svartalf]

Yep. And you can rest assured, since it's a smartphone, someone, somewhere will find a social engineering exploit to trick people into zapping their phones this way.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Coopjust]

You'd have to figure out an exploit that would allow you to modify the firmware (ROM), bootloader, or kernel without root access on the device.

However, every piece of software has bugs and many OSes have had escalation exploits, so it certainly is within the realm of possibility.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or it going off accidentally if just a single bit gets corrupted just once when verifying the checksums.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Deosyne]

True, but I'm not going to chance buying any product that is specifically designed to catastrophically fail. I was considering going to the Droid X in November, but now I'm not sure I'll be using any Motorola devices after I replace my Droid.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[rfolkker]

Since all Cellphone services support a network update push. The simple answer is yes. There is always the SMS push issues have have crept up as of late, but the most likely exploit will be in the Service Update process. However, to my knowledge no such exploit exists... yet. And of course there is the possibility of an app doing it, but I can't imagine that app developer ever staying out of jail for long. Let alone the app making it into the app store.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[BuffaloBandit]

That was my first instinct. It seems like it's pretty easy to trip the eFUSE, how hard would it be to write a virus, wrapped up in a free app that tripped it? Seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

I've encountered a lot of malware and more than half of it exists solely to exploit bad design just like this.

I don't ever mod my phones, but I wouldn't buy a Droid X for fear of having someone brick it for me.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[SleazyRidr]

And that will be an awesome time. When people who never understood why they should care about this kind of thing suddenly have it shoved in their face.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I hacked on phones, bricking this thing via a text message is at the top of the list I would be working on. Talk about egg on your face for Motorola.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Anonymous Coward]

only if you have physical access to the phone.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Gazzonyx]

I'd be more worried about VZ pushing a bad update that bricks the fleet. They already hold all the keys (as I'm reminded when they push crap to my BlackBerry). In any case, I'm more afraid of incompetence than malice.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Anonymous Coward]

If malware can be produced that easily that can change the firmware, bootloader or kernel under android, I'm a lot more worried about the security of nonbricking phones than about the chances of these ones being bricked.

Hell, I might buy one of these just for the assurance that mine hasn't been hacked.

Re:Invitation to brick?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be a fun program to write ...

Cthuluphone....

[Anonymous Coward]

....after all, why opt for the LESSER of evils?

"beta" only

[phorm]

My understanding is that the Droid X isn't actually at release yet.
If it's a "feature" on the beta phones, it may actually be somewhat understandable. I doubt moto wants people fiddling around with the guts of the protypes, because they'd be rather limited in supply, and it's pretty hard to properly test a phone that's been outfitted with non-standard hacks.

It's the principle of the thing and more.

[wonkavader]

A hardware company actually put a self-destruct mechanism in the phone when you change the software.

A. This will get tripped accidentally, even for naive users, and will cost owners money to fix.
B. This violates the idea of ownership of the device. Motorola figures that they're licensing you parts, not selling. For an "open" OS, this is insane.
C. Once you get around it, unless you can destroy the code, you still have that thing hanging around. A mistake or bad combination later on could trip it -- there's no reason to have to put up with walking through a minefield.

All this translates to "Spread the news, blacklist the phone, send a message to Motorola." Because if this goes on as a "who cares" thing, all Motorola Android phones will have it in future and other companies will follow suit.

This needs to be a black eye for Motorola, they need to notice that, and they need to quickly backpedal.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[clone53421]

Eh? It’s just another safety feature.

Mandatory car analogy? Try pulling out an airbag system or modding it.

(For those not already aware, an airbag unit is basically a bomb. Don’t fuck with it.)

The main difference in this case is that the “safety” feature is supposed to protect the manufacturer from you, whereas the safety feature in the airbag system is supposed to protect you – the customer – from an accident. This distinction needs to be made clearly so that we know what we are discussing.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[dintech]

The thing is, the great unwashed masses are probably never going to know or care that this is in there sadly.

The type of "geniuses" that work in mobile phone shops aren't going to be able to explain what it does or why either.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[mdm-adph]

Open Software != Open Hardware. Just throwin' that out there.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[zwede]

Eh? It’s just another safety feature.

Mandatory car analogy? Try pulling out an airbag system or modding it.

(For those not already aware, an airbag unit is basically a bomb. Don’t fuck with it.)

A better car analogy would be:

You don't like the rims your new car came with so you decide to swap over to some other ones. As soon as you remove the first wheel the entire car explodes.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[clone53421]

Okay, I came across wrong I guess.

My point was, first you say “it’s the principle of the thing” and then you fixate on the wrong principle.

Your points ABC apply just as well to an airbag system as they do to this eFuse. Airbags get tripped accidentally. They’re “closed” systems – don’t screw around with them. You’ll always have it hanging around... you have to be extra cautious when you’re working around the airbag (which, fortunately, you shouldn’t need to do too often due to the location of the unit) because you really don’t want to set it off accidentally.

The problem is the principle of the purpose of the thing, not just the principle of the thing itself.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Gr8Apes]

The more correct phone analogy for your car analogy would be try removing the innards of the phone battery, using tools made of highly reactive materials.

The correct car analogy would be to replace the ECU unit with an aftermarket unit. It's done all the time in certain circles, much like those that wish to mod phones. To further go down and tie the 2 analogies together, now imagine car manufacturers put air bag explosives on the ECU socket. Would you buy such a car?

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[clone53421]

...and now we’re both talking about the correct principle.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If one were of the risk-taking sort, the best way to oppose this sort of crap would probably be to disseminate a trojan app that trips this "efuse" system...

A few hacker nerds whining probably just makes Verizon smile. 10s of thousands of angry customers demanding replacement of their bricked phones, along with massive bad publicity would not.

I wonder how possible that would be.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[clone53421]

Good bomb vs. bad bomb. It’s not the principle of the bomb... it’s the principle of why it’s there.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[TheSpoom]

A. This will get tripped accidentally, even for naive users, and will cost owners money to fix.
B. This violates the idea of ownership of the device. Motorola figures that they're licensing you parts, not selling. For an "open" OS, this is insane.
C. Once you get around it, unless you can destroy the code, you still have that thing hanging around. A mistake or bad combination later on could trip it -- there's no reason to have to put up with walking through a minefield.

And absolutely none of that creates a negative for Motorola or the carrier. To them, this is the greatest anti-hacker technology ever, and that is how they will advertise it to users, if necessary.

Increases safety! Prevents hacking! Prevents viruses! Safest phone in ages!

Users will flock to it, and us hackers will be a very small joke group consisting of less than one percent of sales. We will make absolutely no difference.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[TheCRAIGGERS]

You're making it harder than it needs to be. Since this detects any change to the firmware / bootloader / kernel, all you have to do is make a small change to one. Doesn't even have to do anything but change the checksum. Welcome to brickville.

Still, I know what you are saying but this is unethical at best and dangerous at worst.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[twistedsymphony]

have you ever tried to pull or modify an airbag system? it's actually quite easy to do.

Do to the "explosive" nature of the device itself everything is clearly marked (the entirety of the harness is wrapped in bright yellow tape with black lettering stating "AIR BAG") and simply designed (no fancy serial signals, each data bit gets it's own wire) so as to ensure no accidental detonation.

I've removed the airbag system on 3 cars that I've owned, and one one I swapped steering wheels (meaning swapped air-bags) and had to modify the system for the new bag... very simple. indeed.

if you remove the airbag passenger's of the car are none the wiser since everything looks as it did before... Also they're pretty fun to explode after removial with a car battery and some 20ft of speaker wire.

I guess I don't see how your analogy works...

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[nilbog]

Just because you can make a car analogy doesn't make it a valid analogy. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_analogy

Also, you can pull the airbag system out of your car all you want.

How is blowing a fuse within your phone protecting anyone? Isn't the idea to protect people from broken phones and massive amounts of returns? Isn't the first goal to give people something that hopefully won't break? What is the goal more important than a functional device that is justification for the eFuse?

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[imakemusic]

Is that a problem? The great unwashed masses aren't going to be modding their phones.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[crakbone]

Think a better analogy would be "you replace the ECU and a couple of chunks of thermite set off and cut through your engine, transmission, weld your differential and compromise the temper of the frame. Completely disabling the car and costing your more than the price of the vehicle to repair it.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[nospam007]

"10s of thousands of angry customers demanding replacement of their bricked phones,..."

In Europe it's even simpler, it's the law.

If the stuff doesn't work during the first 2 years, it's the _vendor_ who has to replace it, not the manufacturer. You don't even have to sue.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[tehcyder]

You don't like the rims your new car came with so you decide to swap over to some other ones. As soon as you remove the first wheel the entire car explodes.

Sounds like a cool anti-theft device to me.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[dgatwood]

More importantly, after an airbag blows, if you want to, you could just shove the airbag out of the way and continue driving the car indefinitely. You can also replace that part (and only that part) without gutting and replacing the entire inside of the car.

By contrast, if an eFuse destroys itself, your whole phone is bricked, and can only be repaired by replacing the entire phone, or at least its main board.

An airbag is solely for safety, whereas a phone is a phone, and that single component is supposedly solely for "safety". If the phone were perfectly functional without it (albeit less "safe", then that would be fine. It's not. Therefore, an airbag and an eFuse are not comparable. Simple as that.

Designing self-destructing hardware should be illegal. Fundamentally, designing a device to deliberately damage itself is no different than deliberately designing a laptop to fail a few months after the warranty expires. It is selling a customer a product that you know to be fundamentally defective because you deliberately made it so, and doing this without remorse. Unless clearly labeled with "This hardware may destroy itself at any time", that's false advertising and fraud for starters.

The worst thing is that if they are building this in to detect firmware hacking now, what's to stop them from using it for something else in the future? Oh, you installed a ringtone that isn't approved. Say goodbye to your phone. Oh, you visited a website that is used by movie pirates (despite not being able to do anything significant there with your phone). We don't like that, either. Pop. Living in China? You received a phone call from a suspected dissident or went to a website that the government considers dodgy. We're killing your phone. And so on.

And what's to stop a virus from attacking the phone and simultaneously killing millions of these things worldwide on the same day? This is a glorified land mine, and we all have heard the statistics about how many tens of thousands of people are killed or maimed every year by those. Adding a feature like this into a product borders on suicidally stupid, and I really hope it blows up in their faces as soon as possible just so I can say, "I told you so."

Boycott MOT. This ends now.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[mcvos]

you – the customer – from an accident.

How is it protecting the manufacturer from me? How is me modding my device damaging the manufacturer in any way? It's not protecting anything, it's just vengeful destruction.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Firethorn]

Even better, get Verizon to accidentally distribute it: Even more bricked phones and demonstratably Verizon's fault. Oops.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandatory car analogy? Try pulling out an airbag system or modding it.

Exactly. Installing new software on a phone is exactly like putting new engine in a car. Both phones and cars are designed to self destruct when you do that.

No, wait... that's not right. Maybe a different car analogy:

Installing new software on a phone is exactly like fucking your mom in the back seat of a 1989 honda civic. You're still faggot either way.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[jimicus]

Eh? It’s just another safety feature.

Mandatory car analogy? Try pulling out an airbag system or modding it.

(For those not already aware, an airbag unit is basically a bomb. Don’t fuck with it.)

That's not because the manufacturer doesn't want you fucking with it, it's because a small controlled explosive charge is the quickest way to open up the airbag and in an accident they've only got a few fractions of a second to play with.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Lumpy]

accidentally? Not really unless you short something out or plug power into the wrong plug they are not easy to trip accidentally. they are easily tripped on purpose though... I have fired off a lot of them, great for launching things into the air...

you know how easy it is to rig a airbag in a steering wheel to trip via remote? I did it in a smashed car for a indie movie... the car looked perfect from the drivers side, we towed it to a car lot on a sunday and rigged the airbags to fire along with a couple of them under the car.. to make it look like the cars on the lot were all dangerous... salesman taking about how save the car is, slaps the roof and the airbags go off...

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Oh, it would definitely be a "nuclear option" sort of thing; but I suspect that it is the only strategy that would have any chance of causing them to reverse their stance.

Companies don't drop their DRM systems because they love freedom and fuzzy puppies, they drop them because the engineering costs and customer support issues are more expensive than the perceived benefits. Thus, if you oppose DRM systems, you can either lower the perceived benefits(by cracking the systems and distributing tools for doing so) or raise the costs. Boycotts are the legal and ethically unproblematic; but generally not that effective, way of doing this. More, er, direct methods of raising customer support costs are less legal and ethical; but probably a lot more effective...

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that, if you told Verizon that "Boot-tay loader" was actually the hottest new single from ludacris, rather than a low level firmware reflash, they would probably add it to the V-cast store for you...

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[silverpig]

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...

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[clone53421]

Disarming a land mine is also probably quite easy to do if you know what you’re doing.

My analogy works because it forces you to think about why the device is rigged to blow. Yes, it is deliberately a counter-example where the device is clearly good rather than bad – and thus a poor analogy, but good in the sense that it draws out this distinction. Several of the people who responded took the logical step of making better analogies, which is exactly what my intention was to pinpoint.

I miss BadAnalogyGuy...

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[delinear]

There are enough people on the fringe (wanting to mod but perhaps not understanding the implications) for this to at least be a concern. And what happens if an out of warranty update accidentally kills everyone's phone - they can't fix it with a simple software patch. It is most certainly a bad idea to let companies add software kill switches that nuke the hardware - it's bad enough that they want to stop us messing with the software but breaking the hardware as a consequence is insane.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[shadowfaxcrx]

When the hardware prevents open software from being used, then open software != open software either. . .

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[thijsh]

The latest in car theft prevention! Guarantees to never ever have your car stolen again, and with a little luck you too can kill the motherfuckers touching your car!!!
* May lead to loss of automotive transportation, groceries, pets, children and any other items still in the car.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[s73v3r]

I actually wish to listen to that song. Someone should get on it.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[PsychicX]

This tech is already in the Xbox 360, and has been from the day it launched. It's used slightly differently, mainly to prevent firmware downgrades. But it seems likely that hardware fuses are quietly tripped when you mod the console so that MS can do their mass bannings. So claims that users will accidentally trip it are perhaps far-fetched.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[zlexiss]

A rims analogy would be more like putting on a new slip-case. Mostly cosmetic.

Changing base boot and operating software would be like swapping the engine (or ECU) from a BMW into a Toyota and expecting the manufacturer to honor the warranty.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Anonymous Coward]

A hardware company actually put a self-destruct mechanism in the phone when you change the software.

A. This will get tripped accidentally, even for naive users, and will cost owners money to fix.
B. This violates the idea of ownership of the device. Motorola figures that they're licensing you parts, not selling. For an "open" OS, this is insane.
C. Once you get around it, unless you can destroy the code, you still have that thing hanging around. A mistake or bad combination later on could trip it -- there's no reason to have to put up with walking through a minefield.

All this translates to "Spread the news, blacklist the phone, send a message to Motorola." Because if this goes on as a "who cares" thing, all Motorola Android phones will have it in future and other companies will follow suit.

This needs to be a black eye for Motorola, they need to notice that, and they need to quickly backpedal.

I feel it important to say I'm all about Open Source. I love what android means for mobile phones and I was thinking about getting a droid x for my wife. I'll do a bit more research on my own before I decide to or not.

With that said your listed B, in its current form, is irrelavant to the situation. It's more of a whine than a factual gripe concerning the issue it's supposed to. Unless the Hardware itself is Open Source, which its not, you're gripe is pointless whining that's been tied into a fact. This is misinformation at its source. Fact mixed with opinion is how people get the wrong message.

Take out the personal opinion regarding "for an open OS this is insane" and you have a relavant arguement. Until you do that - "want some french cries with that?"

Your listed A is not relavant at all. In all the phones motorla has implemented this in so far, which is all but the original droid iirc, nothing seriously damaging has happened. Because this "effects" an open OS its suddenly wrong? Wow...just wow.

I'm not sure how you got modded insightful. Slashdot's changed alot since the last time I been here. Yesterday there was a story about MS's Milo, which is damn near a year old now, and now personal opinion, not fact, get modded insightful.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[YouWantFriesWithThat]

no one is asking for Motorola to honor the warranty, they are pissed that Motorola is going to intentionally sabotage the product after it is sold to their customers.

to reiterate: void warranty, fine; brick phone, bad

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Anonymous Coward]

More like deciding to swap out your engine for a 3rd party one designed for you car and having the rest of the car detect the change and destroy all of the ignition circuitry.

I'm don't expect a warranty on anything I mod, but I do expect it not to implode on itself for no reason other than that the manufacturer are a bunch asshats.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I figured that it was slightly less blatant than "Bit-Bang, by DJ TAG"...

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[geckipede]

Having the phone effectively destroy itself such that it can only be repaired by the manufacturer is not comparable to voiding the warranty.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[sumdumass]

Take what he says with special concern when the contract term is up and the out of warranty software update is designed to brick the out of warranty phones to get people to purchase another contract so they can get the discounted phone instead of paying full retail.

There is enough potential to fear abuse of this. The update will be closed source and probably can't be detected (at least for a while, then the class action lawsuit will end up getting everyone a $20 discount on their next phone they buy from that provider as the settlement or something stupid like that).

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[sumdumass]

How do you figure? Open software is pertaining to the software not the hardware. I'm not sure why you think you have some right to run whatever on anything but it's not there. An appliance device, or a droid phone/tivo whatever is designed to do a certain set of things and that is what you purchase when you buy one. If you want something that can run anything, then get a general purpose computer or the parts of the appliance device and assemble your own device designed to do what you want it to do. Open source or not, the hardware manufacturer has no obligation to allow you to turn your blender into a vacuum cleaner. If you have the skills and the necessary parts, you can do that on your own. But don't get pissy because they used a special screw head that you can't get a driver for.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[sumdumass]

Well, it will be good for them until someone points out that it's tantamount to frying your computer when Norton Anti-virus detects a virus in the file you are attempting to open.

I can see legitimate uses for this. But most users will run from something that breaks by no fault of their own. Especially when the claimed break will be something that they generally ignore for 2 years on their windows PC until the ISP writes them a nastygramn about spreading viruses or sending spam or something.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[ColdWetDog]

.. the entire car explodes.

That's one nasty fuse you got there. Time to go back and rework that analogy of yours. But first, lay off the Micheal Bay movies for a bit.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[NotBornYesterday]

The great unwashed masses should at least have the ability. Most of them will probably never need to invoke their 5th amendment rights, either. It still should be there for all, right?

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[ColdWetDog]

Good bomb vs. bad bomb. It's not the principle of the bomb... it's the principle of why it's there.

Bomb #20: "Detonation will occur at the programmed time."
Pinback: "Wouldn't you consider another course of action, for example: just waiting around a while so we can disarm you?"
Bomb #20: "No."

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Mysticalfruit]

It's about the principle of it. You've long since stopped buying a merely a cellular phone and moved on to buying something akin to a hand held computer. Yeah, your on their network, but you own the phone. Your not leasing it, your not renting it. You slapped down several hundred dollars of your money for something that you can't modify to your liking.

If tomorrow Dell came out with a new line of computers that prevented you from putting your Linux distribution of choice on it by zeroing out the bios and the bootloader so it was rendered unbootable the fury would be cataclysmic. Even though 99 percent of the people who buy computers don't change the operating system.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Doctor Memory]

More like you install a new stereo and now the car won't start.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[cayenne8]

"If tomorrow Dell came out with a new line of computers that prevented you from putting your Linux distribution of choice on it by zeroing out the bios and the bootloader so it was rendered unbootable the fury would be cataclysmic. Even though 99 percent of the people who buy computers don't change the operating system."

Ssssshhhhhhh!!!

Don't give them any new ideas!! I'm sure there's lots of organizations out there that would lobby for support for this...backed up by legislation!!

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[treeves]

I'm NOT agreeing with them doing this, only explaining it to you: If you can mod your phone however you want, you don't *have* to buy apps from them. They lose revenue. It's not that complicated. It's protecting their revenue stream.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[R3d M3rcury]

Changing base boot and operating software would be like swapping the engine (or ECU) from a BMW into a Toyota and expecting the manufacturer to honor the warranty.

Actually, they do. Or they have to be able to prove that the modification is what caused the problem.

For example, I have a third-party ECU in my Audi. If I have a problem with, say, the suspension, Audi would have to prove that the ECU modifications were the cause of my suspension problems. It's not up to me to prove that they weren't.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Car bomb, phone bomb. Bomb bomb, bomb bomb bomb.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Lehk228]

Socialism!!!!!!!1111eleventy

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[RebootKid]

Agreed. They're actually really simple to work around. If you follow the service guide available at most decent auto parts stores, you can swap your own air bag module no problem. I've had to do it before. So not a big deal. As an aside, I'd be interested in seeing that clip if you've got one available.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[agent_vee]

More like the car locks the doors and won't unlock...

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Lehk228]

with a d cell battery, capacitor, and switch, an airbag could be converted into a rather nasty antipersonnel land mine.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[ProfessionalCookie]

in a world of doesn't, Droid does.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[mcvos]

Motorola doesn't run the Android Marketplace, Google does. And I can still install stuff from other places too. The only thing Motorola makes money from, is the initial sale of the hardware. That's it. There really truly is no reason for them to be this obnoxious about it.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[CompMD]

I believe on Mercedes cars, when the airbag blows in an accident, the computer shuts down the engine, cuts power to the fuel pump, and refuses to activate the starter. The idea is they don't want you to inadvertently start a fire. Don't hold me to that though, my memory isn't so good.

Also, on P2 series and newer Volvos, if the passenger airbag blows, you must replace the dashboard since the airbag module is embedded inside it.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[h4rr4r]

And yet, unless they can prove your change broke it they have too. We have regulation that says this for cars, we need it for everything else.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[treeves]

Then there must be a deal between Google and Motorola.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[Miamicanes]

I'm pretty sure that in the US, the car's electrical system and ECU is required by law to basically commit suicide when the airbags deploy. I've been told that if your car gets into any accident where the airbags deploy, it's going to be declared a total loss by the insurance company unless it's literally a Porsche or Jaguar and worth spending more than $20,000 to repair.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[jonwil]

I own a Motorola Z6 phone running Linux (this is a feature phone that predates the Android efforts at Moto). I have compiled my own kernel for this phone and am running it.

I have owned 3 Motorola phones up to this point (an E378i,a L6 and now the Z6). I USED to be loyal to Motorola but now my next phone will likely be either a HTC Android device or a Maemo/MeeGo device depending on who is first to come up with a phone with free turn-by-turn navigation for Australia.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[itzdandy]

Whomever moded the post Score:5, Insightful, you are idiots. This has absolutely nothing to do with open hardware. This has to do with self destructing hardware. Not insightful, ignorant.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[mcvos]

Why would there be? Google is a lot closer with HTC, and their phones are completely open. As far as I can tell, this is really just Motorola being retarded, and Google has nothing to do with it.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[shadowfaxcrx]

Number one, this isn't a "special screw head." This is intentional sabotage if I try to do something they don't like with my equipment. As someone else said elsewhere, it's like putting new wheels on my car, only to have it explode because the manufacturer wants me to only use factory wheels.

I bought that phone. I didn't rent it. I didn't license the hardware. I bought it. It's mine. I should be able to modify it how I please without having to deal with intentional sabotage. It doesn't matter if I want to install CP/M on it. If the device manufacturer intentionally puts a self-destruct into the phone that activates when I try to do it, then we have a problem. Hardware should not ever be sold with self-destruct devices.

And that's not even addressing the most glaringly obvious point in this particular case, which is that Google and Verizon and all the phone manufacturers have been jumping up and down yelling "It's ANDROID! It's based on LINUX! It's open source! Customize your phone how YOU want it! No more being chained to Steve Jobs' vision!"

Fine. If you want to advertise that, then I expect you to deliver it, and I certainly expect you not to intentionally sabotage those of us who might want to take you up on your claims.

Otherwise the ads should read "Customize your phone how YOU want it. . As long as what you want is exactly what we want."

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[JohnnyGTO]

Despicable, I like it!

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[GasparGMSwordsman]

My new favorite car analogy. It has explosions and death, what more can you ask for. =)

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[sumdumass]

Number one, this isn't a "special screw head." This is intentional sabotage if I try to do something they don't like with my equipment. As someone else said elsewhere, it's like putting new wheels on my car, only to have it explode because the manufacturer wants me to only use factory wheels.

Not really. It's more like a car that won't engage into drive or start because of the after market wheels make the speedometer read wrong or something. Anyways, it's a an appliance device whether it's a computer or not, using it other then that should stop the appliance from functioning as intended. It's probably more likely that the device is capable of far more then it does and this locking mechanism allows Motorola to sell reduced versions of the hardware without actually having to make 10 different types. I find that totally acceptable because you aren't buying a general purpose computer or erector set, you are buying a specific device to do a specific task that the manufacturer claims it will do.

I bought that phone. I didn't rent it. I didn't license the hardware. I bought it. It's mine. I should be able to modify it how I please without having to deal with intentional sabotage. It doesn't matter if I want to install CP/M on it. If the device manufacturer intentionally puts a self-destruct into the phone that activates when I try to do it, then we have a problem. Hardware should not ever be sold with self-destruct devices.

Your right, you bought that appliance device, you didn't buy a computer, you didn't buy a development kit, you bought a phone that is designed to do certain things and break when it's outside of those things. In short, you did buy bicycle, don't be surprised when it doesn't have a motor or if the frame breaks when you attempt to put a motor on it.

If you want some development platform, then go buy one. And for the intentional self destruct mechanism, it's all in software and can be reset or over ridden by software so stop acting like it's junk afterwords.

And that's not even addressing the most glaringly obvious point in this particular case, which is that Google and Verizon and all the phone manufacturers have been jumping up and down yelling "It's ANDROID! It's based on LINUX! It's open source! Customize your phone how YOU want it! No more being chained to Steve Jobs' vision!"

Sure, I understand that. But the point still stands independent of any of this. The app development and all on it could easily fulfill that statement without needing to open access the hardware too.

Fine. If you want to advertise that, then I expect you to deliver it, and I certainly expect you not to intentionally sabotage those of us who might want to take you up on your claims.

Otherwise the ads should read "Customize your phone how YOU want it. . As long as what you want is exactly what we want."

Na.. It can easily be referring to your apps' your skins, your whatever. I don't know any adverts that claim you can modify the kernel and run it or anything like that. You are reading into it what you want then getting disappointed when it isn't there. I suffered from this once, I thought I really did win the 10,000 grand prize from publisher's clearing house and didn't pay attention to the "if your number is selected". You took a statement or series of statements and are making it to mean more then what it says. This may be because of deliberate similarities with the wording or it could be your imagination combining with your temper.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[shadowfaxcrx]

Well, I don't think you and I are going to agree on this.

But I will point out that your bicycle example is crap. You're trying to make the bike do something it wasn't designed to do. If it breaks, fine, it's your fault.

But if Schwinn somehow put a motor-detection circuit in the bicycle that sets off a shaped charge that cracks the frame when it detects a motor, that's something entirely different.

If I try to make the phone do something it's not designed to do, like fly, I won't be mad if it breaks *purely due to my actions.*

If I try to make the phone do something it wasn't specifically designed to do, like run a different OS, I won't be mad if it breaks *purely because of my actions*

But if I try to make the phone do something it wasn't specifically designed to do, like run a different OS, and even though the phone could do it, it breaks because someone put a little self-destruct device in it to specifically prevent me from doing it, I'm gonna be mad.

I don't expect Motorola to honor the warranty if I futz with the kernel and break something. But I do expect them not to actively destroy my phone on purpose if I futz with the kernel.

If you can't see the difference there, then we really have nothing to talk about here.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[dgatwood]

Whoever told you that "airbags = totaled" is wrong. Airbags are replaced all the time in accidents. It's nowhere near $20k. The replacement cost for the airbags themselves range from about $1,000 for a driver-side single unit up to about $6,000 if you're replacing two main airbags, two side curtain airbags, and the front windshield. Although many cars beyond eight or ten years old aren't worth as much as the airbags would cost, it's not a given.

You're right that on some cars, the ECU won't allow the car to start if the air bags are not operational. That typically means you have to replace the air bag system, not the car, not even the ECU. If you want to find out if your car is one of those, just unplug the air bag fuse. If your car starts, your car's ECU probably doesn't care about the airbags.... Bear in mind that most cars (or at least the ones I've dealt with) have a separate airbag ECU that's responsible for air bags (or uses the body ECU). That might indeed have to be replaced, but that isn't your main (engine) ECU. (Yes, I realize that the "E" in ECU is supposed to mean engine, and that a "body ECU" is nonsensical, but it's a commonly used term....)

There are a couple of manufacturers (Audi, VW, maybe a couple of others) that hard-code serial numbers into things, and various pieces of the system won't talk to parts that don't match the expected number. That's not the norm, though. To deal with that, you have to connect a code reader to the old one, read the codes, connect a code reader to the new one, and set the codes to match. It's more of a pain, but it still shouldn't require gutting the car. Besides, AFAIK, you shouldn't need to replace the actual air bag ECU, just the bag units themselves.

That said, IANAM, so take this with a grain of salt.

Re:It's the principle of the thing and more.

[sumdumass]

Well, I don't think you and I are going to agree on this.

But I will point out that your bicycle example is crap. You're trying to make the bike do something it wasn't designed to do. If it breaks, fine, it's your fault.

That's exactly the point. You bought a bicycle or in this case a droid phone that was designed to do one thing- giving you access to run your own kernel or firmware wasn't one of them. You know it can't do more because there is a software fuse that renders it useless unless you somehow bypass it.

But if Schwinn somehow put a motor-detection circuit in the bicycle that sets off a shaped charge that cracks the frame when it detects a motor, that's something entirely different.

No, not really. What if, and this is probably actually true because of costs savings and not the conspiracy I'm going to give, but what if Schwinn deliberately leaves the metal the thin and weak in the areas that would be stressed the most be the two or three most obvious places to place a motor on the bike thereby intentionally awaiting it's destruction? Or better yet, suppose Schwinn sells a motorized bicycle that has extra support added (the development kit/version of the droid) for the placement of the motor at an extra fee, but the normal cheap versions are weaker by design and costs less(the droid consumer phone). The only difference here is that instead of the thickness or strength of metal, it's a software switch that fails. The moral is you still have what you purchased, if you modify it, you either have to modify the weakness too or accept that it will break.

If I try to make the phone do something it's not designed to do, like fly, I won't be mad if it breaks *purely due to my actions.*

If I try to make the phone do something it wasn't specifically designed to do, like run a different OS, I won't be mad if it breaks *purely because of my actions*

But if I try to make the phone do something it wasn't specifically designed to do, like run a different OS, and even though the phone could do it, it breaks because someone put a little self-destruct device in it to specifically prevent me from doing it, I'm gonna be mad.

Obviously, if it breaks by design, then obviously it couldn't run a different OS and it couldn't fly and it couldn't so something it wasn't specifically designed to do. You purchased a phone, not a computer or a set of microchips and resistors. It is designed to be a phone or more specifically, a certain type of phone and making it other then that results in it breaking in the same way as you found acceptable before. Just because it might run something else if this software kill switch (Efuse) wasn't there doesn't mean you purchased anything different then what you purchased.

I don't expect Motorola to honor the warranty if I futz with the kernel and break something. But I do expect them not to actively destroy my phone on purpose if I futz with the kernel.

Fist, they aren't destroying the phone. Only the people not paying attention will believe that. They are rendering it useless until another set of software and tool re-enables it. And all this means is that if you want to futz with the kernel, you also have to futz with the efuse device that disables the phone. To real hardware hackers, this is little more then an strong annoyance as they already figured out how to re-enable the phone and have spent a good bit of time futzing with crap like this in the past. What you are really saying is that your pissed that you have to jump through a couple extra hoops to make a phone for one price be able to work like something at another price.

If you can't see the difference there, then we really have nothing to talk about here.

I can see the difference, I just don't think you are realistically looking at it.

