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Motorola Says eFuse Doesn't Permanently Brick Phones
radicalpi writes "Motorola has responded to claims that eFuse is designed to brick your device if you attempt to mod it or install unauthorized bootloaders. Yes, the device will still not operate with unauthorized software, but it will only go into recovery mode until you reinstall the authorized software. According to Motorola: 'If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can re-boot once approved software is re-installed.'"
There, fixed that for you. Bricked is permanent. Non-permanent "bricking" isn't bricking at all. If you can revive it, it was never bricked in the first place.
but I will decide what software is "authorized" to run on my phone!
No sale for you.
...and yet, nobody has ended up properly explaining what eFuse is. In fact, from reading this and other articles, some low-level fuse, like fuses in microcontrollers, doesn't seem to apply to the functionality they describe. This sounds much more complex and much higher-level...so what exactly is everyone going on about? Wikipedia says "In computing, eFUSE is a technology invented by IBM which allows for the dynamic real-time reprogramming of computer chips. Speaking abstractly, computer logic is generally 'etched' or 'hard-coded' onto a chip and cannot be changed after the chip has finished being manufactured. 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. The primary application of this technology is to provide in-chip performance tuning. 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." What does that have to do with authorized software? Why would they use such a system rather than the other systems that have been used in the past? How is this different than some sort of half-FPGA ASIC? Anyways...
There, fixed that for you. Bricked is permanent. Non-permanent "bricking" isn't bricking at all. If you can revive it, it was never bricked in the first place.
It all depends on how easy it is to reinstall the software. MOST "bricked" devices could be recovered at a service center with specialised equipment for a fee (that may not make it a cost effective proposition). If an end user can make the phone unusable but can't reverse the situation using the same equipment (or at least readily available affordable - as in a few bucks - equipment) I would still call it bricked even if it can be revived.
I have no idea if in this safe mode it's easy to install the authorised software. If it is easy I wouldn't call that bricked either. I'd just call it nasty DRM that I'll steer well clear of.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
offer a free opt-out for those willing to take the risk. I'm not sure if the capability is even there, but if the owner is willing to sign a waiver releasing Motorola from any damages in the event that anything goes wrong (a la Malware), Motorola should do it.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
This sounds exactly like it is on the CLIQ. In the past, if you were not careful with modding, you will end up with the phone bootlooping until you put the phone in USB recovery mode, and flash a signed SHX file. Now, you can most likely use nandroid and pull back to the last backup.
This bit people big time when a new radio ROM was available for upgrading, and people upgraded to it with a rooted/custom ROM, one had to reflash (losing root). Of course new ROM fixed the RAMDLD exploit that was used to root the phone in the first place.
Luckily, on the CLIQ, there was a ROM that had ro.secure set to 0 that was signed by a vendor. This allowed for a recovery image to be flashed, and new ROMS pushed to the phone. Had this not been the case, I'm sure it would have been an uphill battle to get the phone re-rooted, and likely people would have moved on to other platforms and not bothered.
All and all, this isn't great news, but it is better than having devices be rendered unusable until sent to a Motorola repair depot.
No. Bricked is forever, as defined by perception and ability -- both of which are subject to change.
A few years ago, I really fucked up a WRT54G when playing with software. I was going to throw it away, when I stumbled across a process for programming it using its JTAG interface and a parallel port. (Which worked fine.)
So was it a brick? The answer is simple, but flexible: It was a brick until I learned that it was possible for me to recover it, at which point it ceased to be a brick.
And now that I know how to deal with these issues, I can't successfully brick a WRT54G in the same fashion.
A dozen years ago, I fucked up a PC by flashing the wrong BIOS. Was it a brick? Again, it's a matter of perspective. In this particular case it was not a brick, though most folks would have reasonably considered it to be completely and totally bricked. Why was it not bricked for me? Because I already knew how to fix it: Enable shadow ROM on another computer, and plug the improperly-flashed BIOS into it hot. Then, just re-flash with the correct image, put the hardware back where it was, and move on with life.
Kid-proof tablet..
If this was the iPhone they were talking about, there would be front page stories in all the major newspapers and websites saying what a crappy company Apple is for locking down their device. Kind of funny when the shoe's on the other foot, isn't it? As Jobs pointed out today, the iPhone 4 has only been out 22 days and the news media was having a conniption making the antenna issue "major news." (hint: "Major news" is the war in Afghanistan and the Gulf of Mexico mess). In fact, since the whole point of Android was to be open-source (as opposed to Apple's "Death grip" on developers), it's kind of funny that Motorola feels also that there are limits to what you should be able to do with your phone.
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
Just because you have discovered an unbricking technique does NOT invalidate the fact that it WAS in fact bricked.
Bricking is not defined as forever.
Bricking means the device is hosed and cannot be recovered without breaking in and modifying the hardware.
Breaking into the JTAG interface of a consumer device and reprogramming PROM are definitely hardware modification techniques that are non-trivial.
This is another term that has entered the popular lexicon and got warped. If a device is bricked, _no one_ can reactivate it - it is dead. If someone can revive the device for a fee, it's not bricked.... it's just something you probably should not have bought in the first place. Bricked means bricked - and I've had a few devices go that way on me because of mistakes.
Bricked is permanent.
Well then by your definition it's pretty much impossible to "brick" a device without otherwise destroying it, as it's always possible to "unbrick" it by replacing code (whether via JTAG, secret button presses or other means) or swapping components.
Back in the real world, it's a relative term. If you can't unbrick your device then as far as you are concerned it's bricked, even if the manufacturer or someone with a bit more brains could actually fix it for you.
No approved software -> one kind of brick.
Approved software -> another kind of brick.
Any questions?
Breaking in? It's not like it took prybars and hammers to open the thing. A WRT54G opens with a quick tug using no tools other than a pair of reasonably-strong hands.
Modifying the hardware? A little. But the JTAG header was right there on the board, IIRC it was even labeled. All I had to do was solder some pins to it to be able to plug a cable into it. And I could have done it without even going that far: after all, I just needed electrical continuity, and nowhere is it written that this must involve physical modification. (Soldering is easier for one individual device, but if I had a lot of them to fix I'd have come up with something less invasive.)
Breaking into the JTAG interface? To reprogram the PROM? You've gone off of the deep end. JTAG is a bog-standard and rather simple interface for dealing with flash at a low level. And PROMs aren't reprogrammable.
Another reason why the device was not bricked was that it was not physically damaged: No eFuse was blown, no parts had turned to smoke, and never was it in any particular danger. It just had a bad firmware load. In other words, it was experiencing a software problem. So I loaded new software that worked, once I learned how.
*shrug*
In other news, some layfolk also think that a PC with a crapfested install of Windows is bricked beyond help. This opinion is, of course, wrong. But it is based on their perspective and ability.
To use a car analogy: I have a dead GM 4L30E automatic transmission out back which died suddenly in my BMW. I fixed the car by replacing the transmission, which I knew how to do, so at no time was the whole car a brick. Now: Could the 4L30E be fixed? I guess so, but I don't know how to do that, so the tranny itself is still bricked. To someone else with different perspective and ability, it might be a quick fix, but that someone ain't me. If the day comes that I gain the ability to understand and fix automatic transmissions, or I give it to someone else who already understands these things, then it may cease being a brick.
Kid-proof tablet..
A "bricked" PSP that can be recovered using a Pandora battery is not bricked at all. It is far more useful than a brick. All it takes is a widget to tell the device to boot from whatever it is that is in the card slot instead of its internal flash. This widget happens to be known as a Pandora battery, and the only thing that is special about it is that its serial number consists of zeroes.
Bricks don't do any of that stuff: I have a pile of them out back, and none of them possess these abilities. A genuinely bricked PSP would resemble a brick, not an electronic device that can easily be brought back to usefulness.
Regarding "user perspective," I have bricked a lot of things (both electronic and mechanical) that I was simply unable to fix myself while being unwilling or unable to pay someone else to do it.
Nonetheless, I am a PSP user. And I am a WRT54G user. And a Droid user. I use them all in ways other than what the instructions say that I should be able to, but that doesn't make me less of a user -- I'm just a user with a different perspective than most have.
Kid-proof tablet..
