Related
As the title says.. is it within the scope of any dev to have some kind of lock or password protection on accessing recovery? This would obviously have to be optional.
Wavesecure is kinda rendered useless if someone could easily flash another rom on the phone before the user can get to wiping all data.
I'm not so concerned about getting a phone back after it's stolen... but i'm much more worried about the information i may have stored on it.
Is this even possible?
Thanks in advance
Alex
a) If you flash another ROM to remove wavesecure, you would have to wipe first and therefore your personal data would be gone anyway.
b) You can install a recovery via adb as far as I know so if the user knew enough to boot into recovery mode, they could flash another recovery and circumvent the password anyway
Hmm, you'd need to password protect fastboot too wouldnt ya?
+1
I was gonna post this. I mean if phone was stolen, and wavesecure did prevent them using it, a wipe will remove it.
Well, ask ninpo maybe over at villainrom site.
Dunno if he would do it, but he modified recovery for villainrom 12 so it could wipe dalvik2cache properly iirc
I would also like it. And flashing over adb is for a newcomer harder then pressing the home button at booting
Seelbreaker said:
I would also like it. And flashing over adb is for a newcomer harder then pressing the home button at booting
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True.
You could always install the 007 spl if you were that bothered. But I don't recommend that.
I will look into wave secure, as I have a few ideas about things to do.
But remember most thieves would not manage to flash a rom, but a wipe using power + call (I think) is easy.
Also remember that wave secure is a great program, and it has improved loads since I first contacted them to show a way to add your own un approved sim to the allowed list. But I can still bypass it in about 30 seconds, just like any other security measure your phone may use (eg pattern lock or third party app locker).
So whilst a thief in theory could do this, it's unlikely in my opinion. They would need a fair bit of android knowledge, and anyone who knows the inner workings can get rid of any user security measure in seconds.
And btw, when in say I can bypass ws in 30 secs, that don't involve removing the app. I mean bypass that lock screen completely with the app installed
just curious: this possibility doesn't involve activated USB debugging in the device? So you do some trick during boot... or something else I just can't think of?
xdafalter said:
just curious: this possibility doesn't involve activated USB debugging in the device? So you do some trick during boot... or something else I just can't think of?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have more than one method. But I used methods that are unlikely to be found. One certainly can't be fixed, as it is inherently a flaw on linux, though by design. For this reason I won't be disclosing it, and I'm sure people understand.
But yes, usb debugging is useful for bypassing it, though I can still get round it even if you have disabled it
anon2122 said:
But yes, usb debugging is useful for bypassing it, though I can still get round it even if you have disabled it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting... I will give it some thought as I like to know stuff
Knowledge brings fear (from Futurama) but don't be evil (Google)
thanks for the replies.
In the end any security can be broken and circumvented.. i just like the idea of layering as much as possible... again i don't expect to be able to get my phone back or stop someone from selling it (given how common imei spoofing seems to be)..
i just want to have time to run a remote wipe from another location.
I do turn off usb debugging whenever i'm not likely to be at a PC.
I know i'm being paranoid... but with good reason
Bantu85 said:
thanks for the replies.
In the end any security can be broken and circumvented.. i just like the idea of layering as much as possible... again i don't expect to be able to get my phone back or stop someone from selling it (given how common imei spoofing seems to be)..
i just want to have time to run a remote wipe from another location.
I do turn off usb debugging whenever i'm not likely to be at a PC.
I know i'm being paranoid... but with good reason
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wanna try something? Turn off USB debugging, then try and connect via adb.
Try "adb shell" and see what happens.
I'm not sure what you are up to, but it cannot connect (no device connected or similar output)... and this is the expected result.
Did you want to prove something else?
Yeh adb shell with usb-debugging off just gives "error no device found".
xdafalter said:
I'm not sure what you are up to, but it cannot connect (no device connected or similar output)... and this is the expected result.
Did you want to prove something else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah, just wondered. Some phones used to have persisting ADB, which meant that you could get a connection even when that was disabled IIRC.
But remember that you can get adb on boot regardless of setting AFAIK, as well as in recovery
so, if we would have a pw protected recovery/spl and use a kernel with no adb compiled in, where would then be your basis to break in?
xdafalter said:
so, if we would have a pw protected recovery/spl and use a kernel with no adb compiled in, where would then be your basis to break in?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or perhaps limit the use of ADB so that it can only be used while booted into the recovery and after the pw-protection of it has been passed.
So I had an idea today...I'm sure the geniuses that have gotten the Dx and D2 this far have already tried it; but I cannot find any information on it. What if we tried the good old fashioned trick of cold booting:
Google princeton cold boot. I cannot paste links.
I am going to make my best efforts to try this, but I know there are many people that are far better than I. I will let you know of my results, if I ever achieve any.
I think this is an interesting idea, and have read a lot about this being done on laptops... would be interested to see if this works for the android system...