What about frying the computer on a Toyota

[kernelcache]

If you own a device then the device owner, not the creator, has every legal right to do what they want with the device. If the device has a built-in tamper mechanism and turns it into a brick then that is part of the devices functionality; however, it would be like saying that if you don't purchase a Toyota factory replacement part then the car's computer will fry itself. I will bet that hackers will find an easy way around this, but if they don't and someone downloads an application which attempts to modify the boot loader, or any other piece, which causes the eFuse to trip, then Motorola and Verizon might be left holding the bag...of cash and dolling it out to device owners.

Motorolas jackassery, see Milestone

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm almost certain Moto is at fault here... As a European Droid (it's called Milestone here) User I am - to this very day - not able to flash Custom ROMs, because Motorola decided it would be a funny idea to cryptographically sign the bootloader. With no reason whatsoever. When asked, they usually reply that they are making phones for users and not for crazy hackers. Those should get get a Nexus One or something instead...

How a broken company like Moto can allow itself to brush of an entire branch of customers like that is a mystery to me, however this "eFuse" seems to be the logical sequel to Motorolas douchebag-policy.

Re:Motorolas jackassery, see Milestone

[LingNoi]

Motorola has always been like this. Even the attitude of exploiting open source and giving nothing back isn't new to them.

+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[brunes69]

This is just another nail in the coffin for Motorola, who becomes more and more irrelevant every year, being pushed out of the market on both sides by Apple and HTC.

HTC makes the most robust and moddable phones on the planet, and do not try to stop the modding in any way - in fact one may say they passively encourage it.

This post is coming from someone who owns a 4 year old HTC Vogue that came shipped with Windows mobile 6.0, but thanks to the modders, has been upgraded to 6.1 and 6.5, and more recently ove rthe past 3 months, has been running a fully working version of Android that is lightning fast. All on 4 year old hardware.

This is what can be done when you don't shut out your customers - I am an HTC purchaser for life now.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[mdm-adph]

You're still using a 4-year-old phone? You're not doing HTC any good. :P

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an HTC purchaser for life now.

Until HTC comes under new management and decides to take the company "in a different direction".

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

HTC lost me on the MP6900, it had no video drivers, so if you played a video it was always jerky. They didn't care, huge class action and nothing came of it, my overpriced phone couldn't even play a video...

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Ask anyone on Rogers who has a HTC Dream phone just how modable it is.

Thanks to HTC and Rogers, it's locked down tighter than a duck's you-know-what. Why? So Rogers can claim the Dream is unable to run the latest Android, forcing you to buy a new phone (and probably another multi-year contract).

HTC did this at Rogers' request.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Gabbermatt]

And in the eyes of the hardware manufacturer, you have not purchased a new phone in 4 years, so their income stream has taken a hit. This begs the question, is it really in the hardware manufacturer's best interest to make a perfect device?

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[LWATCDR]

As if this will make any difference to the masses?
Please nobody will care about this. If it mattered Verizon wouldn't have any customers at all since it has a long history of locking down phones are removing functionality.
This just isn't on most users radar.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[tehcyder]

This post is coming from someone who owns a 4 year old HTC Vogue

and who has fitted the time distortion app, as it was only released in June 2007.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Name Anonymous]

...

This is what can be done when you don't shut out your customers - I am an HTC purchaser for life now.

Or until HTC does something really stupid and doesn't back down. There are many companies who used to be great, then they changed. I'm not saying HTC will change in a bad way, but you just never know.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[asvravi]

This is what can be done when you don't shut out your customers - I am an HTC purchaser for life now.

Except you did not purchase a single phone from them for the last 4 years.

Not that I am supporting what Motorola did.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

You lost me at the robust. HTC lost me to Apple after having 3 different models in just over 3 years crap out after the one year warranty.

Another main problem was there literally too many cooks spoiling the broth. Having 20 ROMs to choose, each with their various versions and none ever being remotely stable to not require a reboot after 2 or so days, ruined the whole cooking scene to me. Keep your bleeding edge dlls with half implemented features and your EnErGyRoM v.231.23..4114.2.21.2. build 200134214.
Bet they haven't even got the "phone only starts to vibrate and play ringtone after caller has been ringing for 10 seconds" yet.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[powerlord]

This is what can be done when you don't shut out your customers - I am an HTC purchaser for life now.

Except you did not purchase a single phone from them for the last 4 years.

Not that I am supporting what Motorola did.

I've seen this comment from a few people so I have to ask:

Since when should the manufacturer decide how often I need to replace their product?
How often to you buy a new computer or TV? I'm sure Dell/Sony/Samsung/Toshiba would be happy if you bought a new one each year, but for most people that is way overkill.

When you DO chose/need to buy a new "X", do you give any consideration to "brand loyalty" when making your purchase?

Personally my Desktop is coming up on 5 years old. My television is about 4 years old.
When I look to replace them I'm probably going to look at ASUS and Samsung because they made a quality product that worked well.

That's the sort of reward a good company should get. When you choose to replace their product, you WANT to give them more business, instead of just jumping ship with a thankful sigh.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but are you of any value to HTC if you go 4+ years between phone purchases?

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[nine-times]

HTC makes the most robust and moddable phones on the planet, and do not try to stop the modding in any way

Tell that to my Droid Incredible.

I think the problem here is the carriers, and not the hardware manufacturers.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[yurtinus]

He did just tell a bunch of people that if they buy an HTC phone, they might not need to buy another one for four years... That sounds pretty good to me!

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[lymond01]

one may say they passively encourage it.

I think you've accurately missed the point there. Think of it more like they hurriedly wriggle towards open architecture, making things sloppily more precise as they go.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[dugrrr]

I agree with parent.
I still have an HTC Wizard (which was sold as rebranded Cingular 8125). The phone companies force their dirty tricks upon manufacturers. The HTC Wizard has Wifi but it was hobbled by programming that made it preference sending data through the telco. I didn't go looking to mod the phone until I felt cheated. I wiped it and reloaded Windows 6 and found that I had the ability to do much more in regards to installing apps and using 3rd party SIMs when traveling abroad etc.

Since then I've given up on carrying a swiss-army phone (a netbook fills the niche if I'm away from my rig long)

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[GameboyRMH]

There are many companies who used to be great, then they changed.

Exhibit A: Palm. A few years ago I would have said I'd be a Palm purchaser for life, then they reduced the number of GSM models they made, then they started phasing out PalmOS for WinMo, then they released the Pre with a locked-down OS and that settled it. Now I have an N900, but Nokia acts like your typical megacorporation so my next phone will most likely be a MeeGo device from another manufacturer.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

First this is a RUMOR, and generally thought to be a false rumor. The consensus is the DroidX has the same firmware as the Milestone, which hasn't been modded but is NOT rigged to brick. //nail in the coffin for Motorola// I wouldn't bury them yet, as one out of three Android phones are Motorola Droids. //being pushed out of the market on both sides by Apple and HTC// Both of those companies make art pieces. If you want art get one of them, if you want a phone get a Motorola. APPLE MAKES THEIR PHONES OUT OF GLASS!! That is just asinine. HTC just makes smart looking phones out of cheap parts. Reviewers love HTC because they only test them for a month and they test them in cities with good reception. If you want a phone that works ALL the time, get a Motorola or a Blackberry. OK, on the Droid the battery cover comes off if you drop it, BUT IT DOESN'T SHATTER. I've dropped mine on a bare concrete floors and tile floors, and it still looks almost new. I handle 100+ phones for my company so end up getting almost everything Verizon sells and all the HTCs are trouble. Bad antennas, cheap hardware. The only phones we end up keeping for years are all Motorolas. We have people who have worn all the printing off 4 year old RAZRs. THEY JUST DON'T DIE. A lot of people don't like the look of a Droid because it looks industrial, that is because it is made out of metal.

I'm getting a DroidX and I'm pissed that it can't be rooted yet. Moto probably did this to appease Verizon as they are probably worried that people will root them and wireless tether them. That will kill the MiFi, their USB and embedded cards. They want you to pay extra for the tether and they can't on a modded phone. Get your HTC, but years from now my old overclocked Droid with Flash will still live on as a snappy web surfer, Skype phone and email client and your HTC will be cluttering a landfill. I will be petitioning Moto and Verizon to allow modding and I encourage you to also. As I will be encouraging them to include better Cisco VPN software, so I won't need to root, though I will miss the overclock.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[asvravi]

HTC did a good thing by making it open, but they lost out on being able to sell three more phones to him compared to Motorola. Motorola gets to lead at the end of the day (or 4 years in this case). It is hardly a desirable situation. My only point is, being a loyal HTC customer is of no consequence when they get a sales figure that is four times lower than a more unscrupulous competitor.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

Another main problem was there literally too many cooks spoiling the broth.

1) you either mean "their" or "there were"

2) Literally: That word. You keep using it. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually HTC is locking their phones. At least my HTC Desire was locked and I had to root it so I could install custom ROMs (which was easy, but still)...

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[LLKrisJ]

I do not know if you are aware but did you check how "easy" it was to mod more recent models such as the HTC Legend and HTC Desire??

Well, let me tell you it is _not_ easy. HTC also implements protections:

http://android.modaco.com/content/htc-legend-legend-modaco-com/305927/htc-legend-root-update/

and so does any other phone manufacturer for that matter.

So to say that HTC "might be passively encouraging modding" might be a bit overboard...

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

HTC makes the most robust and moddable phones on the planet, and do not try to stop the modding in any way - in fact one may say they passively encourage it.

My latest phone, the HTC Desire comes with an encrypted bootloader. I am only able to gain access to an alternative bootloader, hence only able to mod the ROM's on the phone is through a load of hackery that had to be manually discovered. I consider this to be HTC attempting to stop the modding, just not in quite such an extreme way as Motorola.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that, my girlfriend is just about to get a smartphone from her parents, she's biased between the Sony Ericsson X10 mini and the Legend. I'm gonna push her towards the Legend, and I'm kinda thinking about getting one too, mainly because of this guy's experiences with HTC.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[mdm-adph]

No, he'll doom the company! Stop!

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Crudely_Indecent]

June 2007
June 2008
June 2009
June 2010

Looks like 4 years to me. Oh wait, it's July now - 4 years and 1 month.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[honkycat]

No. In 2007 it was 0 years old. In 2008 it was 1 year old. In 2009 it was 2 years old. In 2010 it was 3 years old. That's how we count ages in the Western world. IIRC some East Asian cultures consider you 1 when you're born, so maybe there you'd say it's 4.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Crudely_Indecent]

Thank you for pointing that out. I need to get more sleep before I comment on /.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[NiteShaed]

then they released the Pre with a locked-down OS and that settled it

What did you find locked-down about WebOS? I had a Pre (switched when the Evo came out), and I still haven't seen anything close with Android to how absurdly easy it is to mod the Pre. If it weren't for the lack of apps that I wanted, and the disappointing pace of hardware development, I'd probably have stuck with Palm. I've never used an N900, so I really can't say anything about comparing them, but what makes it less locked-down than WebOS?

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[powerlord]

That only holds true if everyone buys Motorola, despite HTC phones being usable for longer.

I'd expect that recently, what with this "economy thing" people would be looking for products that lasted LONGER, not SHORTER.

The short life-spans only make sense during a market's early rapid growth period. At this point the market is much more mature.
One SmartPhone SHOULD be the same as another (for the vast majority of people who want one).

If people start rewarding longer life-cycle, then HTC should have better profits over the long haul than Motorola.

Lesson: Start telling everyone that HTC phones can last longer than Motorola phones, because HTC phones are "User Upgradable", while Motorola phones lock you in and force you to upgrade early.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[GameboyRMH]

WebOS initially was totally locked down, iOS style. I don't like the fact that it only runs (ran? I don't know if Palm allowed native code later) JS-based applets either. I know they opened it up some more later, but that was too late for me.

Maemo 5, the OS on the N900, is just a Debian-based Linux distro that you can install whatever you want on.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong!

People who are on verizon, such as those in North Dakota, don't have other 'good/decent/ options for certain things. So they use what they can.

In this case, they now know to avoid moto products. In our community it's very well known what limitations vagizion places on their phones, so we create roms for them to help!

But with this little stunt, they'll learn.

Oh yeah, and you couldn't be more wrong. Haven't you seen the wannabes on the forums asking how to do everything? Just enough to get what they want? Yeah, they'll soon be like f that phone.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

I have done this also...I loaded a custom ROM on my HTC Fuze on AT&T - upgrading it to Windows Mobile 6.5 with HTC Sense. I have also tried an Android 2.0 build, but it didn't have the wi-fi hotspot and computer tethering features in it, which I rely on. Oh, and no additional $20 or whatever or month for the added functionality either like they require on the newer phones. All I have is the (now grandfathered) unlimited data $30 plus voice minutes plan. If I find a working 2.1 or higher Android ROM I will upgrade again.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to have verizon. I loved their network. But then they wanted to charge me ridiculous sums of money to move data onto my phone. This is after they talked me into a USB cable (which cost about 10 times its worth), which as it turns out, will ONLY charge the battery and not allow for data connections.

I now happily own a Nexus One. It's not even unlocked. But the choice is there if I ever choose to.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Mana Mana]

> This is just another nail in the coffin for Motorola, who becomes more
> and more irrelevant every year,

This is simply not true. You must be thinking of Nokia (put away your N900 sallies please). Motorola's trajectory for the past couple of years and the short to medium future is rising and robust. They have latched onto Android, whilst finally jettisoning their clamshell, RZR daydreams. Read the financial pages, these guys are on the move.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[peppepz]

I have a different experience with HTC. My HTC phone is not "moddable" at all per se. Its bootloader only accepts ROMs digitally signed by HTC.
Some modders found a way around this protection, but they exploit bugs in the firmware's security, it's not that HTC happily allowed this. Also, HTC is known to send cease-and-desist letters to the sites who host their ROMs. So I don't think they're interested in letting you hack their firmwares more than Motorola is. When hackers find a hole in eFuse, Motorola's phones will be just as hackable as HTC ones.

By the way, all modded ROMs for my phone suck because they are lacking major hardware features such as camera or FM radio, or major software features like Android market. Which means I'll never use them, and rather keep my original firmware. Which has received 0 official updates from HTC, who also has stated that they won't release any new update because they're now focusing on new models. 7 months after my phone was launched, its support is already dead. So unlike you, I won't ever buy an HTC phone again.

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[NiteShaed]

WebOS initially was totally locked down, iOS style.

Well, it took a couple of months before they had the APIs published and available, but I think that was more an issue of being ready than being locked-down.

I don't like the fact that it only runs (ran? I don't know if Palm allowed native code later) JS-based applets either. I know they opened it up some more later, but that was too late for me.

I'm pretty sure it was only about 2 or 3 months before they'd opened up their APIs for third-party code, but there was quite a bit of "off-label" development going on before then, which Palm not only didn't stop, but encouraged. The Pre never REQUIRED that you get apps and patches through the app catalog, and there were alternatives available almost from the start. The homebrew community always did a pretty amazing job hacking around with WebOS, largely because unlike Android and iOS, it's trivially easy to get root on the phone, as opposed to iOS jailbreak or loading custom ROMs on Android.

You didn't like it, which is completely fine, but to say it was locked down like the iPhone is just incorrect.

Maemo 5, the OS on the N900, is just a Debian-based Linux distro that you can install whatever you want on.

I'm not sure how that's different from WebOS, which is also a Linux distro, and I've never seen any restrictions on what you can install. I had one from release-day on Sprint until the day the Evo came out.....

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[brunes69]

It is trivial to reflash the dream with any ROM you want. You need to investigate more. Start at the forums at xda-develoeprs.com

Re:+1000. Goodbye Moto, Hello HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is an *Industry Standard Phone* that complies with *Every Single Cellular Radio Protocol In The World!*

What would this hurt? No one!

I buy a phone, it has *All The Radios...for Voice, Data, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, all rolled into one complete unit.

Then, if you have a CDMA carrier, you just give them the proper number and they activate it. GSM, of course, pop in the SIM Card!

For the newer CDMA phones that use cards, this could also be provided, all in one phone.

Firmware would be upgradeable, but the radio would be *Software Controlled*, while the frequency ranges would be already "burned-in" to the phone's radio chipset--For All Cellular Carriers Worldwide.

