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G2 Detects When Rooted and Reinstalls Stock OS
RandyDownes writes "And you thought the Droid X's kill switch was bad. HTC and T-Mobile's new G2 can detect when it's been rooted and responds by reinstalling the factory OS. This seems like a violation of the Apache license Android is licensed under and is especially ironic given Eric Schmidt's recent statement about not requiring carriers to give consumers the option to install Google's own version of the OS. Schmidt called it a violation of the principles of open source."
Update: 10/06 17:47 GMT by S : As readers have noted, the G2 is not from Motorola. Here's a better source, and here's the XDA Developers thread discussing the issue.
What is he talking about...?
G2 is by HTC, and I'm fairly sure isn't running MotoBlur.
...battle for control over our mobile devices. Fuck it, I don't care anymore. The war certainly won't be won in its current direction. It needs fundamental change at the consumer level.
You get what you pay for.
If you really want to have an "open" device, you should have supported the various open hardware platforms that eventually failed because of your lack of support.
You can't really complain that you don't have choices when you made no effort to support the good choices that you had.
This seems like a violation of the Apache license Android is licensed under
Yes, it "seems" like a violation of the Apache license because you don't like it (i don't either for that matter), but please explain to me how it is an actual violation of that license. Have you ever read the thing?
...but now I feel bad for even supporting Motorola/HTC. We have a Droid and an Eris, which are fine, but the G2 and D2 are going in the wrong direction. I will not renew with either of these companies if they continue with these retarded shenanigans.
Life's better when you ignore that whole segment of the marketplace (smartphones, I mean, not women)
There's a name for women you get from the marketplace...
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
This and a number of other consumer ills I think can be reduced to a single statement: "The consumer is not the customer"
-- "Oh. This guy again."
No. It limits their ability. Not the same thing.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Agreed. What's up with all these evil hackers who think that just because you buy a physical device, that somehow gives you the right to own it? What about the corporation that made it? Why should *they* have to give up control rights, just because someone else bought it from them?
Really? Care to explain why this should be acceptable behavior from a consumer electronics device?
It will be hacked in 2 weeks time. If you don't want that crap on your phone then buy a different phone. There are lots to choose from.
So, I'll take the karma hit and ask - to all the people that rant and rave about how closed and proprietary Apple is and how wonderful Android is, how does this sit within your vision of things? I thought the entire appeal of Android was that it was your phone and you could put what you wanted on it yet this is far from the first example of another Android manufacturer exerting (rather extreme, in my opinion) control over what you can and cannot put on the device.
"Yet another example of why I am sooooooo glad I don't own a smartphone and won't be buying one soon."
I can't shift into drive in my vehicle unless I have my foot on the brake. By your logic I should do without all the good reasons to own a vehicle and walk everywhere instead.
This is disingenuous. I have a Droid-X. Rooted it right out of the box and installed software that Verizon would prefer I didn't use (Wi-Fi tethering). Recently upgraded it to Froyo (Android 2.2) and was still able to root it.
The Droid-X doesn't have a "kill switch" against rooting. It has a kill switch against installing a new OS. If you want to install a different ROM image than the Droid-X isn't for you. If you simply want to customize the Android OS to do whatever the hell you want then there is nothing in place to stop you. Root it, uninstall all the bloatware, run wi-fi tethering to your hearts content.... it will do all of those things.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
> Why should anyone accept and further abusive practices like this?
You don't. You don't have to buy it. Most people, however, have no desire to "hack" their phones and would be pleased to learn that they are protected against anyone else doing it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The problem is that companies like Google and HTC bend to the will of the carriers. They openly permit garbage on these phones. The irony here is that they're decimating their own brands this way.
The carriers themselves have this desperate hope that consumers will accept their walled garden as willingly as they accept they accept Apple's. The problem is that their garden is overrun with weeds and has an overflowing outhouse sitting right there as a centerpiece. People tolerate, even embrace Apple's practices because there's a good level of quality and consistency. A lot of money and effort is invested in maintaining this quality. These other carriers, however, cut corners everywhere they can and put no effort whatsoever into maintaining quality. All they want to do is keep consumers locked in forcibly. They're deluded into believing they can offer something competitive with Apple's app store. They might drive away that consumer at some point, but for now they've got them trapped.
This is one of the consequences of having separate companies develop the OS and the device. Beyond the problem of countless variations of the same basic thing, a user experience that isn't seamlessly integrated these companies simply don't have the leverage Apple enjoys.
