Method Found To Unlock Qualcomm Based Motorola Phones

FlatEric521 writes "In a blog post over at Azimuth Security, Dan Rosenberg explains how certain models of Motorola Android phones based on the Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset (including the Atrix HD, Razr HD, and Razr M) can be permanently unlocked. He writes, 'I will present my findings, which include details of how to exploit a vulnerability in the Motorola TrustZone kernel to permanently unlock the bootloaders on these phones.'" It's a long read, but interesting.

Comments

Re:Interesting, could influence my next phone purc

[jonwil]

Its a bootloader unlock to let you run custom kernels and stuff.

Thank you, sweet ${deity}

[Miamicanes]

Finally, I can pull my Photon out of the drawer I threw it into in a fit of rage almost a year ago, and let it have the useful Android afterlife denied to it by Motorola. The evil bastards at Moto gimped that poor phone so badly, it couldn't run ADK (despite theoretically having a sufficiently-new kernel... they went out of their way to exclude ADK support it from the kernel), and somehow managed to even have Issues(tm) with IOIO, which is probably the most compatible ADB-based hardware/io bridge you can GET for Android.

Motorola ruined it as a phone, but maybe it can at least be useful now as an embedded hardware controller with touchscreen and full complement of sensors. The sad thing is, had the MoPho been an open phone called the "Nexus M", I would have totally loved it, and lots of us would think Motorola was an awesome company instead of regarding them as the spawn of Satan, sitting at the right hand of Steve Jobs and playing footsie with Steve Ballmer under the table at a dinner party hosted by Verizon. ;-)

Re:Cool exploit

[Anonymous Coward]

Moto allows you to unlock the bootloader *on their consumer devices*. You just need to officially void the warranty at their site (which makes sense since it is so common to brick your device, unintentionally).

The only case where consumer devices cannot be unlocked is *when the carrier specifically requests this from Moto*. (I.e. the Droid branded versions that Verizon uses).

This exploit is technically interesting, but not necessary for most Moto devices.