It would only work if the keys are stored in RAM tho... and I think the keys are hard coded into a chip (thought I heard this somewhere...could be 100% wrong)
Anyways...would be interested to see some of the devs try this...
No idea if this would work but if this could be pulled off it would be a pretty epic hack
This looks to rely on the ability to run custom OS/Software. Since our current hacks involve loading *after* the kernel, I doubt this would work.
Kinda like a chicken before the egg problem.
It requires custom rims on another host. Realistically all you need is for the princeton program to read the ram from a different partition. Im sure it can be modified to mount the phone and read the ram from there.
Kinda as an acknowledgement/off-shoot of what zaphod has said...
What if a second init process could be kicked off to hijack the boot process kinda like what koush did..
If the ram could be dumped quick enough... Would this work? I'm not a dev, but do a lot of sys admin work and understand many of the concepts for kernels, and boot processes...
Just trying to help throw out ideas and get the creative juices florin for those who can develop.
Ps, zaphod, thnx for all ur contributions on this forum, many of ur posts have helped me.a TON
Just Chiming In
That's kind of what unrevoked did:
I know we have completely different phones, but this is basically how they cracked HTC:
They found out that in the booting of the phone, during the init, adb would start, but then immediately get killed off by HTC's init. what they did then was found out that if they inserted an SD card into the phone at the precisely exact time (between when ADB started and got killed off by MOTO) so that it would be read right before ADB was killed by MOTO, it would hang MOTO's init, so they had full adb access during the init process, which allowed them to run the phones STOCK recovery alongside ADB. Firstly it allowed them to get root, then once they got root what they basicall did was kick off a LEGIT system update through the phones recovery and then SWAP it for a payload right in between when the phone finished the key checks and started writing the new system....
I know that we have two different things going on here.... but if they did this, I'm sure we could pull something like swapping kernels during load.....
MAN I wish Unrevoked got and tried to crack the X, but they focus on HTC phones.
Any way to send this idea the devs' way without looking pushy? I think from a technical stand-point this is a worthwhile idea to look into...or at least give some thought to it...
thinking about it further
After thinking about this more I think the answer has to lay in this exploit. We are right in stating that the key is actually burnt into a chip somewhere. However, we must remember that there is some key generation going on during the bootloader phase. Thus: at some point the correct key is stored in memory as the phone correctly boots. If the phone boots, the key is laying someplace in memory. It's just a matter of finding it.
I haven't had time to play with this yet, hopefully I will have some time this week or weekend. I am very confident that this will work, it's just a matter of figuring out how to get the program that reads the memory to look at my phone, not my computer.
lilott8 said:
After thinking about this more I think the answer has to lay in this exploit. We are right in stating that the key is actually burnt into a chip somewhere. However, we must remember that there is some key generation going on during the bootloader phase. Thus: at some point the correct key is stored in memory as the phone correctly boots. If the phone boots, the key is laying someplace in memory. It's just a matter of finding it.
I haven't had time to play with this yet, hopefully I will have some time this week or weekend. I am very confident that this will work, it's just a matter of figuring out how to get the program that reads the memory to look at my phone, not my computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Liliott,
I'm really glad you are looking into this. I've read about this hack for pc's and think there may actually be something to this. I feel like if we could have something that hijacked the boot process real similar to Koush's recovery then if someone could write a program that would dump NVRAM (I think this is the equivalent to the phone RAM) this would work. With this said, I believe that the devs originally working on cracking the bootloader were able to get NVRAM into "engineering mode" (don't remember the exact terminology off the top of my head)....but I still am thinking this idea should definitely be given more credit and looked into.
I would love to help, but I don't have any dev experience, so I'm somewhat at a loss there....Thanks for pursuing this!
The key you need (presumably an RSA key) wont be stored anywhere on the phone at all.
What happens is that Motorola produce new software for the phone and sign it with their private key (that only Motorola have). This is then sent to the phone. (OTA or whatever they do) The phone verifies the signature using a public key burned into the ROM of the phone (i.e. you cant change it without physically modifying the hardware somehow)
The best hope to break the bootloader on this phone is to reverse engineer it and look for an explot, as has been done on Moto phones in the past (various Motorola MOTOMAGX linux phones have been cracked open this way)
jfwfreo said:
The key you need (presumably an RSA key) wont be stored anywhere on the phone at all.
What happens is that Motorola produce new software for the phone and sign it with their private key (that only Motorola have). This is then sent to the phone. (OTA or whatever they do) The phone verifies the signature using a public key burned into the ROM of the phone (i.e. you cant change it without physically modifying the hardware somehow)
The best hope to break the bootloader on this phone is to reverse engineer it and look for an explot, as has been done on Moto phones in the past (various Motorola MOTOMAGX linux phones have been cracked open this way)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Question:
Ok, I know that this will pretty much fall flat, but I have to ask. The Milestone, and OG Droid are pretty much the same phone. Do they have the same boot loader, just unlocked? If so is it the same as the X? The reason I'm asking is it might be easier to crack the Droid since it's already unlocked?