Funny... cause the USB cable is in the box the phone came with.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
i am buying a DEVICE from you. that is a mobile phone. i am not buying a device AND a software. i dont care about your reasons, your justifications, your logic, this that and shit. if you force me to anything after BUYING a device, i will fuck it and do what i want. if there is no possibility of doing that, i wont buy your product, and you can gleefully shove it up your ass.
how do you like this as the opinion of customers ? distasteful isnt it ? well, you asked for it.
Read radical news here
Frankly, I'd be interested in knowing how they rooted the phone and then changed the boot ROMs without using a USB cable...
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Bricking means the device is hosed and cannot be recovered without breaking in and modifying the hardware.
No, you seem to misunderstand the meaning of the word "brick". As defined by Wiktionary:
Noun .
brick (countable and uncountable; plural bricks)
1. (countable) A hardened rectangular block of mud, clay etc., used for building.
This wall is made of bricks
A brick is something you build houses with. A device that is in a state of non-function is called a "brick" because that's about all you could do with it. A device that I don't know how to return to a functioning state to me is a brick. If you know how to fix it, then to you it is not a brick, and if you offer to help me fix it then it is no longer a brick to me either. That's what adolf is saying, and I agree. Take a second to let that sink in and maybe you will understand.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know of any android device that's meant by the manufacturer to be tinkered with? No protected bootloaders, read only filesystems, or any other such shenanigans that are meant to make the task of installing custom ROMs as difficult as possible.
I know the Nexus One is supposed to be very easy to root, and thus developer friendly, but unfortunately it's not available everywhere.
you know what'd be fun? Let's spends several hours debating the "actual" meaning of a slang term. Can we do hella next? Because my friend says it means "really really" but he's just a fucking retard because I'm positive it means "really really really".
I don't think you actually even need JTAG. I've borked up many WRT54G's, I think I have pretty much every version kicking around in various places - Just hold a piece of wire on the antenna ground block, then run the other end of it across the flash chip - Some people preferred to short out a specific pin (I forget which one now) but I'd just run the wire over a few until the power light started blinking, TFTP mode, reflash. Never once has this method failed.
If this works--which is to say that the phones still sell and Moto suffers only tolerable humiliation, expect to see more.
And if it does fly, look for it be in your general-purpose computer, soon.
Let's hope the popular blogs make a big stink about it. /.
'Cause nobody is listening to the crackpots on
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Frankly, I'd be interested in knowing how they rooted the phone and then changed the boot ROMs without using a USB cable...
up up down down left right left right B A
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Too late. I don't know if I'll ever need to root my phone, but I want to know that I can. I was considering the Droid X and the HTC EVO 4G, and eFuse was the leading reason for selecting the HTC phone.
It's my phone, if I didn't want control, I would get an iPhone.
I,ll just put an ePenny in the fuse box.
Have gnu, will travel.
> Um, the contract that you agreed to that allows access to the carriers private data/voice network. Laid down by the same carrier that you are contracted with.
And, in the United States, if your carrier happens to be Verizon or AT&T, they're subject to the same consent decree that broke up AT&T's monopoly 25 years ago & forced them to allow consumers to own their own phones. At first, it didn't matter much, because all phones were... well... phones. But within a couple of years, phones started to pick up new features, some of which had absolutely nothing to do with being a "phone", and other devices that were never conceived as phones began to acquire the ability to act like phones.
> These are not standalone devices, and have different risks to whom you have a contract with, thus different rules.
Newsflash: a hacked DOCSIS3.0 cable modem can cause WAY more service disruption than the most hacked Android phone to have ever existed on planet earth. Yet, by law, you can walk into Best Buy (or some other store) and buy your own anyway, whether Comcast likes it or not. Cable modems are literally radio transmitters (and fairly powerful ones, at that), and their broadcasts share cable with customers over a shockingly large area that makes the area served by a single cell tower look small by comparison.
If the carriers want that much control and are that concerned about protecting the integrity of their networks, let them get together and define the specs for a mobile network interface that's basically a "black box" wireless network card having the approximate form factor of a thick SD card whose external connectors consist of power, RF, I2C, and ethernet. Then I can buy whatever pocket computer I like, stick their network interface into it, and then users and carriers can peacefully coexist on opposite sides of a well-defined wall of separation.