This is not to say that I believe that the iPhone reflects some wonderland of technology but simply that the iPhone and the app store have become the benchmark.
AT&T probably isn't that pissed. Due to their pricing you're still subsidizing the new phones you never got...
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
Why should that not be (felony) violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
Ditto about other stuff being written here...
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
There's no doubt that the illegal distribution of software on the android platform is pretty high. And we could make arguments about why that is forever using all the same old arguments and excuses we always have. The fact that it is easier on Android phones than others (is that true? I am not so sure about that) is a matter for consideration. But that, in and of itself, is not the reason carriers need to get into the mix by making it less useful for users.
You misunderstand. You can install "pirated", not-downloaded-from-the-Market software on ANY stock android phone. Pirating software is not made any easier by rooting. Go grab a 2GB torrent of every damn Android app out there, install on your stock phone. Not a problem.
This is all about hardware control. I have a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G, and if I had stayed stock, I'd STILL be on Android 1.6, which is fucking ANCIENT. I'm running 2.2.1, can do all kinds of actually useful stuff:
Modify /etc/hosts to block ads? Check
Over/underclock processor on demand, both increasing performance AND battery life? Check
Control LEDs and other lights (different colors for txt/email/etc notifications, blink patterns)? Check
Multitouch? Check
Optimized kernel images that run wicked fast? Check
Swap space on SD card to get some more RAM space? Check
Complete bit-for-bit backup of the internal flash memory so I can do a "bare metal" restore? Check
This phone fucking FLIES compared to the stock T-Mobile software, which is slooooow as hell. And THAT'S why I rooted.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Crappy analogy. Locked in a cage you are not free to do anything. Sold a phone that doesn't do quite what you'd like leaves you free to do anything else, including throwing it away or hacking it.
You *chose* to buy the damn phone. If you now find that it doesn't do what you want (but does do as the vendor promised) throw it in the trash. If it doesn't do what the vendor promised demand your money back. "Rights" != "Entitlements"
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Everyone FUCKING says this. Each and every time. And every time yet another vendor does this, that's one less device I can opt not to buy. Eventually I will have no devices to buy. So you're saying that I can progressively pull out of the market until I am forced to opt out of technology in general because I don't agree to being abused by OEMs?
That's utterly and fundamentally fucked, sir.
When I rooted my Droid X, all it took was a replacement of the Busybox executable to give me all the tools I needed. It isn't Maemo, but I have pretty much everything but gpg and mutt available [1].
An iPhone just doesn't require just an exploit to UID 0, it requires one to get out of the BSD jail() with root. It also requires the jailbreak to install a complete userland including an install system (dpkg), shells, an app (Cydia) to manage everything. Even worse, the jailbroken Mobile Terminal app is barely usable, and has to be hunted down from a repo, as the one that comes as default from Cydia does not work on iOS 4.
This doesn't say that the iPhone is bad; it means that a jailbreak on this device is a lot harder to do elegantly than rooting an Android phone.
[1]: Even in the days of Web applications aplenty, there is no faster mail reader than mutt on a decently responsive system, especially if the spool file is local.
So you're saying that I can progressively pull out of the market until I am forced to opt out of technology in general because I don't agree to being abused by OEMs?
Yes, that's exactly right. You don't have any right to the technology. I would love to have a magical flying unicorn, but nobody offers such a thing. I don't get pissed off when Breeders tell me "Nope, sorry. Don't carry them". You have the freedom to make any purchasing decision you like. At the same time manufacturers have the right to decide what products they sell. We can't force them to offer an open phone that meets our wants.
Realistically though you will never have no devices to buy. Someone somewhere will continue to market more open devices so long as there is a demand for it. Otherwise, you are totally free to build yourself whatever kind of phone you want.
By the hardware manufacturer, of course. This has nothing to do with Google.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Actually it only has a "kill switch" against unsigned /boot partitions. The /system partition is only signature checked after it is updated via the stock recovery partition. If you update things (or 100% replace) /system/ via something like Koush's Boot Strap Recovery that check never occurs. This is how some groups are working on getting AOSP based Android builds up and going for testing on the Droid X. As long as they can get it to work with the official /boot/ they are fine.
Also, it should be clear what the "kill switch" is. It isn't an eFuse like so many falsely said early on. The bootloader simply won't hand over to /boot/ and sits in a state waiting for RSD Lite to flash a new properly signed SBF to it.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
From... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=794053&page=49#post8490526
There IS NO REINSTALLING ROOTKIT!!!!
Don't you get it? It is simply WRITE PROTECTED with REDIRECTED WRITES!