It might be like looking at the lock from inside out trying to figure out how it opens, vs trying to open the lock by looking at it from the outside.
Also, does the MOTO use "goldkeys" like HTC did at one point in time, or have they moved on from that?
On another point, MOTO changed their keys from 2.1 to 2.2, and the phone accepted them. That tells me that it's possible. How much time that will take, I don't know.
Finally, is there any way to "intercept" the process like unrevoked did? I mean if we could get adb working while recovery is working, we could start the recovery process using a legit OTA, and overwrite the zip through adb AFTER verification and before the actual copying. That shouldn't set off the fuse, right?
ideas?
dreamersipaq said:
Question:
Ok, I know that this will pretty much fall flat, but I have to ask. The Milestone, and OG Droid are pretty much the same phone. Do they have the same boot loader, just unlocked? If so is it the same as the X? The reason I'm asking is it might be easier to crack the Droid since it's already unlocked?
It might be like looking at the lock from inside out trying to figure out how it opens, vs trying to open the lock by looking at it from the outside.
Also, does the MOTO use "goldkeys" like HTC did at one point in time, or have they moved on from that?
On another point, MOTO changed their keys from 2.1 to 2.2, and the phone accepted them. That tells me that it's possible. How much time that will take, I don't know.
Finally, is there any way to "intercept" the process like unrevoked did? I mean if we could get adb working while recovery is working, we could start the recovery process using a legit OTA, and overwrite the zip through adb AFTER verification and before the actual copying. That shouldn't set off the fuse, right?
ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Milestone has a locked bootloader, and hasn't been cracked for a year.
Sent from Eris with Froyo
TheSonicEmerald said:
The Milestone has a locked bootloader, and hasn't been cracked for a year.
Sent from Eris with Froyo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really am not trying to sound (too) rude when I say this, but
Did you even READ my whole post?
Yes, the Milestone is locked, but the Droid (the Milestone's US twin) is not.
*Golf clap*
Gotta love it when people reply to a post without even reading a few sentances of the post they are directly replying to. It is understood that the Milestone's bootloader is locked, he was questioning how close the hardware and programming were between the OD (Original Droid) and Milestone aside from the lock being activated in the Milestone. It is the general consensus that the same lock and efuse functions exist in the OD but they are not activated. If this is true then it might be beneficial to see if any of the developers out there with a spare OD test to see if they can figure out how to activate the lock on an OD and then potentially have a better understanding of what might be involved with de-activating it.
Thanks!!!
JinxtPhoto said:
*Golf clap*
Gotta love it when people reply to a post without even reading a few sentances of the post they are directly replying to. It is understood that the Milestone's bootloader is locked, he was questioning how close the hardware and programming were between the OD (Original Droid) and Milestone aside from the lock being activated in the Milestone. It is the general consensus that the same lock and efuse functions exist in the OD but they are not activated. If this is true then it might be beneficial to see if any of the developers out there with a spare OD test to see if they can figure out how to activate the lock on an OD and then potentially have a better understanding of what might be involved with de-activating it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rant
*Bow*
I'm glad that there are still people out there that have a reading comprehension above that of a wet mop. I won't insult them and say they have a low IQ though
I hate it when you take the time to put something that you though about up and someone comes along, reads the first sentence, and (without making any effort to finish the paragraph or REALLY think about what the person is trying to say) spew up crap equivalent to that of the "First" post on blog comment boards.....
/rant
Any haxzors? is this liable, possible, waste of time?
*please don't reply with "waste of time". give us some reasoning, otherwise your post does not help us at all*
The reason it might now
The reason why it actually might not fail is this:
When the system boots, it runs it magic RSA/PGP/AES encryption. It then takes that and compares that to its bootloader routine that it loads. Where does it store the bootloader encryption result to compare to the system boot key? If you guessed memory you would be correct. Now if it stays in memory we will have the golden ticket. If Motorola is smart, and wipe that part of the memory upon OS boot, then it's a matter of timing. If we can get that key, we can, potentially, intercept the bootloader, present the key that we stole and boot our own bootloader/cooked rom.
I think there is quite a bit of potential here.
*Clapping continued...*
I'm glad to see more people finally chiming in on this topic. Call me naive...but when it comes to the dev communities, it seems like "where there's a will...there's a way"
They had made decent progress on cracking this (kinda...) maybe this idea is one that should be looked into (probably said this like 5x in this thread now...oh well)
Thank you to dreamerispaq and Jinxt, appreciate you guys throwing some comments in here
did the release of the 2.2 SBF help at all? If there was a kernel change from 2.1 to 2.2, wouldn't a method be inside of the SBF? Is there any way to hijack the SBF to allow installation of a custom Kernel and ROM?