Tool up once, have it available for all subsequent phones! Simple!!

Citation needed

[rumith]

I did follow the TFA to the origin of the story (MyDroidWorld forum), and I still don't see any code, captured data or even a photo of the said eFuse chip inside the DroidX. I understand that the original poster appears to be a reputable hacker, but come on, what kind of real reporting is this? Can anyone else verify these claims? More information needed, thank you very much whoever posts it, because if true, this is an outrage.

Re:Citation needed

[Coopjust]

Motorola acknowledged this back in February:

We understand there is a community of developers interested in going beyond Android application development and experimenting with Android system development and re-flashing phones. For these developers, we highly recommend obtaining either a Google ADP1 developer phone or a Nexus One, both of which are intended for these purposes. At this time, Motorola Android-based handsets are intended for use by consumers and Android application developers, and we have currently chosen not to go into the business of providing fully unlocked developer phones.

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. We post appropriate notices as part of the legal information on the handset and post source code, where required, at http://opensource.motorola.com./ Securing the software on our handsets, thereby preventing a non-Motorola ROM image from being loaded, has been our common practice for many years. This practice is driven by a number of different business factors. When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so. We understand this can result in some confusion, and apologize for any frustration.

Re:Citation needed

[kieran]

They left the Droid open, but surprised us users of the EU version (the Milestone) by locking down the bootloader partition.

That was enough for me to move away from Motorola next phone I buy; but this eFuse crap is a pretty hefty final nail for the coffin.

Oh well, the HTC Eris is better anyway.

Re:Citation needed

[Andy Dodd]

http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/wtbu/wtbugencontent.tsp?templateId=6123&navigationId=12316&contentId=4629 - There isn't a separate e-fuse chip, it's almost surely built into the OMAP.

Most microcontrollers have eFuses now for various purposes. For example Atmel AVRs have them for clock selection and (optionally) final lockdown of the chip to protect someone from reading back the program inside it (RSTDISBL, SPIEN)

Re:Citation needed

[Sockatume]

A locked-down bootloader is not uncommon on Android devices these days. That the Droid X bootloader is locked by no means demonstrates the ridiculous measures that the article claims Motorola have implimented.

Re:Citation needed

[assantisz]

I am sorry but I do not see that Motorola acknowledged the use of eFuse technology. Yes, they locked the bootloader down just like they did with the Milestone (using encryption). Other than that it is pure speculation. Show me the pictures or show me a bricked phone and then we talk.

Re:Citation needed

[jimicus]

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.

Re:Citation needed

[black_lbi]

Read the post right above yours ... the european version of Droid (Milestone) cannot be flashed with a custom ROM. And it's already been a few months since it launched.
Maybe it has an eFUSE, maybe it doesn't ... you still can't root it.
Besides, Motorola acknowledged the fact that some of their phones are (will be) locked down and even recommended getting a nexus one instead, if you want to hack your phone.

Re:Citation needed

[MidoriKid]

Would this be possible if the Linux kernel was licensed under GPLv3?

Re:Citation needed

[rwv]

The use of open source software in a consumer device does not require the handset running such software to be open for re-flashing

So they can sell hardware that can't be re-flashed because it isn't forbidden by the open source software license? This seems to violate Freedom #1 of the GNU Philosophy which is "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this."

I understand that Tivo-ization (distributing software on a proprietary box without making the source code of that software available) that was implemented within GPLv3 wouldn't cover this, but distributing locked-down hardware that relies on running open source software seems like an obvious violation of the spirit of open source.

Maybe we ought to take notice of this Moto-ization of open source licenses for next time a revision is needed to the core licenses.

Re:Citation needed

[assantisz]

The Milestone has been rooted, i.e. you can get superuser access to the system. What the Milestone cannot do (as of yet) is booting a different bootloader which allows booting a custom system image (aka ROM).

Re:Citation needed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm under the impression that it's ok with stallman at least for devices intended for a single purpose to be locked down.

Re:Citation needed

[Anonymous Coward]

At the time they introduced this, they cited TiVo as their example. TiVo used the Linux kernel but the firmware refused to load any kernel that wasn't signed by the company.

Re:Citation needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPLv3 already covers this, which is why Android is a NetBSD/Linux distro.

Glad I have an Apple phone.

[lxs]

Compared to the eFuse, their new iFuse just works, which makes for an infinitely superior bricking experience.

Re:Glad I have an Apple phone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't brick it that way...

Re:Glad I have an Apple phone.

[tehcyder]

And with the Apple you can't do anything just by holding the phone wrong.

Re:Glad I have an Apple phone.

[A440Hz]

Personally, I get pretty frustrated that the iFuse only has one button.

Re:Glad I have an Apple phone.

[steelfood]

To be followed closely by the iReFuse, which Just Doesn't Work (TM).

Re:Glad I have an Apple phone.

[45mm]

You're not supposed to hold it that way.

Corporate Security

[Manhigh]

I'm under the impression that the Droid X is intended for the business market, to try to take a bite out of RIM's market share. This sounds like an attempt to make the phone more "secure" by preventing people from getting at the data by rooting the phone. Not that it's necessarily the best way, but thats just my 2 cents.

Re:Corporate Security

[Svartalf]

Actually, you don't need to root the phone to unlock it's data. It's going to mostly put it in the transflash inside the device- since there's some tight limits on space (Something like 256-512Mb on the SoC, if I'm not mistaken...). And the data's not encrypted on the device and rooting it wouldn't do anything other than allow you to do custom modifications to the OS itself- i.e. tethering things into a WiFi hotspot or over the USB...all without paying Verizon their exorbitant extra fees for the privilege...

In short, this isn't a security measure in the manner you're thinking it is. It's a security measure in that they don't want you using anything other than official baseline firmware on the device. It's not your phone even though you paid good money for it and they described it as a sale.

Re:Corporate Security

[Anonymous Coward]

well, wait till someone figure out a way to use social engineering to brick all the phones

Re:Corporate Security

[jimicus]

I'm under the impression that the Droid X is intended for the business market, to try to take a bite out of RIM's market share. This sounds like an attempt to make the phone more "secure" by preventing people from getting at the data by rooting the phone. Not that it's necessarily the best way, but thats just my 2 cents.

Or they could have done what RIM et al have - which is to encrypt the data on the phone itself and when remotely instructed to selfdestruct, wipe the key.

Re:Corporate Security

[Anonymous Coward]

If that is the case then it would be implemented as an option that we could enable on the devices that have sensitive data...

These aren't the droids we're looking for.

[Anonymous Coward]

Move along.

That's it!! They have lost my business.

[intheshelter]

I thought they were open, but apparently they have a walled garden just like Apple. I can't install any Apple apps on an Android phone. They are trying to lock me in to only Android apps. I should have the freedom to install any apps on MY phone. It's just another example of the way Google is trying to control everything you do AND they are trying to make money. They make money on AdMob ads, they make money on their app store. Google is so evil.

Re:That's it!! They have lost my business.

[MozeeToby]

Man, did I ever just get smacked by Poe's Law I honestly cannot tell if you're being serious, making a joke, trolling, or what.

Re:That's it!! They have lost my business.

[davemik211]

This has nothing to do with Google or the OS, this is Motorola installing something in their phone that will brick it if you attempt to root it.

Re:That's it!! They have lost my business.

[intheshelter]

I don't care about facts. This is obviously a monopoly by Google and Motorola to produce this walled garden phone that won't install the apps I want and isn't open and thus is EVIL!!

In case you couldn't tell, I am playing the role of the usual over-reacting Slashdot poster going on a hypocritical moral rant. Facts are usually immaterial in these arguments.

Re:That's it!! They have lost my business.

[Anonymous Coward]

It’s pretty obvious that he’s being completely sarcastic. And trolling. And an idiot.

I do!

[aliquis]

I do!

As I've said before the time I'll buy(*) an Android phone is the time when the OS is easily replaceable, preferably with a vanilla version of Android. So I can get the latest version and don't have to buy a new phone which is ridiculous and which also would open it up for all sorts of tweaks and hacks from the community.

I don't need a specialized version if the company behind the Phone don't want to share their code with everyone else in the Android community. However I would expect them to share the drivers atleast ..

A phone which actively try to predict this from happening and just don't cooperate is even much less likely to be bought by me.

I understand I may be one of a small crowd but phones made for me and others like me would offer so much more and be way better than everything else out there. Not letting it happen with an open-source OS is just as stupid as releasing the iPhone with no SDK/third-party applications was.

* I'm not in a hurry but if it will take forever then eventually I will have to get another phone.

Re:I do!

[Anonymous Coward]

As I've said before the time I'll buy(*) an Android phone is the time when the OS is easily replaceable, preferably with a vanilla version of Android. So I can get the latest version and don't have to buy a new phone which is ridiculous and which also would open it up for all sorts of tweaks and hacks from the community.
What about the Nexus One?

Re:I do!

[bberens]

$529 from the GOOG. Yikes!

Re:I do!

[aliquis]

What about the Nexus One?

I don't know if it's open for future OS versions (or even whatever normal people can get access to and build the code, but I guess we can?)

Also I live in Sweden, Europe and I don't know if we can order it or if it was US only?

I won't go through too many loops to get one. If they don't want to sell me a phone: Fine! Don't ...

Re:I do!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That's actually pretty much even with other smartphones in its class. The trouble is, most carriers(at least in the US); subsidize handsets but don't offer less expensive plans to those who BYO hardware...

If there were a "zOMG Free Phone* *(with $$$$/month contract)" option and a "Pay full retail phone price, or bring your own, $$/month for voice/data" option, the American preference for crippled carrier phones would be an example of the "stupid consumers, only looking at upfront costs" phenomenon. As it is, though, you pretty much choose between getting a subsidized phone, then having the subsidy(and some extra) gouged out month by month, or you pay full price, and then face exactly the same monthly costs. This adds up to paying a fairly major premium to purchase your own device.

Re:I do!

[bberens]

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.

Re:I do!

[Second_Derivative]

For fifty freaking bucks a month, just so you can send text messages AND make calls? are you fucking kidding me?

My experience of America so far is that for every walk of life there's a government-backed corporate monopoly eager to bend you over the barrel, but even by American standards the GSM networks are fucking highway robbery (yes I know Verizon isn't even GSM, but they're no better in any other respect either). I have my own non-smart phone and I want to continue using it instead of switching to your country's third-world technology.

No, fuck T-Mobile and fuck every other carrier over here too. Why should I beg and show gratitude for something that's a basic service in every other part of the world.

Re:I do!

[Lumpy]

Yup....

AT&T does not offer a iphone plan that is $20.00 a month cheaper if you buy the phone outright... With most carriers, they happily rape the customer...

Because they hate the customer... AT&T really hates their customers.

Re:I do!

[sexconker]

The trouble is, most carriers(at least in the US); subsidize handsets but don't offer less expensive plans to those who BYO hardware...

Sure they do.
My unlimited data plan (actually unlimited!) from AT&T costs me $10 per month.

By buying my own phones, I am not forced to "upgrade" my contract.

Welcome to smart phone plans before the iPhone!

Re:I do!

[Anonymous Coward]

For fifty freaking bucks a month, just so you can send text messages AND make calls? are you fucking kidding me?

Apparently someone is fucking kidding you, or kidding about fucking you, or something equally unnecessarily explosively emotional, because if that's all you want, that's thirty freaked-out male deer a month, from what I'm seeing at T-Mobile. Well, actually, from what I have with T-Mobile right now. For fifty strung-out moose a month, you also get the unlimited data plan.

But please, don't let me get in the way of an embarrassingly hilarious show of uninformed nerd rage. Do go on.

Re:I do!

[s73v3r]

Look on the CyannogenMod forums at the supported handsets. Get one of those. The only downside is that by flashing Cyannogen, you are giving up any manufacturer eye candy, like HTC Sense. However, some enterprising hackers have even brought this back.

Re:I do!

[s73v3r]

Fuck you. They pointed out that there is exactly that at T-Mobile, and then you turn around and bitch some more? What more do you want?

Re:I do!

[s73v3r]

To be fair, if I was in their position, I would hate the customer too. In fact, that's why I went into business. Because I hate people.

Re:I do!

[c0d3g33k]

p>Because they hate the customer... AT&T really hates their customers.

No, they are probably indifferent to the customers. They just love the money.

Re:I do!

[s73v3r]

I believe the Nexus One can be bought all over the world, just not in a store. You have to buy it from Google. As far as future OS revisions, I think they've already sent one or two OTA updates to the phones, so I would expect this to keep going for a while, at least for a couple of years.

Re:I do!

[powerlord]

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.

True. Also my experience has been that they are one of the FEW U.S. carriers NOT to cripple their phones from the get-go (Bluetooth File Transfers to/from the phone, no extra software needed to offload your pictures/audio/video).

I'd imagine that the T-mobile Android phones should be nice and "open", but I recently got an iPhone through work, so for now all my T-mobile number is doing is forwarding calls. :D

Re:I do!

[aliquis]

I live in Sweden and can buy pre-paid cards for the low volume I use or sign up for any "plan" if I have my own phone.

For the "subsidized" phone purchases they mention the additional fee you pay (if any, but there most likely is one) for the plan for taking the phone and also the total cost for sign up fee if any, monthly fees for the regular plan and the additional fee for the phone. Which most likely end up being more than the phone with no plan.

Re:I do!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are a current T-Mobile subscriber, then T-Mobile won't fully subsidize the N1 with an upgrade credit (instead, it's $275 or thereabouts, rather than new-customer-$180), plus a 2-year contract. I did the math, and for an EXISTING T-Mobile customer, buying outright and switching to their bring-your-own rate saves you around $250 over the 2-year contract, PLUS you're on a month-to-month contract if you decide to jump ship. (You also have a fully unlocked N1 that you could resell to someone else to offset the initial cost).

If you're a new T-Mobile customer, that'd be (275-180 = 95, 250-95...) $155 over the two-year contract, plus forcing you into a 2-year contract.

Basically, if you can cough up the $529 up front, you're saving money AND not being tied to T-Mobile for a long-term contract.

<personal opinion>T-Mobile is the ONLY phone company that currently seems to want to make money while offering customers options, rather than the other providers wanting to make money through raping their customers' wallets.</personal opinion>

Re:I do!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're welcome to leave the country any time you like. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Because I don't want your ass-prints on my door!

Re:I do!

[amentajo]

I believe that you may be confounding "the service provided by the company is not worth the cost" with "the company is eager to bend you over the barrel", "oligopoly" with "monopoly", "government-regulated" with "government-backed", and your entire post with something that replies to the parent it's attached to.

The post you replied to:

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.

How is this not a good thing?

Re:I do!

[danlip]

Also my experience has been that they are one of the FEW U.S. carriers NOT to cripple their phones from the get-go (Bluetooth File Transfers to/from the phone, no extra software needed to offload your pictures/audio/video).

AT&T doesn't cripple their phones - I had no problem transfer files between phone and computer on both my Motorola Razr and my iPhone (used a cable, didn't try bluetooth, but I doubt it matters). As far as I can tell only Verizon cripples their phones - which is one of the main reasons I will never use Verizon again (the other is that AT&T actually has a better network in Colorado).

Re:I do!

[aliquis]

I believe the Nexus One can be bought all over the world, just not in a store. You have to buy it from Google.

It can't, googled:
http://www.google.com/phone/?hl=en&s7e=
"Sorry, the Nexus One phone is not available in your country or region."

So I guess the HTC phones are as close as you get.

First moderation of my post was "overrated", I wonder why. So maybe it gets upgrades as it should, but Google still don't allow me to purchase it so ... Also is the touchscreen bug still there? Preferably I'd get the fastest version of any Android phone to. Though I don't use a phone much so paying a lot don't make much sense really =P

Re:I do!

[Irick]

.... more consumer friendly practices in the US cellphone market?

Re:I do!

[Miamicanes]

> AT&T doesn't cripple their phones

Yes they do. Did you miss last month's week of Android Outrage when AT&T released their new phones officially locked to prevent you from installing apps obtained from anywhere besides their app store, and the wails when HTC pulled the sync app that allowed users to get around that restriction?

"Written in JTAG"

[Andy Dodd]

"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.

