Slashdot Mirror
Motorola's Sholes Bootloader Unlocked
teh31337one writes "Motorola's locked bootloader for their Sholes-family devices (Droid OG, Milestone, DroidX, Droid 2 etc, not Atrix 4G) has finally been cracked. @nenolod explains on his website: The Motorola Sholes platform uses a trusted bootloader environment. Signatures are stored as part of the CDT stored on the NAND flash. mbmloader verifies the signature on mbm before passing control. mbm verifies all other signatures before allowing the device to boot. There is a vulnerability in the way that Motorola generated the signatures on the sections stored in the CDT. This vulnerability is very simple. Like on the PlayStation 3, Motorola forgot to add a random value to the signature in order to mask the private key. This allowed the private key and initialization vector to be cracked. This comes at the time when HTC are also stepping up their attempts at locking down their phones . The recently released LTE flagship — ThunderBolt is their most locked-down phone to date ... They made signed images, a signed kernel, and a signed recovery. They also locked the memory."
Even with the cracked bootloader, the company's attitude is not good, so I won't buy a phone from them.
... as a programmer is to spend less time trying to hack, tweak, or otherwise add value to platforms owned by companies who want to strip away my rights as a user to modify and operate those platforms as I see fit.
Why do they spend so much money locking down the phone instead of making a competitive, lasting product that the consumer actually wants? "They also locked the memory.", what the fuck.
Disagree != mod troll.
Sorry, but we shouldn't have to fight teeth and nails to get proper access to devices we buy and own.
Being locked out of our own legally purchased devices is NOT normal.
Kind of like buying a computer and not being able to do what you want with it.
Wait, what is this OSX upgrade you tell me about? Sounds great, and only 29.99!
No wit here.
Hopefully it will mean sales going down for phones that are crippled, and up for those that are not. As usual, spread the word about which phones to buy. The manufacturers will only respond to lost sales (and some of them are a little too dense even for that it seems).
With a locked phone they can give the provider control over the phone (read: appstore ), and the telecom provider. I think Motorola hopes to make extra money from the provider instead of the consumer.
You are right, if consumers wanted a closed phone they would have bought a iPhone. an android phone is NOT a closed environment, and locking one part down in an open environment leaves a mediocre (in comparison) product.
Why can't you use your own phone as you please, even more so if it's Android, an open platform?
The only reason I can think of is piracy, which seems to be the justification for everything nowadays.
Seriously, this is a genuine question, not some sort of philosophy.
Android itself is relativity open, however, the vendors (Motorola, HTC, SE, etc) can lock it down if they want.
Only 2 phones use Android in it's base form, everyone else use vendor modified versions.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
A guess as to what "Open" refers to in this context: Android is open source. iOS is not... Basically, anyone can put Android on their device.
Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that the manufacturers of mainstream Anroid devices can't lock them down so the people that buy them can't put on their own versions of self-baked Android. It's not Android's fault, but it damn well is Android's problem :(
In theory:
1. To appease the carriers. The less control end users have over how they use their device, the better. This allows carriers to charge out the ass for things like tethering...
2. Planned obsolescence. If every user could upgrade their device to the next version of Android easily, you'd get (*gasp*) people only buying a new phone every 4 years instead of every one or two...
3. To minimize support costs - there's always a few idiots out there that'll brick their phones and then try to RMA them. Of course, switching to PC type OS upgrade/installation system would eliminate that problem right away.
I should have pasted the whole of section 4 of the LGPL, which also makes it clear that you must provide all information required for the user to reinstall the new shared library of their choice.
I drink to make other people interesting!
It's pretty much 100% 1 and 2. Both the carrier and manufacturer get kickback for shipping the phones with certain apps preloaded, and since they are part of the system image, unremovable without some extra work (rooting). Every Verizon android phone, for instance, comes with Amazon Kindle/MP3, Verizon's Navigator software, CityID, and Blockbuster pre-installed, and there's nothing you can do about it. In addition, things like usb tethering (not wifi) is supposed to be a standard feature for android as of 2.2, but is disabled in most phones. As far as planned obsolescence, while you can't directly prove it, one nice example is Sony Ericsson, which promised for months and months that it would upgrade its X10 line to the latest android, then finally said it was impossible for "technical reasons", then announced its new line of phones, which would launch with the latest version of android.
Bork Bork Bork!!
This comes at the time when HTC are also stepping up their attempts at locking down their phones . The recently released LTE flagship — ThunderBolt is their most locked-down phone to date.
The submitter should know that the HTC Thunderbolt is just a customized variant of the HTC Desire HD provided for Verizon. Locking it up is almost certainly a Verizon-demanded attribute, and not an initiative from HTC. The Desire HD is unlocked in most of the world, and I doubt if a locked version can be obtained in countries with a more enlightened phone system.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire