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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."
Security is in order, sure, but should the end user wish to assume direct control then it should be a trivial process that requires the user be in physical contact with the device (such as holding down a button.) Not requiring the user to find a local exploit to grant them shell or terminal access like a 3rd party attacking the system.
But between the carrier and the vendor, you are a 3rd party attacker. This is why I have no respect for most vendors nor for any of the carriers.
Because these are not phones. These are miniature computers that handle phone calls as a subset of their capabilities.
The software that controls my engine/drive-by-wire has a singular purpose, and is basically a bunch of tables with a bit of microcontroller code to flip through them. Smartphones are much, much more and tend to play a greater role in people's day to day activities.
And if you ask Apple and Microsoft, mobile is where the market is going to be moving heavily. Not necessarily to the exclusion of the desktop market, but still heavily. And, frankly, I don't see the mobile space being controlled so heavily by vendors with vested interests in controlling what you do and how as a good thing.