T-Mobile G2 'Permaroot' Achieved

VValdo writes "After over a month of relentless hacking, genius scotty2 has finally smashed the G2's notorious emmc-read-only-on-boot mechanism, which had been incorrectly characterized in the press as a 'rootkit.' The hack involves several steps — first achieving 'temp root' through a fork bomb exploit, then running a specially crafted kernel module that power-resets the read-only emmc to bring it up in read-write mode. Finally, the bootloader is re-flashed, which permanently removes the read-only on subsequent boots. The whole process is expected to be automated by tomorrow."

Comments

Re:Why would you want this, again?

[cbhacking]

Nokia N900. Debian Linux ported to ARM with a small-touchscreen-friendly interface. Comes with a terminal app; open that; type "su" and hit Enter. The default root password is publicly available (good idea to change it). People complain that its app store is lacking, and they're right, but they're also missing the point: the thing *runs desktop Linux*!
It has repositories.
sudo apt-get install <foo>
You can even compile from source taballs right on the phone, if you really want to / there's no pre-built binaries.

The browser is Gecko-based, and includes Flash. You can install AdBlock Plus if you want. You can even install mobile Firefox and get the full Firefox experience, with extensions. You can also install other browsers, if you prefer. Nothing is stopping you.

The main downside is that it's a due for a refresh. The hardware runs the OS and apps fine, but it's not terribly impressive by modern smartphone measures.