Re:"Written in JTAG"

[Gravitron 5000]

If you wanted to be pedantic, it should be "written in BSDL" as that is the language in which you directly control JTAG. Many people that have used JTAG wouldn't care about the distinction. And yes you can write code in BSDL to control JTAG. It sucks (I know from experience), but it can be done.

Re:"Written in JTAG"

[kaiser423]

From what I can tell from other similar fuses (and the statement that motorola itself can reset the fuse) is that it's an area of memory that is only resettable to a 0 from the JTAG port, but can get flipped to a 1 from the software, so if they detect someone fooling around the software flips that bit. In some cases this is a bit that feeds into some logic that actually re-routes the signals, period to prevent booting. You're not going to change the ASIC/FPGA routing, so that bit literally controls the keys to the kingdom. But you can only really get at it with JTAG, which requires taking the phone apart, having the right JTAG hardware, hooking up to it, etc. Something that very few modders are going to have, and even fewer are going to try for risk of permanently bricking a $500+ piece of hardware.

This is really pretty serious if it's all true.

Re:"Written in JTAG"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing can be "written in pen" because it isn't a language.

Re:"Written in JTAG"

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they said that with the intention of implying "written via JTAG" or "written through JTAG", or otherwise using "in" as a shorthand form of "in to the device with" rather than "in the language of".

Re:"Written in JTAG"

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, the protocol you describe is IEEE 1149.1. JTAG stands for Joint Test Access Group, and is the organization which was formed to come up with such things. Sort of like MPEG.

Re:"Written in JTAG"

[MaxVT]

JTAG is not a language, and I believe blowing eFuses is not a reversible process. This technology is commonly used for chip binning and testing to permanently disable parts of the chip's logic (say, one of 4 cores that didn't pass testing) or features that the client didn't pay for (that one more Mb of L2 cache that costs $50 extra).

Following the description (if it is accurate), it is more likely that if the ROM fails the check a bit is set somewhere in flash or nvram that instructs the bootloader to stop. This memory area is not being written to by stock firmware upgrade sofware used by Motorola, but can be deleted at the service center who have the necessary hardware/software to issue the correct commands.

However it is equally likely that the TFA screwed around with incorrect files, overwrote some part of the Flash he was not supposed to, and simply confounded the bootloader into not working.

Its a feature

[solidrepellent]

Motorola spokesperson: It's not a bug, its a feature. It will be used to remotely wipe your data and render the phone useless when you loose your droid. [pun intended!]

Re:Its a feature

[Gravitron 5000]

I hate when I can't find the droids that I am looking for.

A nice class-action suit

[markus_baertschi]

I hope Motorola get's a nice class-action suit out of this.

Imagine a nice little virus, designed to trigger the 'self-destruct' and some innocent users getting infected.

Markus

Re:A nice class-action suit

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, I'll bite, how would you get said virus? Android is 'open' but it's still incredibly locked down to prevent anything arbitrary from running on it. You'd need physical access the the device to put anything malicious on it and trip the eFuse.

Which, honestly, is the point. This device is targeted towards mainstream users and businesses, it'll either run in a trusted state where no code can be malicious, or not run at all.

I'm sure this will upset the slashdot crowd, but its not like you don't have other choices if you're looking to do some hacking or android development.

Re:A nice class-action suit

[Stan Vassilev]

I hope Motorola get's a nice class-action suit out of this.

Imagine a nice little virus, designed to trigger the 'self-destruct' and some innocent users getting infected.

Markus

Ok, I'll use my vast imagination to imagine a bunch of geeks group together to sue Motorola because they can't root their phone. As if it was listed in the bullet list of features. But anyway.

Motorola allows rooting and now you imagine 4 months later a nice little virus, designed to root the phone and steal vasts amounts of private and business data off innocent users' phones.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But.. I forgot I'm imagining all this. People are just fine not being able to root their phone, so none of the above actually is about to happen.

Re:A nice class-action suit

[vlueboy]

Correct.

I'm feeling smug-er about having decided to hold off on smartphones and tablets for this whole year, if for nothing more than the forced data plan contracts and crazy unlocked prices.

I wonder what other bombs and yewels we (um, meaning the collective "imperial YOU" here ) public beta testers will find.

Re:A nice class-action suit

[Improv]

A nice little virus could effectively brick the phone on its own, at least as far as most consumers are considered.

I know which one I'd pick

[sootman]

> If the eFuse failes to verify this information then the eFuse
> receives a command to "blow the fuse" or "trip the fuse".

Well, which is it, tripping or blowing? Those are two totally different things. One is a lot more fun than the other.

Re:I know which one I'd pick

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're tripping, the phone appears to blow up.

Apparently...

[Crippere]

Apparently, this is not the Droid you're looking for.

Re:Apparently...

[Anonymous Coward]

When there's no limit to what Droid gets... wait...

Re:Apparently...

[black_lbi]

Epic WIN!
It really isn't.

Re:Apparently...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stormtrooper (eFuse): Let me see your ROM identification.
Obi-Wan: [with a small wave of his hand] You don't need to see his identification.
Stormtrooper: We don't need to see his identification.
Obi-Wan: These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Stormtrooper: These aren't the droids we're looking for.
Obi-Wan: He can go about his business.
Stormtrooper: You can go about your business.
Obi-Wan: Move along.
Stormtrooper: Move along... move along.

Malware

[KDN]

I wonder how long it will take before malware is written that will "trip the fuse" on purpose. Talk about a denial of service attack. If you want to make money off of it, short sell Motorola stock and then release the malware.

When will companies learn that treating their customers badly is bad for business?

It's a great time to dump Moto stock !

[Anonymous Coward]

Motorola ... how the once mighty have fallen.

Don't these idiots GET IT ?

99% of users will never try to hack their phones.

The 1% who do and end up with a brick will make this situation
world-famous, and Moto will end up looking like assholes.

I for one will never buy a Moto phone again, after the last one I owned
( RAZR, what a piece of crap that was ).

So...

[uncholowapo]

Motorola has jumped the bandwagon to make a clear flaw on a phone to garner attention. My hat is off to Apple for starting the trend.

Nice to know

[davidwr]

"Self destruct" is a red-flag "do not buy" for some hobbyists, but it is a "required item" in some environments.

This is not the droid you are looking for

[Anonymous Coward]

This Motorola unit has a bad motivator. Look.

Hey, what are you trying to pull?!

Obviously

[sootman]

You're modding it wrong!

A lot of discussion based on a single forum post

[jmichaelg]

So a guy [p3droid] few know posts a speculative comment

So this post is a mix of hard information and a bit of conjecture on my part (guesses).

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 probably bullshit

[0xdeadbeef]

His only source is a post on a message board, which is itself nothing but speculation.

Re:This is probably bullshit

[Geoffrey.landis]

His only source is a post on a message board, which is itself nothing but speculation.

Well, and this: http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-Blog/Custom-ROMs-and-Motorola-s-Android-Handsets/bc-p/4290#M432title=Custom
"Securing the software on our handsets, thereby preventing a non-Motorola ROM image from being loaded, has been our common practice for many years."

failes ?

[Yvan256]

Seriously, CmdrTaco, use an operating system and/or a browser with a spell-checker.

Droid X? Or Ex-Droid

[aapold]

You decide....

What a silly idea.

[minus9]

Goodbye Moto.

The shining irony of this event

[jra]

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.

Re:The shining irony of this event

[tomkost]

Having worked at a previously relevant handset manufacturer (Nokia). I can tell you that it will be quite easy for Verizon to claim that any handset they don't like doesn't meet their specs. They have numerous optoins for doing this. If you are not a handset partner to Verizon you either won't get the latest specs in time, or perhaps never at all. Does anyone know what financial penalties there are? I couldn't find any references. Suspect there are none.

Re:The shining irony of this event

[illumin8]

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.

That sounds really awesome, but what happens if there is no manufacturer out there that will sell devices directly to consumers? What if Motorola is so in bed with Verizon, seeing as how Verizon is their biggest customer, that they only sell LTE handsets to Verizon, which are horribly locked down?

The monopoly players will still price fix and play the same carrier/handset mfgr. monopoly games they've been playing for years. We will still not have any freedom to legally run as root on our endpoint devices. "The man" will still try to control us and keep us locked down in any way possible.

As do other products...

[PalmKiller]

eFuse is an IBM brain child, and they have it in several of their RISC products. The XBox 360 has one in its xenon (ibm power pc) processor. The Texas Instruments OMAP processors that motorola chose for their droid x are using the eFuse technology. The statement that it is not reversible via software is bull, once you figure it out, you can set up a JTag interface (as any serious modder will do anyway) and then you can reverse the eFuse bits and try your mod again.

Re:As do other products...

[Coopjust]

eFUSE can be used to change chip logic on the fly based on the operation,, or, as Motorola is using, can be used to modify the programming of the chip itself to render the device nonfunctional without a reflash.

If you could figure out the necessary code to flash to the chip - which wouldn't be easy - yeah, you could reflash the chip via the JTAG port.

Given that HTC and others aren't locking the phones down in a method where the phone deliberately tries to use a device to brick if the phone's firmware/kernel/bootloader is not official, crackers are more likely to ignore the phone. And given the publicity ("Motorola phones have chip that self destructs"), ordinary consumers could be scared off too.

Re:As do other products...

[illumin8]

If you could figure out the necessary code to flash to the chip - which wouldn't be easy - yeah, you could reflash the chip via the JTAG port.

This assumes that you could even access the JTAG port. In the "olden days", JTAG was a 300 baud serial port with a DB9 connector. It's still serial but chances are it's either a couple very small pins on the board, or the JTAG port may not even be physically accessible at all on the PCB except in engineering samples that are designed to be reflashed many times.

I wouldn't count on being able to "un-brick" your phone after the eFuse has been tripped, unless you have some highly specialized lab equipment.

Re:As do other products...

[Alioth]

Given it's a common ARM microcontroller part (I believe a TI OMAP), being able to reflash it won't be a particular challenge since this processor is very common, and there's software freely available that will flash new firmware onto a TI OMAP.

The challenge will be to actually connect to the JTAG pins if the chip is a BGA (ball grid array - all the "pins" (balls) are on the bottom of the chip and not accessible once the chip is soldered to the board) and the JTAG interface isn't connected to the PCB.

ta ta

[Stumbles]

Well that totally scraps any desire I had to buy that. You lose... losers.

so its a logic bomb

[Anonymous Coward]

People routinely go to jail for these, not to mention criminal damage, and probably a conspiracy charge just to round things up, which state shall i file the police report in ?

Assisted Ownership

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they sold you the phone, but at a drastically reduced price. Sure they'll make all of their money back off you, but keep in mind that you aren't paying full price for the hardware, you're paying a magical lower cost if you choose to commit to their network for 2 years...

Re:Assisted Ownership

[Svartalf]

And if you leave before then, they get that magical lower price back out of you in early termination fees.

They "sold" you that phone. Assisted ownership doesn't get them the rights you're ascribing to them. Would you consider it acceptable to do the same thing to a car, fridge, etc. without at least disclosing the fact that they're doing this, UP-FRONT, first? If your answer is "yes", I've got a bunch of things to sell you, I think you'll like and I know I will. If the answer is "no", you need to question why you think it's "okay" for the phone companies to do that and not so for other companies.

Don't let wookies shoot at your droid!

[Kodack]

If you find yourself facing down the droid, don't let your wookie use it for target practice and it will not self destruct!

After enduring all that vitrolic

[oblivionboy]

...ribbing from all the Android users (I have an iPhone), about how "open" and "superior" it is all I can say is:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ! ! !

(I know, I know -1 Troll for this - but damn its worth it!).

(ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha )

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[Coopjust]

The laughs will come if consumers decide that they don't care and buy the phone anyway despite headlines saying how Motorola has put a self destruct chip in the phone. The carriers will probably play hardball with every device manufacturer and get this technology in every Android phone so they can brag about an open platform but lock down the updates and stop providing Android updates a year after the phone is released.

If consumers ignore the Droid and other phones that implement such anti-consumer chips, then it'll be a victory for Android users, resiting attempts to take away from the openness of the platform.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[DaveV1.0]

Remember, a vast majority of the smart phone buying public just want the smart phone features and apps; they don't care if they can mod the phone or not.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah ha ha... no, wait, we're pissed at this, too. So now that two companies have been evil bastards, the people who bent over for the first one are laughing at the people who got screwed by the second one?

Serious sour grapes, man.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[Sockatume]

Android users can buy a different, more open Android device. You've not even got that option on iOS.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[MemoryDragon]

It really depends on the consumers, the funny thing is that parts of the success of the HTC hero last year for instance was caused by the fact that the phone was rooted rather easily.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[mlts]

My concern is that (again, if this is true), one company starts with this, everyone else will follow suit. Like how airlines are going gung-ho over fees. I'm sure that even if HTC doesn't want to lock down their devices, they will be forced to by carriers in order for them to sell more phones.

Right now, it is easy -- just avoid one or two companies when buying phones. However, it won't be good for the modding scene if HTC is forced to start doing dirty tricks as well.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[AvitarX]

Hopefully there will continue to be full price ADP phones, that I can continue to subsidize with a $20/month discount on T-Mobile.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[nilbog]

Even a locked down self destructing Android phone is 10x more open then an iPhone. You know you can still install your own applications, right? You know you can use your locked up tight Android phone for streaming podcasts (over 3G no less!), tethering, instant messaging, multi-tasking, wifi metering/sniffing, file management, accessing FTP servers, playing non hardware-supported media types, google latitude, free theft protection, customizable home screens, widgets, porn(!), universal file system, change the default launcher, use skype, flash, use non-webkit browsers, use a full bluetooth stack, VOIP, tight google voice integration, expandable memory, remote or local torrent control, reading around the world in 80 days by Jules Verne, offensive apps, installing apps outside the app store, listen to nine inch nails, use alternative music players/music stores, dope wars, watch south park, use alternative keyboards, voice texting/typing, plenty of navigation apps, replace the battery, alternative SMS/alerts/quick reply apps, search emails, apply custom themes, console emulation (nintendo, sega, super nintendo, ps, etc.), sample apps and return them if they suck. The iPhone does none of those things (or does them in some sort of crippled way) so who is laughing at who?

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[david_thornley]

Let's see, what can't I do on my iPhone without jailbreaking it? I can install my own applications for $99/year, and this gives me the opportunity to sell applications in addition. The iPhone 4 will tether, it's just that AT&T won't allow it. iOS 4 does multitasking adequate for any use case I've run into. It's got a Skype app, I can get alternative music players, I can get Verne on iBooks and other readers, I can ssh to my home box, I can surf pr0n sites....why don't you come back with a list of things the iPhone really doesn't do and we can discuss that?

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[nilbog]

I can't tell if you're trying to be sarcastic, but I'll bite. You really think that paying $99 a year is a good way to have a 3rd party application environment? How does that enable a community of any kind? Seems like you're probably only able to install apps that you write at that point and that is nothing compared to being able to access a development community. What if your business model doesn't match Apple's rigid App store?

What good is tethering if you're not allowed to do it? It's effectively the same problem. What good is multitasking if you STILL can't do instant messaging? What good is even having instant messaging if you still don't have anything even close to a reasonable notifications system?

You cherry picked a few things out of a long list and even those are pretty piss poor substitutes.

Look, I love the iPhone and I love iOS, but if you're trying to defend it as being open then you're delusional. I own an iPad. It's a toy. I would never accept an OS like that on my phone.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be laughing. Unless you have a SHSH copy saved somewhere on Cydia or somewhere else, the iPhone still is waiting on a jailbreak, and has been for half a year now. One guy (Geohot) even packed up his toys and left, so we have one less person working on the iPhone.

At least with Android, you can buy a N1, and go to town. iPhones are locked up tight, and any work on a jailbreak is back at square one due to iOS 4.1 coming out.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[MemoryDragon]

Forgot to mention that the Milestone over here was not really successful, because the early adopters wanted a semi open phone, I guess the hero and G1 sold more than the Milestone over here, also the Nexus 1 probably already has done. The Milestone users are pretty angry over the bootloader issue.

