Slashdot Mirror
Droid X Gets Rooted
An anonymous reader writes "The Droid X forums have posted a procedure to root the new Motorola Droid X, putting to rest Andoid fans' fears that they would never gain access to the device's secrets due to a reported eFuse that would brick the phone if certain boot files were tampered with. Rooting the phone is the first step in gaining complete control over the device."
Did anyone actually believe the device would never be rooted? If it is released, it will be hacked. It may not be immediate, but if there is enough interest then in time the blocks will be circumvented.
-tgpo
"The Droid X forums have posted a procedure to root the new Motorola Droid X, putting to rest Andoid fans' fears that they would never gain access to the device's secrets due to a reported eFuse that would brick the phone if certain boot files were tampered with. Rooting the phone is the first step in gaining complete control over the device."
Man.. if I had read that summary two years ago when Android was starting to take off my heart would have sank.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
They may have rooted the device, but due to the cryptographic signature on the bootloader, kernel, and eFuse watching the ROM, you won't be sticking Android 2.3/3.0 on your Droid X (or Milestone) until Motorola decides you worthy.
If this lockdown was going to be fully hacked, it would have happened to the Milestone by now.
This is the hardware manufacturer implementing Android, not Android itself, that is causing this disgrace.
Why do people support companies that treat you like a criminal?
We buy things that do certain things. If they do those things that you care about well, they serve their purpose and end up being worth the money. Things like jail-breaking are just icing.
It's fun to make statements professing our desire to stick to our principles, but at the end of the day we still need email clients in our pockets.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
First of all there was never any sort of self-destruct device in the phone. The phone contains a bootloader that only loads signed roms which so far has prevented people from loading custom roms such as Cyanogen. The Motorola Milestone (european Droid) has the same issue, has been out for 8 months, and has yet to be cracked.
It's funny that the summary for this article has the text "putting to rest Andoid fans' fears that they would never gain access to the device's secrets due to a reported eFuse that would brick the phone" and links to a Slashdot story titled "Droid X Self-Destructs If You Try To Mod". So Slashdot posts a story with a bogus headline, and then later has another story saying how fear was created when it was "reported" that the phones would be bricked. Never stopping for a second to reflect on the fact that Slashdot itself was the one doing the bad "reporting".
While gaining root access is good news this particular exploit is one that has been around for a while and is ported from another version of Android on another phone. Not to dismiss the work that has been done here but the biggest problem for this device is and has always been the bootloader.
Root is available, but not new rom images. Root is just a small first step. It will not really help in getting around the signed bootloader.
"putting to rest Andoid fans' fears that they would never gain access to the device's secrets due to a reported eFuse that would brick the phone if certain boot files were tampered with"
This in no way puts that to rest. Rooting your device doesn't touch the boot partition at all. What should put to rest the bricking issue is Motorola straight up saying it won't happen. (see here)
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
As far as I can tell, the real problem with the American phone market (maybe even in general?) is corporations assraping the consumer, gouging for money on features (tethering, ring tones, incoming calls/msgs etc. etc.) that are free and open to use with any sane provider (or sane country, where the gouging is regulated). So no argument there.
But really, against apple, a cheap shot it was not. Your bookstore analogy does not hold water, because bookstores in general do not set themselves up to be guardians of people's morals. I use a Mac both at work and at home and was a fanboy when most people were predicting the death of Apple, but jesus fucken christ is it ever hypocritical to allow apps with recorded speeches of a fascist, and at the same time ban:
They set themselves up for criticism because seemingly they apply a ban policy that is both very stringent and basically a "if we don't like it, we don't accept it". So without ever owing an iPhone or ever using the app store, going by the news coverage alone, Apple seems to like:
Ok, so they probably do not attempt to advance a fascist ideology, but it is totally perverted nonetheless. I'd get rid of my Macs if only they weren't so damn good products. Ironically, it is Adobe products on a hassle free Unixy platform that keep me locked to Macs. Luckily, with cell phones, there's ample choice.
This is one of the reasons Linus kept the kernel GPL2 rather than moving to GPL3. He did not like the DRM clause and the Tivoisation clause. As far as Linus is concerned the manufacturers should be able to use DRM to block you from loading an OS they do not want you to load http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/51826
In relation to the Motorola Milestone, which shares the locked bootloader with the Droid X.
Motorola are now "deciding" whether to push out Android 2.2 (with, you know, the Flash support *promised on the box*) to the device at all
For me - I've "decided" that they aren't getting more of my business - as far as I am concerned, they can go f*** themselves.
From James King, Motorola Marketing Director:
Next European Milestone and 2.2 (Froyo). I have expressed over the last few days that the decision is pending. The team here has been collating key pieces of information and views from this community in the last month and providing input to relevant teams in Motorola so they are aware. I am pushing for that decision to be made as quickly as possible, and we can then all go from there. Some others ask why the decisions on upgrades take so long, and why does implementation then take much longer still. What I can say and have stated recently is that upgrades are not a walk in the park. Sure there are short cuts that people can take, but when you have to integrate software to a specific hardware, then test it and integrate with third party applications, let alone any innovation from ourselves, plus then get approvals to make this all official and safe its is a big undertaking that requires planning and resource and third party coordination to see this all through. As I say, once we have decision, we will inform. JK