Shouldn't there basically be an entire phone image inside of the SBF file? If so, would it be possible to alter pieces of that to create some kind of exploit, or use RSD Lite itself and altered SBF's to load up custom kernels and ROMS?
I'm just chucking stones blindly here, I know this is way above my skill level, but I can't help thinking that a full SBF should help similar to the way you can pull the system image from an HTC RUU.
giventofly17 said:
did the release of the 2.2 SBF help at all? If there was a kernel change from 2.1 to 2.2, wouldn't a method be inside of the SBF? Is there any way to hijack the SBF to allow installation of a custom Kernel and ROM?
Shouldn't there basically be an entire phone image inside of the SBF file? If so, would it be possible to alter pieces of that to create some kind of exploit, or use RSD Lite itself and altered SBF's to load up custom kernels and ROMS?
I'm just chucking stones blindly here, I know this is way above my skill level, but I can't help thinking that a full SBF should help similar to the way you can pull the system image from an HTC RUU.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, I don't think so. The issue is that both sets of keys are probably hashed and encrypted.... so even if we pulled out the private key out of the SBF that motorolla used, we'd have to brute force it to decrypt it. If, let's say they were smart and used something like RSA as stated above, it'd take a super computer a couple of decades to crack it.
A brute force attack is not going to be helpful here I'm afraid. I'ts going to be more of a lets look at the code, and see if we can find a flaw somewhere in moto's coding that we can use to our advantage.
That's why I recommended looking at the OD. If it shares the same bootloaded, it's already uncloked. Maybe we could take it, reverse engineer it, and look at the calls it makes, where it looks for files, what order it loads things in, etc.... THIS would be more beneficial IMHO.
Hello to all good guys in xda-developers forum.
This is my very first post and I really feel desperate and need your kind help.
New Acer iconia with stock firmware 3.2.1 was nicely running this morning until I tried to root the device.It was supposed to be very simple process and not to get into dirty complicated procedures but the gingerbreak.apk did not work as expected so I tried alternative methods.What I read in various forums was that the gingerbreak application is not able to root the new firmwares version so I tried to downgrade the firmware to 3.0.1.
Downloaded the Acer stock recovery firmware EUUs_SBK_Acer_A501_0.017.01_PA_ATT.exe and attempted to flash onto my tablet .I think I did all necessary pre-installation checks.The process started but it stopped on 10 percent for about 30 minutes without any progress.Only Acer logo was displayed and 'entering file downloading mode' at the top of the screen.
After long time no change I finally gave up and unplugged the device from the USB port and restarted but nothing works since then.
1. No vibration on Start
2. Black screen
3. No new USB device appear on my PC
4. No sign of any activity other then power button light
I guess the original firmware was wiped but the new firmware was not flashed...for whatever reason...perhaps the worst scenario.
I will really appreciate If anybody may give me advice how to fix it.
So it turns on but does not display anything? Have you tried to hold the power button and volume down button at the same to when you turn it on to try to get it into recovery. Also there is a little reset button on the side you can try to push.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
tried all those thinks.All kind of tricks I could find on the net.The problem is that the device is not showing up in the device manager e.g not detected as USB device of an y kind....
acera500 said:
tried all those thinks.All kind of tricks I could find on the net.The problem is that the device is not showing up in the device manager e.g not detected as USB device of an y kind....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this thread. Look about halfway down, and you'll see almost the exact thing you did, and how this guy got it going.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1291747
Basically you can run a search for APX in the main forum threads and find some other posts, but hopefully this will get you going.
I pulled this from the general forum (eventually), but you can also search the Q&A main forum page as well, and the dev forum.
Another link;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1255519&highlight=apx&page=2
If its new just return it to the store for another one.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Acer or the store did not brick it
i THINK If you mess with the rom on your tablet and... BRICK your device .. you should tough it out and fix yourself... Acer or the store is not responsible for this .But then you could also argue that if they had not locked the bootloader this type of bricking would not happen..
So i say go above and beyond to try to fix it from the help on here.. if that fails.. THEN Maybe exchange it.. Its wrong to brake something then expect someone else to foot the bill. Yes im to honest for my own good at times... Acer has also been known to repair .
If you bought a extra warranty all of the above in my book is out the window.. Make them replace it ..
GIGGLES..
Good luck on getting it repaired ..and be more careful next time..
Piece of cake to fix if you kept you USB serial number (from the downgrade tool)???
===== If you have your USB serial number ====================
1. Lets assume you know your USB serial number. If not, then you might be able to get it from your registry.
2. Download my flashing tool at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=20680452&postcount=137
a. Open up the readme.pdf for the instructions on how to flash
3. KEEP your acer unplugged and run the program
4. The program will install the APX flash drivers and will tell you to plug in the USB. Ignore this step. It will not work. In the instructions skip steps 3, 8, 9, 10.