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/atts_first_android_phone_doesnt_allow_nonmarket_apps
http://www.intomobile.com/2010/06/05/sprint-htc-evo-4g-ota-update-here-to-save-your-sd-card-issues-and-kill-your-root-acces/

So.... uh... "black!"

Re:After enduring all that vitrolic

[nilbog]

1. AT&T is retarded
2. That update didn't kill root access.

im certain

[nimbius]

richard stallman wont stop laughing until lunch over this one. I for one really with GPL3 would become more prevalent to combat this type of activity but moreover i really hope to see a class-action lawsuit out of this malarkey. motorola has never been known as open source friendly, but the corporate culture must have played some role in designing IBM's efuse into a non-military product.

Re:im certain

[svirre]

If this is true and android had non-replacable parts with GPL3 licensing no device manufacturer would have touched it with a ten foot pole.

Being able to lock down devices is for better and for worse a requirement from the device vendors, if android through it's licensing prevented this no commercial android phones would exist and no software developer would bother developing for it (as there would be no customers)

This is why I bought a N900.

[JohnnyDoesLinux]

I can do stuff to it. And it actually works as a phone.

Who'd have thought it was possible?

Inaccurate Title

[timkar]

Summaries and titles such as this should always be appended with ... "until someone finds away around it." Droid X Self-Destructs If You Try To Mod - until someone finds away around it.

I'll mod it

[Divide By Zero]

-1, Flamebait.

Testing the waters

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to the dubious nature of the source of the information, perhaps it's Motorola themselves "testing the water" of using an eFuse to see what our reaction would be to using it.

Tivoization

[Errol backfiring]

It's like Tivoization: the software is open, but the hardware blocks any changes.

Re:Tivoization

[mdm-adph]

Not familiar with Tivos, but if I'm getting it, you can blame Tivo for that problem, as they make both the hardware _and_ the software.

Somehow blaming Google for this (or making a snark about an "open OS") isn't appropriate at all.

Re:Tivoization

[Dog-Cow]

Umm, the software in question is the Linux kernel. Tivo doesn't make that.

Re:Tivoization

[sleeping143]

Somehow blaming Google for this (or making a snark about an "open OS") isn't appropriate at all.

That's why we're blaming Motorola, the ones making the locked-down hardware. The OS is absolutely not the problem here.

Re:Tivoization

[mdm-adph]

Like I say, I'm not familiar with Tivos at all. :) I was assuming the poster was talking about some sort of proprietary layer that's checked for by hardware.

Re:Tivoization

[idontgno]

"Tivoization"

Tivo

GPL v3, which, if it had been the license of Android instead of the Apache License, might have prevented this travesty.

Re:Tivoization

[david_thornley]

The effect of GPLv3 depends on whether the vendor can make changes that you can't. It's legal to ship software the end user can't alter if this also applies to the vendor: sometimes you want to ship software that won't be changed for whatever reason, and the GPLv3 allows that.

Re:Tivoization

[Anonymous Coward]

if android had used GPL 3, it would certainly have avoided this travesty. it would have also likely prevented the adoption of android at all.

Re:Tivoization

[Anonymous Coward]

Mm, and making it GPLv3 would have made it radioactive to anyone building hardware.

Thus, useless.

Re:Tivoization

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Except inside android there is lots and lots of software under the GPL, for instance, the kernel.

We all know Linus doesn't want to move into GPL v3. He never liked the GPL, or free software at all for that matter. But it will happen eventually, he can't stay behind forever.

Also, while I'm not familiar with the internals of Android, I'm sure there are other GPLed components that will surely move into GPL3 soon.

This is a very stupid move on Motorola's part, and it'll bring them nothing but bad publicity. They know they are violating the spirit of the license, and defeating the purpose of Free Software completely. Whether legal or not, they are deceiving their users, and the developers behind the software they use, and that'll only piss people off. Some companies just don't get it. Those companies won't survive long in the 21th century.

Re:Tivoization

[bcmm]

We all know Linus doesn't want to move into GPL v3. He never liked the GPL, or free software at all for that matter.

There's more than one problem with this. Firstly, Linus doesn't hate the GPL:

Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did.

- Linus Torvalds, 1997

He just doesn't like version 3. Also, I see no reason to believe he hates free software either.

But it will happen eventually, he can't stay behind forever.

Secondly, he can indeed "stay behind forever": he owns the copyright to about 2% of the kernel source - the rest is owned by its many thousands of contributors, and there is no realistic way to contact them all about relicensing (though I should point out that not all of them have specified a GPL version).

Additionally, while Linus has been the most vocal about GPLv3, the majority of major kernel developers agree with him (not that the GPL and free software in general sucks, but that GPLv2 suits them better than GPLv3).

This means that even if Torvalds and the rest of the kernel team decide they like GPLv3, they still can't switch.

Mod?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple, don't mod it. What do you need to mod a phone for? You make calls, you have apps, what else do you need? Quit fucking with with stupid shit....

Re:Mod?

[Mister Whirly]

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...

Re:Mod?

[Baseclass]

If I paid for the hardware then it's mine, I own it, in spite of what big telcom wants you to think.
I was actually considering getting this phone, I guess they just lost a customer.

Re:Mod?

[gilesjuk]

If you buy the phone SIM free. If you buy it on a contract it is subsidised and it's not your phone until you complete the contract.

Re:Mod?

[Trahloc]

All my phones for the last 8 years have been purchased straight out. So bite me.

Re:Mod?

[Miamicanes]

Not true. When you buy the phone, liquidated damages (something called an "Early Termination Fee") gets tacked on if you don't complete the contract. It's your property the moment the credit card gets swiped through the reader or the cash goes in the register.

By law, if you request that your phone's SIM-lock (if GSM) be removed, or that you be given its MSL code (if it's CDMA), the phone company MUST give it to you as long as 30 days have elapsed since purchase. I'm not 100% sure, but I think even the 30-day waiting period can be eliminated if you waive your right to cancel the plan or return the phone.

American phone companies (at least Verizon and AT&T by virtue of being AT&T's offspring) aren't allowed to keep the phones as secured assets or lease them due to the consent decree that broke up AT&T's monopoly 25 years ago that prohibited them from forcing customers to lease phones instead of purchase them from independent sources on their own. I'm not sure, but I think the FCC incorporated its terms directly into its own regulations, so they probably apply to Sprint & T-Mobile as well. On the other hand, that might be the reason why Verizon was grudgingly forced to open its network to any phone you can physically figure out how to make work, while Sprint can get away with refusing to let anyone use any phone not purchased from Sprint.

I believe the first cell phone companies tried to lease phones to customers, but were prohibited from doing so by the FCC out of concern that if carriers were allowed to lease phones, the price of purchased phones would be wildly inflated and customers would be forced into leasing anyway. As a practical matter, subsidies turned out the same way (in the US, at least, though Google's fought the hard fight to at least try and change it a little).

Re:Mod?

[Iamthecheese]

And that's why a bank has the right to stop me from building on my land as long as it hold the mortgage.

Re:Mod?

[Miamicanes]

No, a mortgage is a loan secured by the property. When you buy a phone, even a subsidized phone, you legally own it outright the moment you sign the credit card slip or hand the cashier the money.

Re:Mod?

[Iamthecheese]

um. yeah. whoosh.

HCF

[thecross]

So, the Droid now comes with a Halt and Catch Fire instruction? What if it can be executed remotely as an attack? That's going to come back to haunt someone.

Off course not

[Errol backfiring]

He bought the machine because of this sticker: http://www.paulkidby.com/stickers/index.html

Could have been avoided...

[Aphoxema]

Looks like they beat Tivo on this one. Doesn't GPLv3 forbid this? Oh, right, Linus didn't want to bother with that...

GPL violation?

[Urkki]

Is all the GPL code in Android under such a version of GPL, that this is legal? I mean, it prevents the user from changing certain parts of the GPL software, something which at least some versions of GPL require, as far as I understand.

Re:GPL violation?

[ejasons]

Is all the GPL code in Android under such a version of GPL, that this is legal? I mean, it prevents the user from changing certain parts of the GPL software, something which at least some versions of GPL require, as far as I understand.

GPLv2 only requires that you give out source to the GPLed components that you use (as well as any modifications); it doesn't require that the source actually be usable.

This process has become known as TiVoization, after TiVo, who locks things down in a similar way.

This endaround the GPL is one of the main reasons that GPLv3 was created; what Motorola is doing here is not legal with GPLv3 code (note that the Linux kernel is, and probably always will be, GPLv2...).

Re:GPL violation?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't prevent you from changing the software, it just prevents you from running it on this phone.

Re:GPL violation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if the code is licensed under the GPL version 3. If it's licensed under version 2, then it is not a violation, because version 2 allows Tivoization of code.

Re:GPL violation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only the Andriod OS has to be licensed under the GPL, code running alongside it (the bootloader and firmware) is not required to be.

GPL v3

[Excelsior]

Isn't this exactly what the GPL v3 is designed to prevent (Tivo-ization)? Seems like FSF's concerns are once again coming true. Too bad Linux won't ever adopt v3, it seems.

Re:GPL v3

[AlgorithMan]

yeah, I also wanted to say that... but maybe there are some GPLv3 tools working in the background?

Stated up front

[BinaryX01]

If Motorola clearly states up front that you are not allowed to modify the phone and doing so may cause your phone to stop functioning properly then I don't really see what the issue is. If you want to mod your phone there are several models out there that allow it and to some degree even support it.

Re:Stated up front

[bbsux]

If Motorola clearly states up front that you are not allowed to modify the phone and doing so may cause your phone to stop functioning properly then I don't really see what the issue is. If you want to mod your phone there are several models out there that allow it and to some degree even support it.

The point is that they "can't" say that. Once you buy the hardware it is yours to do with as you please. They can't force you to only be able to use in a certain way. It'd be like saying they would only let you dial phone numbers in your own area code or only numbers with a "4" in them.

Psychlos!

[DarthVain]

Who the heck designed these phones? Psychlos?

people who want to mod their hardware

[zogger]

You keep getting handed options, then just purchase the stuff that is designed on purpose to frustrate you. Why not more love for projects like openmoko?

Re:people who want to mod their hardware

[Guignol]

openmoko ? yuk, booguers...

Re:people who want to mod their hardware

[Svartalf]

Options he says...

There's a reason AT&T lost their little lawsuit over the "There's a Map For That" ad campaign that Verizon ran.
There's a reason I don't use AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile- I use the "slower" 3G in more places than the others offer.

Since that's the case, I can't very well use an OpenMoko phone until someone makes a CDMA one and then Verizon decides to honor their publicly stated commitment for an "Open Network" that allows me to bring that phone over to their network. I can't as readily take the access hit for the things I do with the phone and go to another network that I could use an OpenMoko phone on.

Re:people who want to mod their hardware

[Miamicanes]

> Why not more love for projects like openmoko?

Because in America, an Openmoko is a nearly-useless GPRS paperweight. Ditto for Trolltech GreenPhone, and every other "open" phone. They couldn't do EDGE (in the US, lack of EDGE is a nearly automatic deal-breaker, because even today, few AT&T or T-Mobile customers can truly depend on UMTS working everywhere they go), let alone 1700/2100 or 850/1900 UMTS. IMHO, it's a major reason those phones have all largely failed.

Their argument that they were "development" phones not intended for real use was stupid. Very, very few businesses are going to buy a relatively expensive phone for pure abstract "development", and no slightly geeky elite user is going to spend that much money on a phone that's borderline useless as a phone ready to be tweaked, extended, and made MORE cool.

The US isn't the entire world market, but it's a big, important chunk of it, and any project that effectively writes it off completely is probably doomed from birth. The same is probably true of any American project that completely ignores Europe. Just look at Palm -- they released the Pre for Sprint while the rest of the world was literally begging for it. At the VERY least, they should have released a 1900/2100 UMTS Pre simultaneously with the CDMA Pre. Someday, companies in the US and Europe will realize that it's worth making at least a half-assed effort to ensure that anything that works in one place will at least have a chance of working in the other, because it's cheaper to spend a little more and end up with one device that works in both places than two devices that can independently flop and leave the vendor with useless, expensive inventory.

Google was smart -- they made sure the Nexus one would work fully in both Europe AND the US. Admittedly, T-Mobile wasn't the greatest choice of American networks, but their only real alternative would have been to have released it with 850MHz support from the start (frankly, I'm shocked they didn't), or go with a (still slightly experimental, apparently) tri-mode chipset capable of GSM800/900/1800/1900, UMTS850/1700/1900/2100, and CDMA2000@800/1800/1900 so it would work on Verizon & CDMA carriers in Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and China.

Re:people who want to mod their hardware

[man_of_mr_e]

cause openmoko sucks?

Seriously. Not a troll. It's not ready for primetime.

Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash. Cell networks are highly regulated and rooted phones can cause issues. This will not impact Droid sales at all except a tiny minority and Motorola knows this.

While I love a good ragefest

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

While I love a good ragefest, wouldn't it be prudent to check the facts?

Droid, DroidX, Droid2 and others -- they all have this efuse, it's nothing new. Perhaps rather than making assumptions based on the presence of a device, someone could do some actual research to find out if this is really a concern? Just because the chip is present does not mean it's configured to brick the phone - it certainly hasn't done so in other Android devices using it.

Wow, that's sure "open"

[KlomDark]

What'd the Droid guys do, have koolaid with the book of Jobs?

if it's part of TELCO's network, it's THEIRS, not

[Anonymous Coward]

yours, in the SERVICE dimension
( in the physical-object dimension it's yours,
but the two dimensions are orthogonal )

This is inevitable, part of TPM & DRM.

You won't be permitted ANY modding or customization, in a few years, because that would interfere with corporate "persons"'s property, ie The Market.

Enjoy.

It's all about Tethering

[SoulMaster]

I would guess that if Verizon is the one that is requiring this of Motorola, then they are doing it to restrict people's ability to tether 2.2 without having to pay Verizon.

The Android 2.2 platform has built-in wifi tethering that you have to pay your carrier for in order to use, an extra $20/month or some such. Rather than do that, a quick root and install of a free wifi tether app allows the owner to bypass the carrier Tether requirements and build their own little wifi network to access the 'net from any wifi capable device without paying... The data becomes just another set of packets.

If you're looking for a business reason, that's it.

-SM

Re:It's all about Tethering

[RoboRay]

You don't need to root the phone to enable free tethering on Android 2.1. Of course, that's just tethering via Bluetooth or USB and not WIFI, but I wouldn't be too surprised if 2.2 is at least as friendly.

Re:It's all about Tethering

[Anonymous Coward]

USB and even Bluetooth tethering are lame. For wifi tethering (outside of paying) you need root.

Oh no! What now for Droid users?!

[randomsearch]

...buy a different handset? Something about freedom.

RS.

The correct title should be I corrupted the bios.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is because the moron corrupted the boot loader. Its the exact same thing if you muck your Bios on a PC... Also he uses the term Bricked, its not bricked as a phone that is Bricked is locked, his phone is just experiancing an id-10-T user error, which unfortunately means this user needs to purchase a new phone..

That's Why!!!

[kalidasa]

Well, this makes it a lot easier for me to answer this question from OpenSource.com.

Moto isn't killing the phone, the phone is

[sirwired]

If Moto was reaching out and remotely killing your phone, that would be of questionable legality. But since the capability is built into the phone from the get-go, I would think that it could simply be considered a "feature" of the phone. As long as the phones documentation mentions that mods can cause problems, Moto is home free since you were warned this could be an issue from the beginning.

Personally, I don't think Moto gives a crap if you mod your phone, but the providers they get to sell the phones most certainly do.

SirWired

some cars do this to lock in there carp radio / cd

[Joe The Dragon]

some cars do this to lock in there carp radio / cd player.

The FCC / DMCA lets you unlock phone is this brak

[Joe The Dragon]

The FCC / DMCA lets you unlock phone is this braking the law?

any way THERE IS WAY TO MUCH LOCK IN THE CELL PHONE MARKET!

Why Moto did this

[sirwired]

Moto almost certainly does not care what you do with your phone. Once they've sold it to the provider, they aren't getting another dime out of the thing, no matter what you do to it. Providers, on the other hand, care very much what you do with your phone, since they want to sell you things to run on it, and have a great interest in restricting your activity.

