" PWNED " :-D
As you know, Archos bootloaders check digital signatures of init and recovery kernels, so you need to install SDE to use custom kernels, and it somehow "watermarks" the device.
Good news everyone! I've disassembled both bootloaders, found the code which checks signature, and replaced it (first instructions of verify_hash function) with "return 0" which is "mov r0, #0; bx lr" in ARM assembly. It's much the same hack as on Archos 5, thanks EiNSTeiN from archos.g3nius.org for reverse engineering previous generation.
Archos gen8 boots using OMAP boot ROM from internal eMMC card. Primary bootloader ("boot0") is in 0x20000 bytes after the first sector of internal flash (i.e. at 0x200) and secondary bootloader is written into rawfs, /mnt/rawfs/avboot. boot0 contains image size and loading address in first 8 bytes.
So, here is the patch:
1) boot0: replace 8 bytes at 0x7520 from the beginning of mmcblk0 from 7F402DE9003091E5 to 0000A0E31EFF2FE1.
2) avboot: replace 8 bytes at 0x14424 in avboot from 7F402DE9003091E5 to 0000A0E31EFF2FE1 (same patch). 0x14424 from avboot beginning is usually 0x14824 from the beginning of mmcblk0p1 (avboot comes first in rawfs, just after 2 blocks of header).
Of course you need root to do it. I've done it on my Archos 101, then changed 1 byte in recovery image - it boots into recovery without problem (before the hack it didn't boot into this 1-byte changed recovery).
And of course do it with caution and at your own risk DO NOT replace the bytes if you find other original data at these offsets! Bad boot0 or avboot means bricked Archos. There must be some sort of test point (something connected to OMAP SYS_BOOT5 pin) to boot from USB, or a boot UART interface, so debricking the device must be possible, but it would require some effort to find it, find a proper bootloader and use it.
If someone wants to see IDA database, I'll send my.
P.S: I do not have enough messages to post inside Development subforum, so I'm posting here.
Great work! With this base, can yout get something like CW to run?
I'm so waiting for him to come back and say April fools.
I'm gonna screw him up if this was an april fool
First, if this is an April fools, I will find you and hurt you.
Second, what does all that mean anyway? Does that mean Cyanogen on Gen8 is near? Does it have anything to do with roms?
vitalif said:
P.S: I do not have enough messages to post inside Development subforum, so I'm posting here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you should increase that number of post by explaining how you did this.
)))) No it isn't an April fool, my device now really has a modified recovery. Ridiculously modified (1 byte changed), but that's the proof!
Check the patch by yourself )) all you need to write to mmcblk0 is a standard linux dd tool... which is included into standard Archos busybox...
wdl1908 said:
Maybe you should increase that number of post by explaining how you did this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In fact, it was not hard, and if I knew ARM assembly language before, it would be even easier... All I had to do is to find bootloader on the flash (boot0 is obviously in its beginning, and avboot is on /mnt/rawfs), copy it to computer, download IDA, feed bootloader to it and find functions similar to ones described on archos.g3nius.org (BigInteger_ModulusEnter, RSADecipher, etc). It also could be simpler, as BigInteger_ModulusEnter is mentioned inside an ASCII string inside data section... But I've found them by text search also there is a magic "ZMfX" in first 4 bytes of avboot and some other magic inside init and recovery... One also could use them to find interesting points in bootloader.
At first I've started disassembling with the wrong base address, but bootloader has code which copies itself to the correct one in the very beginning, so I've changed it and started over. In fact, it has size and address in first 8 bytes, so this also could be simpler...
So the hack is done, what needs to be done by now - utilize it and create some custom ROM or simply flash urukdroid without SDE...
chulri said:
Great work! With this base, can you get something like CW to run?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CW == ClockWorkMod recovery? I don't have any experience with CWM porting yet, but in theory yes, the hack gives us the ability to run custom recovery images.