5. Eventually the flashing tool will timeout because you do NOT have the tablet connected. It will then display a message box telling you how to use a paperclip and the power button to get you into APX mode. THIS IS THE secret to getting the tool to flash your ACER. However, once you get it into APX mode you will need your USB serial number (without it, you are fubar).
a. Plug in the tablet to your computer with the USB and paperclip yourself to fastboot.
6. Now in step 11, enter your USB serial number
7. Now just follow the rest of the instructions.
====== NO USB Serial number ==========
If you do not have your USB serial number than you are going to be out of luck, unless you have ever connected the device to your computer. If you did, then your registry will have a history containing your serial number.
Google usbdeview tool and download it. This will show the serial number of any USB device you've connected to your computer.
===== No Serial number, never connected it, what to do ==========
If you have no serial number and cannot get it, then hopefully you can get to recovery mode (power & volume) and flash using a signed update.zip from ACER. Download one of the update.zip's and put it on your external SDCard and then boot to recovery.
=== Bricked and No serial number, never connected, and you fubar'ed the recovery image ===
If you never connected your table to the USB and your computer to get the USB serial number then you are NOT going to be able to flash it to fix it.
If you fubar'ed the recovery image then you won't be able to get into recovery to run the ACER update zip.
At this point, you can still get your tablet into APX fastboot mode using a paperclip and the power button. But I know of NO way to flash it without the USB serial number and I know noway to get the USB serial number from the APX driver. I've tried and looked at getting the serial number from just APX mode, but I cannot determine how to get it. Someone out there might know.
Hope this helps,
TD
Your CPUID can also be found in the uid.txt file in your cwm backup folder - /mnt/external_sd/clockworkmod/backup/ - just remember to drop the 0x when you need to enter it
erica_renee said:
i THINK If you mess with the rom on your tablet and... BRICK your device .. you should tough it out and fix yourself... Acer or the store is not responsible for this .But then you could also argue that if they had not locked the bootloader this type of bricking would not happen..
So i say go above and beyond to try to fix it from the help on here.. if that fails.. THEN Maybe exchange it.. Its wrong to brake something then expect someone else to foot the bill. Yes im to honest for my own good at times... Acer has also been known to repair .
If you bought a extra warranty all of the above in my book is out the window.. Make them replace it ..
GIGGLES..
Good luck on getting it repaired ..and be more careful next time..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly if more people returned bricked phones/tablets etc... they would quit locking them down... the you broke it you fix it because they want to keep people from doing things they should be able to do with THEIR system they bought... In other words I completely don't agree with this at all.. If everything was unlocked and such then I would support the you fix it, but then again we wouldn't be running into these issues now would we. But then again Most people need people to babysit them and tell them what they can and can't do with what they own..
wade7919 said:
Honestly if more people returned bricked phones/tablets etc... they would quit locking them down... the you broke it you fix it because they want to keep people from doing things they should be able to do with THEIR system they bought... In other words I completely don't agree with this at all.. If everything was unlocked and such then I would support the you fix it, but then again we wouldn't be running into these issues now would we. But then again Most people need people to babysit them and tell them what they can and can't do with what they own..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@wade7919. You clearly have never worked in IT support on a hardware level.
Or maybe, I am barking up the wrong panty-leg?
If you bought a high dollar corvette, GM will support it. If you add an aftermarket chip, and your engine blows, do you expect GM to fix it? No. I wouldn't expect it either. Not their problem. Just because you can add a chip, doesn't mean you should do it.
That's why they try to lock bootloaders. To prevent users from doing things they shouldn't. Unlock them, and it opens a whole world of issues based on "open source". God help us if they unlock bootloaders.....
Not sure what you are getting at. I am under the belief, if you broke it, you fix it. Take responsibility for one's own actions. Shouldn't take the panzy pussyass way (no offence Erica and werecaltf), and return it for replacement. Suck it up, and learn from experience. Otherwise, the next device, you'll do the same stupid thing again.
I like things the way they are. Difficult, but not impossible. That separates the people with balls (again Erica and wercatlf, no offense), from the sheep.
But if you fubar the device, own up to it, and fix it. Don't pawn it off to somebody else (return it). And if you don't have the brain cells to have a backup plan before you start... Well, don't shed tears over it. Own up, throw the testosterone in the garbage disposal, and fix it.
Somebody give me a zanex...
And people, stop using Gingerbreak!!!!!!
Why locking a bootloader will cost ACER billions
Moscow and wade7919, you both make good arguments.
But it is what point of view you're coming form. If I bought a car and changed the RIM's on all 4 wheels and the engine blew up, would GM refuse to honor the warranty?
However, if I put jet fuel and alcohol in for gasoline and blew the engine why would they honor the warranty?
So, the question here is does rooting a device cause actual damage to the device thereby preventing rooting saves them warranty issues? Or is the device also considered to include the software and is covered under warranty?
I'm not taking sides here, but you both are making very good points but with different examples at different points of view.