Remember that Moto has two customers for every phone: You, and the provider that's selling the phone to you. If the eFuse makes it more likely for a provider to decide sell a phone, and the number of end consumers that care is low, then it makes sense to implement the eFuse.

SirWired

Sheesh

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad this story broke, I was planning on buying one of these. Droid Incredible it is, then.

Process

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Buy Droid X
2) intentionally find website that installs rootkit/bootloader
3) Sue Motorolla for breaking my phone
4) Profit

(Might be able to get 3 as criminal destruction of property charges as well.)

Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting how the other carriers/phone vendors are seeing why Apple did what they did with the iPhone and are now following suit with Android-based phones. I'm sure I'll be modded into oblivion for this (why I posted Anonymously), but the whole point of a device like a smartphone is that it *works*, anytime, all the time (errr, unless it's AT&T >-p), without the worry of malicious code, viruses, etc. I can understand the desire to customize and modify things, but when the service provider's reputation is on the line they tend to err on the side of caution (as Apple did from the get-go) and lock out mods/hacks of their devices.

I know, I know, you/I/we bought these devices, as opposed to renting them, and we should have the ability to do what we want with them, but I can also understand the other side of the coin and how it could cause problems for providers, too. You have to remember that in order to use the device you still need to interface with a provider's network and they aren't going to be happy if whatever hack/mod wreaks havoc on their network or affects other customers.

I guess this means...

[heckler95]

Goodbye, Moto!

More Motorola BS

[Tisha_AH]

This is typical of Motorola the company. They pull the same shit with their radio products. If you buy a commercial radio it can only be programmed with their RSS software suite that is intended for dealers only. If you wanted to buy RSS it is very expensive and comes with all sorts of covenants and restrictions on it's use.

For them to plant a modification time-bomb in the Droid X is not surprising in the least. For those of us in the radio business we typically refer to Motorola as the radio-mafia.

The hell with Motorola, buy the Android OS on a different hardware platform. Do not paint that "Android" is bad because of one bunch of dumb asses.

Google phones

[naasking]

This makes me sad that Google probably will not make another phone like the Nexus One. This proprietary, protectionist crap is getting really old. I was totally going to buy the next gen Nexus One. Oh well. I hope someone else steps up to the plate.

Droid X Class Action Lawsuit!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Droid-X-Class-Action-Lawsuit/140421085984192

Re:A lot of discussion based on a single forum pos

[Anonymous Coward]

1. He is a reputable, well-known hacker

2. Moto acknowledged all this shit, in less detail, months ago: http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-Blog/Custom-ROMs-and-Motorola-s-Android-Handsets/bc-p/4290#M432title=Custom

Re:some cars do this to lock in there carp radio /

[baegucb]

Sounds fishy to me.

Sad

[MrTripps]

I'm really disappointed by this. I love my work Droid and have been considering the Droid 2 for my personal set when it came out. With this kind of restriction (if it is true) I guess I'm back to looking at HTC sets.

Phone bricking malware

[DaveSlash]

Can't wait for it.

Re:A lot of discussion based on a single forum pos

[assantisz]

Reading comprehension is not your strength is it? 1) p3droid admitted right from the start that it was all guess work but somehow everybody ran with it and concluded that there should be "shame on Motorola" etc, 2) Motorola admitted to locking down the bootloader but not to bricking the phone in case an attempt to replace the bootloader was made. Btw, reports came in that the Droid X does not get bricked when trying to fiddle with the bootloader.

Thank God Droid is Open Source

[Crowspiracy Theorist]

Where are all the "I'm glad I didn't buy an iPhone because it's locked down" people at right now? The "it's my device, I do what I want" crowd? Granted, the story is completely unverified, but I hope it's true. Then people can shut the hell up about the walled garden I live in, because at least I don't have to worry about land mines there.

I cannot believe this!

[medcalf]

All this bad publicity they're already getting, and once again, Apple decides to fuck over their users who just want to mod their devices. Oh, wait. Never mind.

Guess I won't buy it, then.

[karlandtanya]

The mobile connectivity seller (VZ, ATT, etc.) is the phone mfr's customer. You are not.
The last thing the VZ et. al. wants is an open phone.
How can they charge you for a 20s ringtone or a silly little "app" plays a particular sound file on command?

So, we start with Android, billed as "this great mobile OS from Google that lets you play with your toys"
And now, we have "droid"--"fsck you, it's our phone just give us the money".
This is only because the service providers want it that way.

Buy a cheap taiwanese knockoff and get a SIM card from TMobile.
Mod it; if it breaks, chuck it and try again.
Now, if only there were a place to buy such a device...

In past days...

[pclminion]

In past days this would be properly seen as a hardware quirk to be worked around. Like a buggy SCSI controller which trashes your disks when you hit it with an obscure command sequence. You don't throw up your hands, foam at the mouth, and threaten the manufacturer! You figure out what you need to do to avoid the undesirable behavior.

My God, you modder people are turning into a bunch of pussies and whiners. THE WHOLE POINT OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING is to have fun and push the hardware into areas it was not meant to go. In this case, the manufacturers have laid a few things in your path to make life interesting. Take it as a challenge, as we've always done in the past, rather than acting like a whiny bitch. My God, the hacker spirit is well and truly dead.

Re:In past days...

[Microlith]

In past days this would be properly seen as a hardware quirk to be worked around.

A quirk is one thing, a landmine where one misstep craters the thing intentionally is something else entirely.

Like a buggy SCSI controller which trashes your disks when you hit it with an obscure command sequence.

Such an error could be recovered, since presumably it doesn't render the disks inoperable.

You figure out what you need to do to avoid the undesirable behavior.

There's no way of knowing if avoiding this is possible. Certainly, it is designed not to be.

THE WHOLE POINT OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING is to have fun and push the hardware into areas it was not meant to go.

Which -is- fun, when the device isn't designed to self destruct when you try and do so. Fighting against what are essentially self destruct mechanisms that have no good reason for being there is simply pushing to get back where you used to be, not forging new territory.

My God, the hacker spirit is well and truly dead.

Which is exactly what misfeatures like eFuse are designed to accomplish.

Re:In past days...

[pclminion]

Such an error could be recovered, since presumably it doesn't render the disks inoperable.

How does eFuse render the device inoperable? It can be reset with a JTAG programmer. It's not like the device catches on fire.

Even if the device did catch fire, the next step is to get another one and ask yourself "Now, how can I prevent that from happening this time?"

How can you ever accomplish something if you go into it with the assumption that it's impossible?

Re:In past days...

[Anonymous Coward]

1: I don't see any Motorola JTAG programmers for sale on their website and even if I had the equipment, I doubt Motorola gives the JTAG port schematics out for the asking. Hell, dumps of a device are a prized possession in the Moto arena, much less source code or drivers.

2: If you are willing to blow $500-$600 per device, sure. It might be someone has $100,000 to spend and doesn't mind blowing a device, going "oops", chucking it in the garbage, unwrapping another, trying plan "B", repeating.

3: There is impossible, then there is "why bother?" Why waste time on a modder hostile device when you can buy a N1 or other HTC phone and do what you want?

Re:In past days...

[Anonymous Coward]

as you rant about the good old days presumably you are a grey bearded hacker, so maybe your cognitive processes have given way to negativity and whining about how things used to be so much better, back in the good old days.

For someone whose brain hasn't calcified, the point was that "in the good old days" you didn't have to hack around a self-destructing device just to be able to do other fun hacking activities. You know, like your example of the quirky scsi card -- you didn't have to "unfix" what someone did to deliberately make corrupt data, why would a scsi card manufacturer design it to deliberately corrupt data. Not all hackers "in the good old days" would have enjoyed, or been able to afford, repeated hack attempts on newly purchased hardware as each new purchase burned itself up. Sure, some hackers with less stable personality would have been drawn like moths to the flame, but that would have only been a minority.

Maybe the distinction is just too fine for an old, addled, foggy brain to pick up on. But if you read more carefully and project less negativity you might be able to overcome these limitations.

Re:In past days...

[TellarHK]

In past days, companies weren't turning your $200+contract phone into an intentionally sabotaged brick if you looked at it funny. Screw up once, and the phone needs to be serviced by Motorola and only Motorola to fix it.

Sure makes trial and error testing a little more difficult. And a hell of a lot more expensive.

Re:In past days...

[Anonymous Coward]

My God, the hacker spirit is well and truly dead.

You came to this conclusion based on... a small sampling of /.?

WTF is an eFUSE, anyway?

[MoxFulder]

According to the wikipedia article, it can be tripped in a non-volatile fashion, meaning that power-cycling won't fix it. But it can also be reset electronically if an appropriate electronic interface is provided.

Does that remind you of anything? As far as I can tell, it's just marketing-speak for one bit (literally) of embedded flash memory.

While I can imagine some interesting and useful applications for flash embedded in CMOS logic, this seems like a technology that's ripe for abuse by lockdown-happy vendors. It's annoying enough to brick a computer by flashing the wrong BIOS, or to brick a router by flashing the wrong firmware, but at least in those cases the flash memory is on a separate chip. Either the chip is socketed (removable), or there are usually test points or a JTAG interface, allowing the flash to be rewritten to a correct state.

But with tiny amounts of flash deeply embedded into CMOS logic, there's no way to alter or even to find the non-volatile memory. Yech...

Re:WTF is an eFUSE, anyway?

[omglolbah]

The xbox360 has eFuses that are used to verify a correct version of the bootloader.
If you look at the various modding forums regarding it you will see that on certain dashboard patches it is stated that an eFuse is blown to prevent downgrading to a vulnerable version.
This eFuse implementation has -no- reset functionality. I wouldnt feel bad about guessing that they have not provided a reset functionality in this case either as the point of the eFuse is gone if such a thing exists and is accessable from software.

Re:WTF is an eFUSE, anyway?

[svirre]

The wikipedia article is wrong. Most efuses are actually metal/Si antifuses or plain metal fuses These are not reversible. Flash MCUs may use flash bits as efuse bits, and occationally you se other floating gate designs used as efuses.

You will never see 'tiny amounts of flash' embedded in CMOS logic as embedded flash requires a very significant one-off expense in Si area to enable.

Furthermore floating gate designs have an unknown state after manufacture so the device must have a method to clear the fuse in test, which implies it may be cleared later (It might not be easy though)

Re:WTF is an eFUSE, anyway?

[MoxFulder]

The wikipedia article is wrong. Most efuses are actually metal/Si antifuses or plain metal fuses These are not reversible. Flash MCUs may use flash bits as efuse bits, and occationally you se other floating gate designs used as efuses.

Strange... this IEEE paper describes eFuses as synonymous with laser-cut fuses, which are also used for processor binning, disabling cores, serial numbers, etc.

In any case, that also means they're one-time-programmable... which is the most significant difference from how they're described in the Wikipedia article. But it means that they're "programmable" via laser, not electrically.

Clearly there's no agreement on the terminology for these things.

You will never see 'tiny amounts of flash' embedded in CMOS logic as embedded flash requires a very significant one-off expense in Si area to enable.

You sure about that? The 2005 article that I linked, while short on details and clearly pushing a product, describes a process that's apparently economical for embedding 32-4096 bits of flash into a CMOS process.

Furthermore floating gate designs have an unknown state after manufacture so the device must have a method to clear the fuse in test, which implies it may be cleared later (It might not be easy though)

Sure, there's got to be a way to do it. I know from playing with PIC microcontrollers that most of these have a way to "permanently" disable read/write access to the onboard flash program memory. There are ways to unlock some of them, but they ain't pretty. Presumably the manufacturer has an undocumented way to do it electrically.

This has to be the stupidest design decision ever!

[brain1]

As an engineer I work to make hardware robust and failure resistant. But to make hardware that actually will destroy itself is insane.

We all know software is never absolutely perfect. There are always bugs no matter how comprehensive the testing. Somewhere, sometime there's an application that does something to throw an exception. We've all seen kernels crash. It happens.

So Motorola has put into their device a mechanism that can at any time there is a crash kill the hardware permanently??? That can only lead to one result. A massive recall and/or class action suit to replace thousands of bricked phones.

I'll go one step further - they have planted the most perfect exploit ever. Just write an app that causes the fuse to trip. You cant, you say? It's too protected? Bull! Go ahead and live in la-la land where everything is perfect, software never fails, and no one writes malicious software.

Ok, how about the fact that Android is open source. As always, the open source community is willing and able to help with bugfixes, features, and patches to make what is a great mobile operating system even better. That is the point, Motorola! Get it through your tiny, pointy head! It's not *YOUR* O.S. And it's *MY* hardware. After I buy it, I can use it, smash it, drown it in water, and run over it with a truck. I paid for it, I didn't "rent" it, and I don't need your blessings to upgrade it.

I'll stick with my HTC. At least until they decide to follow suit...

Designed to fail

[fox171171]

If engineers/designers/etc spent as much time figuring out how to make things work, instead of figuring out how to make things *not* work, we'd be a lot better off!

Apple

[ScottyMcScott]

iPhonians are busy scratching their heads as to why this is news worthy.

I'd take that risk

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

My wife had all 4 wheels removed from her car while we were sleeping. The car was parked 3 ft from our front door, and we never heard a thing.

Smart phone

[Anonymous Coward]

See also, "How to make a dumb smart phone."

Amazing. And stupid.

[rickb928]

Seriously, Motorola fuses the Droid X to prevent tampering with the bootloader, etc, etc. So if you attempt a mod, it bricks the phone?

Ok. Let's roll with this for a moment.

So I buy a Droid X, fulfill my 2-year contract, and I've fulfilled my obligations, paid my bills, and I'm off contract.

Does Motorola or VZW disclose that even after this, the phone is limited to official software rleases, and despite being both out of warranty and fully paid for, it's still 'locked' to official software?

Bogus. If I have paid for it and Moto and VZW have no further obligtation to support it or even repair it at any expense, why would they care? what does it matter to them if I mess with the software?

Well, it's not at all about what happenbs to the phone after contract. It's about the 2-year contract, and that's all.

Since most users ditch their phones after the contract and upgrade at the first opportunity, Moto/VZW have little incentive to accomodate users that keep the phone past the contract. The most obvious reason is to sell a new phone, AND and a new contract. Alternatively, though, why expend any effort to support a phone that is, by marketing, considered obsolete? Let it die, and the users will re-up with a new phone and all. Moto/VZW win, you just keep on paying for a phone no matter what.

And during the contract, Moto/VZW have learned from the Android community that those hacking root and installing custom ROMs is a non-trivial portion of their users. It brings with it support problems (l0sers bricking their fonz), possible network impacts (users bringing up WiFi hotspots and cranking data), and discontent from other users (asking "why don't you give me Android 3.0, the modders have it, I hate you", causing angst and loathing amongs the user community and possibly impacting future sales). Samsung is getting a dose of this for a couple of phones that aren't going to get Android 2.x OTA updates, and T-Mobile risked it with the G1 (my phone) not getting Android 2.x at all. So a big impact here is the fragementation of the user experience, all the reputaitonal damage, and just the complications.

But there is something EVEN MORE SINISTER at play here, and both Motorols and VZW are players well-experienced at this. It's ALL about revenue. That's right, this is about profits. Directly impacting the bottom line.

This is not the first time Moto/VZW have 'conspired' to lock users into their desired experience. Remember the RAZR? Many users could download ringtones and have some fun. But not VZW users. Not only were ringone downloads via USB blocked, but also on Bluetooth. Intentionally. Of course, you could BUY ringtones from VZW. Nice chunk of change, too. This happened with GPS services also, and wasn't limited to VZW.

I do not doubt that 'fusing' the Droid X is in part intended to keep the users on the VZW farm, and prevent them from installing non-Market apps, ROMs, and probably even getting services that VZW would rather you pay for. We'll find out about that very soon.

One more reason for me to avoid Verizon. As if I needed another. And Moto also. Just an in-your-face slapdown, reminding you they have an ownership stake in YOUR phone.

If you can't root it, it's not yours.

Figures

[psm321]

I knew Verizon couldn't keep this whole open phones thing up. It goes against their very core culture of lockdowns built up over many years.