So, lets look at other items and see if we can draw a parallel. If I buy a brand new Dell computer and send it in for Warranty and there is nothing wrong with the hardware they charge me (correct?). So if I fubar the OS or load something that caused the damage I pay for it or fix it. If there is actually a hardware failure then they cover it under warranty.
So, why does an Android MFG take the warranty one step further and include the OS and take steps to lock it so you cannot change it? Well, this is because nobody owns the OS (it's open source) therefore they take ownership of the build. Because there's no Microsoft to blame, they lock the software and consider it to be part of the overall device (Apple claimed this in their lawsuit). So, in the MFG's mind, there is no difference from the screen, keyboard, or the firmware & software.
So the question is what do you think should be covered under warranty? Most people think it should be just the hardware like a PC. Others see the whole device which includes the OS.
My point of view:
What follows is my rant and my opinion (you are warned )
In my opinion, I had NO problem until they decided to lock the bootloader. I have no problem with them claiming warranty from A-Z and if I change anything they won't warranty it. No problem, I understand that and accept full responsibility. But by ACER locking the bootloader they went too far.
To me this would be like GM welding the hood shut on my car. Better yet, it would be like me waking up one morning and opening my garage to get in my car and discover that during the night GM welded the hood shut. This, in my opinion, is illegal. Matter of fact, in my opinion, it violates US Federal hacking laws because they enter a system and destroyed data. I eventually think OEM's will get a class action suit filed on them for this.
Secondly, Windows 8 is going to be the game changer. OEM's can now make a hardware device and sit behind only warranting the hardware. You have a problem with the OS, call MS. Also, there is a HUGE (I mean HUGE). Did I mention HUGE, demand for tablets in business. Businesses will NOT put a device that has all these consumer games and social networking loaded into the workforce. There are billions in business applications that can be made, but you cannot sell them if they only run on a tablet that cannot have games removed etc.
Example might help: Medical field <- Think of all the applications a tablet can be used to save costs in hospitals. Do your really want your doctor or nurse etc using this tablet on facebook? Insurance company's, law firms, retailers, traveling sales, etc etc (Government). The list goes on.
Developers will see this huge opportunity and will write applications because they can sell them to A-Z and the business buying them will buy them because they can remove facebook and gmail from their company owned tablets. Now, as more and more developers move to Windows they'll drop Android. Want another example, read about Netflix and the issues they have had supporting a fragmented Android OS. So, business applications will move to Windows, but you might say so what, the consumer market is still there. True, but all you need is one killer application that everyone will want and for that to only be on Windows 8. Want some examples, here's my list, NFL (or sports), Netflix, Skype (gee owned by MS now isn't it?), or something new.
Bottom-line is this, if ACER and the others want to lock their bootloaders then they have just taken themselves out of the game for any business sales. Can you imagine walking into a boardroom showing the Government how your new VA application will save the VA Hospitals millions next year alone and improve veterans healthcare. Your application runs on any HC Android tablet. Everything is smoking, going great, as you hand your tablets, ACER a500', around the room. They are loving it. You just hit 'pay-dirt', then someone says hey I see these ACER's have gmail, facebook, blah blah. We cannot have government employees using tablets with those applications loaded, your installer removes them doesn't it? Silence enters the room, all eyes are focused on you. Your mind see millions escaping which were just within your grasp, you pause, you think, and you say YES General as you grab your Motorola Xoom and say 'that's why we recommend you buy nothing but Motorola.'. ACER just kissed millions in sales goodbye (oh and this is a true story).
i do believe acer should lock the bootloader on there devices.
However thee are things I would be doing with my tab if it were not locked.
Acer should give us the ability to flash the bootloader and not use the proprietary software. Lock that software to there bootloader.for there protections.
Give us a wway to unlock it..AT OUR OWN RISK..
So it should be locked but have a way to unlock it with the end user understanding they are totally on there own ..
I would be OK with voiding my warranty.
@Dean,
"So if I fubar the OS or load something that caused the damage I pay for it or fix it. If there is actually a hardware failure then they cover it under warranty."
Yes, that is true. Bootloaders are locked, to prevent completely stupid idiots, from doing things they absolutely no idea what the sam hell they are doing.
The issue is, should we be able to return a device, after we fubarred it? Against warranty? To say, Hey, your weakness allowed me to do it.
Just because the ability to do it exists, and we can quote a thousand instances, It doesn't mean we should, and to shirk responsibility. And pass it off to the main individual.
The fact is, the policies and regulations are there, and we should abide. And if we don't, we have to own up and deal with it.
And if we don't, then we are no better than the low life of the world. The scum.
Moscow Desire said:
@Dean,
"So if I fubar the OS or load something that caused the damage I pay for it or fix it. If there is actually a hardware failure then they cover it under warranty."
Yes, that is true. Bootloaders are locked, to prevent completely stupid idiots, from doing things they absolutely no idea what the sam hell they are doing.