How about this ...

[Keyslapper]

Before everyone gets their panties in a twist, wait for Motorola to comment. This is just rumor, after all.

Motorola has admitted that they are locking down the firmware, and gone so far as to say that if you want to mod your Android phone, buy a Nexus One. They have not acknowledged any kind of bricking booby-trap so far as I can find.

That said, I'm most definitely not a Motorola user anyway. I despised their stupid bloody Krazr phone the instant I pulled it out of the box, and when it completely shattered, 2 months later after a 20 inch drop to a wood floor, I didn't improve my opinion of their phones. I don't think this is going to help them much, but I also don't think it's going to hurt them much. As another poster mentioned, it's just not on that many users' radar. Nobody cares except the modding community.

Now, in the interest of Full Disclosure, I expect my shiny new HTC Incredible to be shipped today. This will be my first smartphone (I know, I'm a Luddite), and I don't know what to expect. I don't expect to muck with the boot loader, though I may opt to gain root access after I've studied the pros and cons better.

Motorola has been doing this for years.

[acadiel]

Motorola has been doing this with devices, even pre-cell phone revolution. Look at their old pager lines - i.e. the Pronto, Bravo, etc. They used to let providers "lock down" the pager with a programming PIN. Want to change the capcode? You need the PIN. Put the PIN in too many times, and you have to replace the code plug, which meant factory service. (Essentially, you had a dead pager.) See here: http://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/pager/pagerpw.txt

BDS/L

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wanted to be pedantic, it should be "written in BSDL" as that is the language in which you directly control JTAG. Many people that have used JTAG wouldn't care about the distinction. And yes you can write code in BSDL to control JTAG.

I get confused by the acronyms. I know "BDS" is Bondage, Domination, Sadism, (or "slavery"-- take your pick), but what's the "L" stand for in "BSDL"? Licorice?

"Bondage, Sadism, Domination, and Licorice"-- yeah, sounds like a typical programming language specification. Except for the licorice.

Re:BDS/L

[Gravitron 5000]

BSDL = Boundary Scan Description Language

Although in your acronym leather would likely work better than licorice.

"ECU unit"

[Joce640k]

Brought to you by the department of redundancy redundancy.

Re:if it's part of TELCO's network, it's THEIRS, n

[Svartalf]

Heh... Won't wash. You can have the service without the device. You're on the hook for getting another unit to use the service if you lose or destroy it. If it were directly coupled like you implied there, they'd have to SUPPLY you a new unit outright under all cases.

It's not coupled, even though they'll try to run that one up the flagpole all the same.

accent

[zogger]

I guess that is the euro-peon way to spell boogers..how quaint and continental and all...

anyway, I said "like" Openmoko. And here's the deal. No huge corporation is going to sell you an open anything any more, it conflicts with their skewed notion of "shareholder value" and "leveraging their intellectual properties" and other buzz speak. So..ya'all phone modders can either start supporting projects like openmoko, so it can be developed beyond the "boogers" stage, or just keep whining that your new iGS turboprofitphone is "locked down" and you can't do what you want to do with it.

Also on telco "plans".. I see kvetching galore about stupid two year "plans".. geez loweez this *ain't* rocket surgery, stop using plans, stop rewarding those lame ass "plans", go prepaid. Vote with your wallet, or don't be surprised when eventually your options for cellphones plus connectivity have been narrowed down to very sucky versus extremely sucky. You get what you pay for, keep paying for closed off/locked down two year suck plans on closed off/locked down suck phones, they'll keep selling that to you.

Re:accent

[Guignol]

Oh, no.. there's nothing euro-peon (:)) about it, I was just playing with the fact that moko is pronounced just like moco (which means booger in spanish, or at least in mexican spanish) I totally hate the name of the project because of it (but I have nothing against the project itself, on the contrary)

Re:Amazing. And stupid.

[JustNiz]

>> Not only were ringone downloads via USB blocked, but also on Bluetooth.
>> One more reason for me to avoid Verizon.

Dude its not only Verizon. my Cingular (now AT&T) Sony-Ericsson W810i did exactly that too. Even though a stock W810i supports the user putting their own tones on, with the Cingular-supplied one, if you wanted to use anything other than a small selection of (probably purposely) very crappy built-in ringtones, you had to buy/download them via the phone. Furthermore once bought, they only lasted about a month!! the intent was to force you to re-buy eve the same ringtone at least once a month.

I refuse to buy phones from a network providers since that experience. I prefer to pay the overhead and get a fully functional phone by going directly to the manufacturers or unaffiliated dealers. Besides, all the phones that network providers carry (AT&T at least) are a very limited choice entirely comprising of outdated or undesireable models.

Hackers gonna hack, haters gonna hate.

[Lawen]

http://stevenbird.info/2010/07/15/droidx-today-is-the-day-more-security-info/

"But wait![...] what about the efuse?! Guess what? google "omap3 efuse"

Droid, Milestone, DroidX, Droid2...all these phones have efuse...they just really haven't been put into use...

Will your DroidX explode from unauthorized tinkering? probably not. (but wait for someone else to try it first if your scared of the big bad efuse :p)"

Doesn't sound like the modding community is too worried.

Termites?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are a bigger problem for a wood phone, I think.

eFuse

[curado]

eFuse - sounds innovative. Where's a patent troll when you need one?

Plans

[Anonymous Coward]

Additionally, by bringing my unlocked Nexus one to T-mobile I have stayed on a grandfathered (cheap) voice+data plan that I have no reason to move from (a new plan would cost far more) - so in inflation adjusted terms I am saving money the more years I stay on it. No exactly the unsubsidized discount I wish I had - but close - a cheap lock-in. If data and voice prices decreased then I would look at switching plans as I am now outside my initial 2-year agreement.

Meanwhile...

[SCHecklerX]

HP/Palm continue to support their homebrew community, and provide a virtually un-brickable device that you can modify without even compiling any code.

WebOS FTW!

I've worked with Motorola

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked with licensing Motorola IPR (though not their cellular division), and have some experience with the Motorola attitude toward protecting their intellectual property rights.

Let me see if I can give you an idea of how Motorola is:

Find some African honeybees - not these pansy little "Aficanized" European bees we have in the US, but honest-to-God chase-you-for-5-miles-cause-you-dared-breath-near-our-nest African bees.

Via the Dark Arts, cross-breed these bees with Yellowjacket Wasps ("the skinheads of the insect kingdom").

Take some wolverines, infect them with rabies, and let them rape the bee/wasp crossbreeds. Again, via the Dark Arts insure offspring result.

Feed those offspring on a steady diet of crack, PCP, meth, and Talk Radio.

Grow them to about the size of a Dire Wolf.

These crossbreeds will shriek and run like scared little girls upon encountering ONE of Motorola's IPR folks.

Re:Amazing. And stupid.

[rickb928]

Hmm... My Cingular/AT&T Sony T637 took ringtones just fine. I could even use MP3s.

But I used floAt's Mobile Agent back then, and it kicks ass. I still have that T637, and after 5 years in a drawer, I take it out once a year, charge it, and it stays in standby for a week. I've dropped my SIM in and made a call. I may never give that phone up, it's my disaster go-to phone in case I brick my G1 or my wife's Curve stb again.

You should have gotten floAt running. Wiked cool. Sort of like BitPim. Do you suppose the Droid X will let ya drop ringtones on it? I can't wait.

Motorola Sucks?

[tycoex]

Just another reason to ignore Motorola and get an HTC. Motorola phones are always crappy quality anyways.

Lemon Law

[Anonymous Coward]

too bad you can't apply the Lemon Law to a whole company. I sure deserves it..
Droid X is a lemon - let your attorney general sink their teeth into the Motarolacrap.

One customer only:

[krischik]

The provider. And least from what I read you can't buy just a phone in the USA.

bricks

[Anonymous Coward]

just a matter of time until there is a worm bricking peoples' phones
how will V deal with that?

Anyone know what algorithm?

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, so we just a system image that passes the checksum, anyone know which algorithm they use??

If it's md5 or anything stronger we are screwed.

A simple CRC check tho.... could be kludged with some random data appended i think...

BWAHAHAHA!

[zogger]

That's funny as shit man! I love learning new goofy stuff like that. the open booger phone! Yes, I can see why this might not catch on too well in some areas! BWAHAHAHAHA!

Glad you liked "euro-peon". I see a lot of murican bashing all the time, thought I would contribute a little good natured back whenever the opportunity presented itself. Good natured razzing and all. Heck, I am a US southerner, a RURAL southerner, we get bashed here all the doo dad day long....fun is fun, we can take it...

Here, have some yuks at our expense ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBocef6iQps&feature=related

Hogwash

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous? Really, Anonymous. Don't be so silly as to give the author any cred on this story at all. If this were actually the case the support side of the house for Motorola would be too high. Until they can get a verifiable source, this story goes where it belongs; in the trash.

What is likely, and the challenge, is that Motorola, with the urging of Verizon, locked the phone down so it will be very difficult to unlock the bootloader. But, to brick the phone just doesn't make any business sense and you can bet both Motorola and Verizon both know that.

I'd put my money on the original article being written by an Apple fanboy wanting his/her 30 seconds in the spot light for spreading....er....FUD.

Sean

An inside source at "a very large wireless provide

[Anonymous Coward]

An inside source at "a very large wireless provide" says that android-based phones are going to be locked down soon to a closed "app-store." There are other hacker unfriendly things coming too according to my source. It is unclear whether google or the cell phone companies are requiring the changes.

Now don't you wish you got a Nokia/N900 instead?

Re:A lot of discussion based on a single forum pos

[Anonymous Coward]

So this post is a mix of hard information and a bit of conjecture on my part (guesses).

and /. takes it as fact?

You must be new here.

Biz opportunity?

[zogger]

So, there's a wide open market for a completely wide open hacker friendly phone geared towards the US market right now? Maybe someone here who knows what they are doing might jump on that...

I'm on an odder network, iden (sprint/nextel) with boost prepaid. It may not be the fastest network, well, it's the slowest, but it is very reliable where I am, the data plan is only 35 cents a day unlimited, calls are ten cents a minute or you get all of the above unlimited, along with push to talk walkie talkie and texting, etc for a flat rate of $50 a month, yada yada. I went that way from another prepaid and a verizon account before then. Also, where I am in the southeast, they have the *best* emergency backup gear for dealing with outtages and so on, the power line guys use it, etc. Complete mobile towers ready to roll to any hill top and turn on with their own gennys and stuff. Backups for backups.

Someone

[zogger]

A place as large as slashdot, one might think there was already a someone out there who could see the potential market you describe. I just slap wasn't aware that open moko wasn't a good radio choice for the US. Seems a rather decent little niche for a startup to fill, especially in this hard to find a job economy. Creating your own job for a product that could have a decent demand seems somewhat doable. As in not trying to get uber rich, but make a fair living at it maybe.

I have zero idea how to do it, not an EE or radio engineer though, so I can't help ya there.

Worse: non-removable crapware

[symbolset]

'Junkware' comes standard on Verizon, T-Mobile smart phones

So yeah, I was looking forward to owning this phone and now I'm not. How can Motorola go so far astray with an Android phone?

When they find out the crapware can't be removed

[symbolset]

... They will be wanting their geeky friends to put non-compromised software on it. Seriously: 'Junkware' comes standard on Verizon, T-Mobile smart phones - and cannot be removed. What - the - heck - are - they - thinking? Shovelware ... on a phone. That can't be removed. Son, I am disappoint.

We finally get a cutting edge, utterly awesome Android phone platform and it comes with the modern equivalent of AOL that can't be removed - and not just one, but a whole suite of demo-ware, trial-ware, nagware, a freaking MOVIE - none of which can be deleted. Fabulous.

Does anybody at Motorola even understand what this Android thing is about?

Collateral Damage ....

[Anonymous Coward]

... are we talking about an M88 (Firecracker) that blow off the hand of the happless user or ... the M86 (thermonuclear warhead) that renders an area the size of New York, New York to zero elevation?

Such details need to be known.

Is Android GPL V2 or V3?

[IBitOBear]

This self-destruct lock is basically the same thing as TiVO, and the GPL v3 contains anti-TiVO provisions.

No we see why GPL v3 was necessary and v2 should be retired.

You are not paying for the hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

I would agree with you 100% if you were buying a $900 Droid X. But you are not. You are buying a $200 Droid X. The Droid X is not a $200 phone. It's much more than that, and the phone companies are subsidizing your purchase to get you to sign a two year contract. If you want to take advantage of their loss leader, and then break the contract, that's something they'd like to prevent.

I'm not saying I agree with this business model, but the stance of "I bought it, it's mine" is misinformed at best and juvenile at worst.

T-Mobile bring-your-own plan

[Hobart]

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.

Can you provide more details on this / links to pricing?

Re:T-Mobile bring-your-own plan

[bberens]

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/Cell-Phone-Plans.aspx?catgroup=Individual&WT.z_shop_plansLP=individual The Even More Plus plans have no phones and are $10/mo cheaper. There's corresponding family plans. Best of luck.

The real damage is an anonymous attack

[niftymitch]

As more and more bad-guy software begins to attack phones I can see ALL these phones getting bricked by some evil bad guy. Should this happen the vendor would have an obligation to restore them to functionality and quickly at that. And while I am at it no IT department should permit a single vendor to dominate the cell phone population in the department. We might all love to have the latest iXYZ phone but any business critical environment needs to be aware of another risk... If you cannot call your 7x24 service guy/ gal or they cannot answer you are out of business for way too long.

Fox news-ing android platforms? say it ain't so!!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Sounds like an astro-tufing campaign using fox news or coulter style circular references (stewart loves dismantling these on the daily show).

I'm a fan of the mac platform, but this looks like a clever ploy by *cough* certain competitors *cough* to tarnish the platform in general. It's the pavlovian training with inconsistent stimuli.. "one android phone has this horrible bomb in it, I wonder how many others have undiscovered 'features' ".

Chicken or the egg

[zogger]

Nothing open source gets any better if no one wants to work on it. And usually any open source project starts out at the "this kinda sorta works, but still sucks..needs more love" stage.

Like I mentioned in another post, I am neither a programmer nor an EE, so I can't help on making a truly open phone a reality. There is definitely a niche market there though for a good open phone that could be used across the US networks. Heck, I don't even have technically a smartphone yet, just a good enough feature phone with a full keyboard, but if an open phone existed that worked for me I would consider that for my next phone. That's the best I could do to help.

Rogue cosmic-rays in ROM/RAM

[dimethylxanthine]

I wonder how Motorola is prepared to handle potential issues with opportunistic radiation and kernel storage bit-flipping. Just saying...

stupid rumor based on a true TI OMAP3630 feature

[davFr]

This article is a handful of sh*t. The author has no clue of what the eFuses (or Android) really are, and it seems he simply does not understand the security features of the Texas Instruments' OMAP 3630. Maybe an iPhone fanbuy?

The OMAP 3630 is the full-featured CPU (ARM Cortex A8 + video/audio/2D/3D accelerators) which is integrated in Motorola's phone, but IMHO it will be integrated in many successful phones because it kicks the other mobile CPUs' asses (think Qualcomm, Samsung, and the rest).
The OMAP 4430 is even more powerful (ARM Cortex A9 dual-core + many ARM sidekicks for acceleration), and TI is coming with more.

The development of OMAP is really focused on Linux support and open-source communities. And ANYBODY can buy a development platform (it is called the ZOOM board).

You're the metric of trolls here

[Anonymous Coward]

I regularly come across articles from fields I know next to nothing about by silanea (1241518) writes: on Friday July 16, @03:11AM (#32923708)

We know that much from your crappy showing here in this link http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1725068&cid=32960808

I am not the base metric of what is interesting for everyone. by silanea (1241518) writes: on Friday July 16, @03:11AM (#32923708)

See subject silanea and this choice excerpt and quote of your own words while you trolled others and first from the exchange you lost badly on technical information alone above:

I am bored. Let me poke the troll. Brightens up the day every time by silanea (1241518) writes: on Tuesday July 20, @10:07AM (#32963666)

That's proof enough you are nothing but a troll, and right from where you started it there in this link from that exchange here http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1725068&cid=32963666 .