The issue is, should we be able to return a device, after we fubarred it? Against warranty? To say, Hey, your weakness allowed me to do it.
Just because the ability to do it exists, and we can quote a thousand instances, It doesn't mean we should, and to shirk responsibility. And pass it off to the main individual.
The fact is, the policies and regulations are there, and we should abide. And if we don't, we have to own up and deal with it.
And if we don't, then we are no better than the low life of the world. The scum.
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Very well put.I do know of a few people who have sent there device to acer after messing it up installing rom and telling acer.acer still fixed it free.
Honesty is always best
The evils of rooting
I'm still missing something here, why locking a bootloader does anything. Go get a Mortorola Xoom (not the FE) and you run the unlock OEM. It tells you that you are unlocking it. It tells you that you unlock it at your own risk. You cannot relock it until it is 100% back to stock. It asks you three times are you sure.
Locking the bootloader and treating everyone as an idiot is the problem. Just do what Motorola does, and stop being everybody's keeper. If they want to 'Police' this then you should have to call ACER and they fax you a form. You give DNA to prove who you are and fax it back. Then you go to a mandatory rooting class, that lasts for 5 days, where ACER preaches to you the sins of rooting. Then you have to take and pass a test. Then and only then, after passing the test you get a certificate. Then you call back, give them your certificate ID. Now they give you the secret key to unlock only your tablet.
That's the ticket,
TD
Bottom-line, it's not that they locked the boatloader, it's that you cannot unlock it. Like I said, go out to your driveway some morning and find that GM welded the hood to your car shut because they think you are stupid and shouldn't be opening the hood. Mind you that YESTERDAY, and at the time your bought it, it was not welded shut. That ladies and gentlemen is what ACER did with their OTA.
Moscow Desire said:
@wade7919. You clearly have never worked in IT support on a hardware level.
Or maybe, I am barking up the wrong panty-leg?
If you bought a high dollar corvette, GM will support it. If you add an aftermarket chip, and your engine blows, do you expect GM to fix it? No. I wouldn't expect it either. Not their problem. Just because you can add a chip, doesn't mean you should do it.
That's why they try to lock bootloaders. To prevent users from doing things they shouldn't. Unlock them, and it opens a whole world of issues based on "open source". God help us if they unlock bootloaders.....
Not sure what you are getting at. I am under the belief, if you broke it, you fix it. Take responsibility for one's own actions. Shouldn't take the panzy pussyass way (no offence Erica and werecaltf), and return it for replacement. Suck it up, and learn from experience. Otherwise, the next device, you'll do the same stupid thing again.
I like things the way they are. Difficult, but not impossible. That separates the people with balls (again Erica and wercatlf, no offense), from the sheep.
But if you fubar the device, own up to it, and fix it. Don't pawn it off to somebody else (return it). And if you don't have the brain cells to have a backup plan before you start... Well, don't shed tears over it. Own up, throw the testosterone in the garbage disposal, and fix it.
Somebody give me a zanex...
And people, stop using Gingerbreak!!!!!!
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Okay comparing A Tablet or PHone to a car is stupid... Compare it to a Desktop Computer or Laptop... Companies do not lock them down so you can not use different OS's now do they.. They offer Backups to restore the system back to how it was with recovery partitions dont they? or they offer the choice to buy whatever OS you want to install correct? they don't limit you to say just Windows or *NIX do they? But we don't see laptops or desktops locked down to where you can't upgrade your system yourself or anything else... and any dumdass can do that without an issue most of the time. and there is more issues with viruses and crap on computers than phones or tablets...
So before you start making statements like compare this to that learn what to compare to first. If you mess something up on a hardware level sure pay for it.. if you mess something up on a software level because they decided to Babysit people its their fault. and if you think its the persons fault because they decided to open up a PRODUCT that they bought and own then you are one of the people that need babysitting and like everyone telling you what to do and how to do it. Go to an apple product then.
---------- Post added at 07:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:51 PM ----------
Also if you really brick your device you can always give
http://paranoidandroid.us an email to findout about getting it fixed
wade7919 said:
Okay comparing A Tablet or PHone to a car is stupid... Compare it to a Desktop Computer or Laptop... Companies do not lock them down so you can not use different OS's now do they.. They offer Backups to restore the system back to how it was with recovery partitions dont they? or they offer the choice to buy whatever OS you want to install correct? they don't limit you to say just Windows or *NIX do they? But we don't see laptops or desktops locked down to where you can't upgrade your system yourself or anything else... and any dumdass can do that without an issue most of the time. and there is more issues with viruses and crap on computers than phones or tablets...
So before you start making statements like compare this to that learn what to compare to first. If you mess something up on a hardware level sure pay for it.. if you mess something up on a software level because they decided to Babysit people its their fault. and if you think its the persons fault because they decided to open up a PRODUCT that they bought and own then you are one of the people that need babysitting and like everyone telling you what to do and how to do it. Go to an apple product then.
---------- Post added at 07:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:51 PM ----------
Also if you really brick your device you can always give
http://paranoidandroid.us an email to findout about getting it fixed
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I still like my car comparison
I make the car comparison to illustrate a point, because when I compare tablets to a PC everyone piles on *****ing about MS.
Bottom-line it doesn't matter if it's a blender or a PC. I own it, you own yours and I can do what I want with mine as you can with yours. Now, again I have a BIG(did i mention BIG issue with them changing it on me after I bought it.
To get back on topic, is the original poster still out there?? Has any of this helped? Are you still bricked?? Give us an update so we know if anything worked or you still need help.
The device was returned and accepted for replacement by the shop.Got new one and feel very nervous to start rooting procedure over.I was really lucky that they did not charge me anything but I really want to know what I did wrong so I don't brick my new device again.
I will provide further details soon about my computer OS and firewall settings and perhaps we may figure out what I did wrong.
To all good guys who send me them suggestions and solutions I wanna say big THANK YOU !!!
Your help is really priceless and thrilled me deeply. Will update topic soon
Happy New Yer to all Android fans!!!
So...Back on the subject.
My device was purchased in Japan and its current firmware version is
Acer_A500_7.009.03_AAP_CUS6JP
Q1. Can I flash US or World Wide firmware version on that device.
Q2. Does anybody know the Acer's ftp download server address for Japan
Q3. I think its a good idea to dump my original stock firmware but it seems there is no way doing that prior rooting.So..kinda stuck .any suggestions appreciated.
P.S. I'm thinking about flashing the latest Rooted rom 3.2.1 V3 by timmiDean (thanks for your hard work) I read the instructions very carefully and I think that everything will go smoothly but just in case (considering the specific Japanese firmware version)
would appreciate any further directions by the author.
Thanks
I know there's a lot of threads on this, and some guides, but they're all so vague. It seems like a lot of people are making suggestions based on assumptions that the people having the problem have a slight idea of what to do.
I don't. At all. All I know is there's a program that lets you control your phone with your PC, but you have to do something that NORMAL people DO NOT think to do with their phone. (Enable USB Debugging.)
Now I'm stuck with an entirely, repeat, entirely non-functioning screen. As in, no display, no response to touch, nothing.
What I want to get off the phone, as far as I know, can't be done just by copying and pasting the files to my computer.
I have some game save files on there that I didn't upload to Cloud, so I can't exactly get them back.
It's really irritating to start games over constantly, and I had a fair bit of progress on a number of them, so I really DON'T want to start over again.
If someone could PLEASE help me with this, properly, with more detailed instructions, I would be grateful. I already downloaded [email protected], but again, since I don't have USB Debugging enabled, and NO WAY to do so by means of the phone, it's kind of useless.
I had a similair situation myself and I just gave up.
You need to enable it in the build.prop and you need to disable rsa signature.
The only way you can do that is by flashing it trough a custom recovery. But you cannot select the file. Thus unless you can figure out a way to flash that trough Odin.....
See, now if it's possible, it would be great to get a walkthrough of how to do so.
Either that, or just be told how to grab the save files of my mobile games so I don't have to start over again.
Hi,
Long story short, ive messed up my sons tablet. He forgot his log in details and we had no way to recover the account. So i did a hard reset thinking it could be set up as a new tablet but turns out you have to have to sign in with the original google account only, which we cant do. Cant find the receipt for it so Samsung won flash the rom for us and fix it either.
So looked into doing it myself, downloaded Android studio for my mac, plugged the tablet into the computer and it instantly came up with a warning screen about downloading a custom rom saying "if you want to download a custom OS, press the volume up key, otherwise press volume down to cancel. If i press up it says downloading but its been like that for ages, if i press volume down it boots into android and I'm back to square one. I cant get back into the boot loader screen by holding power, volume down and menu either, it just loads the warning page again.
I've been trying to make sense of of how to use ABD, Fastboot and SDK manager etc and im way out my depth. Im guessing everything a lot harder on a Mac but im stumped as to what I can do with it, if it can even be recovered.
Many thanks.
FRP lock
This is known as the FRP lock. Though very difficult, it can be bypassed. Search the forum for T580 FRP discussions. There are several.
Probably the easiest solution would be to sell yours on eBay and buy another that isn't locked. You will, of course, lose money on the deal, but save yourself a lot of headaches. If you do sell yours, make sure you list it as FRP locked.
Thanks Lewmur, sounds like it's out of my league but I'll read through the thread and see if I can make sense of it.
If not I'll follow your advice and sell it on.
Many thanks.
baggers1982 said:
Thanks Lewmur, sounds like it's out of my league but I'll read through the thread and see if I can make sense of it.
If not I'll follow your advice and sell it on.
Many thanks.
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Let me know if you list it.