Don't know alot about the bootloader, but what advantage does this have?
SWFlyerUK said:
Don't know alot about the bootloader, but what advantage does this have?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hm. I'll explain... Bootloader is the program which starts up the device, similar to bootloader on your PC signature check in bootloader prevents us installing modified Linux kernel, initial ramdisk and recovery images. So, for example, we can't have netfilter in kernel without installing SDE, we can't have ClockWorkMod recovery on Archos at all, and we can't, for example, change MMC card splitting into 512M mmcblk0 for system + remaining for "internal SD" with data.
With signature check removed, all this is possible.
The underlying idea of all this signature checking is probably protecting f**king DRM... I HATE IT !!!!!! And hate companies promoting it =) When you install SDE on previous generation archos (5it), it removes drm keys from device memory (this is the "watermarking" mentioned on Archos site). It makes device unable to play the content buyed for it anymore... Not a big deal, but unpleasant. I don't know if this is the same on gen8.
In detail: Archos 101 has OMAP3630 processor. The "0-stage" (very-very first stage) bootloader, i.e. program which gains control after processor power-up, is hard-coded into one-time programmable area on the processor itself and is named "OMAP boot ROM" (similar to PC BIOS). The boot ROM can continue device booting process from different devices including SD/MMC card, NAND flash, UART (serial port) or USB interfaces. The boot sequence is determined from physical pin connection configuration. Our Archos boots from internal eMMC card.
So, OMAP boot ROM loads primary Archos bootloader, without checking any signatures or checksums, and simply transmits control to it. Primary bootloader sets up some processor configuration and then reads secondary bootloader (avboot) from flash. Then, it checks its MD5-RSA digital signature using Archos public key. If signature is incorrect, it hangs the device (goes to infinite loop). So if we modify avboot without removing signature check from boot0, device would be bricked. If signature is correct, control is transmitted to avboot. Avboot determines what system we want to start by pressing different keys, loads it, checks signature if system is init (normal system) or recovery, sets up configuration for Linux kernel and transmit control to Linux.
Interesting facts:
* According to the code, boot0 can use rawfs or FAT filesystems for boot partition.
* During boot process, various messages are printed to serial console. avboot even has some code for receiving commands over serial connections.
* OMAP processor boot sequence can be configured via special memory area which remains unchanged after soft reset, and this configuration will override one determined by physical pin configuration. This does not give us much profit, but is also interesting...
Thanks for the explanation, so is it worth doing for a noticable difference in performance etc?
SWFlyerUK said:
Thanks for the explanation, so is it worth doing for a noticable difference in performance etc?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whats being done will have no affect on performance of the device. It will however, allow a lot of work that can contribute to better performance on the device. That is assuming that we can put on a modified clockworkmod recovery on these devices without bricking them.
He says the only way to do this is with root but in order to have root with r/w access at this point is SDE....right? Don't get me wrong custom recovery with the ability to make backups would be awesome but it seems SDE will still be necessary unless a new rooting option comes along.
*on a side note about root has anyone tried using psneuter to gain temp root through ADB? I really am not super knowledgeable about this stuff but this was used on the thunderbolt to aid in getting full root and s-off.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
JBO1018 said:
He says the only way to do this is with root but in order to have root with r/w access at this point is SDE....right? Don't get me wrong custom recovery with the ability to make backups would be awesome but it seems SDE will still be necessary unless a new rooting option comes along.
*on a side note about root has anyone tried using psneuter to gain temp root through ADB? I really am not super knowledgeable about this stuff but this was used on the thunderbolt to aid in getting full root and s-off.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Archangel will give you temp root without using SDE.
He said root with r/w access. Archangel won't do that, the file system is still protected.
pbarrett said:
He said root with r/w access. Archangel won't do that, the file system is still protected.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope r/w access is not needed the only changes to be made are on /dev/mmcblk0p1 which is mounted on /mnt/rawfs the read-only is on the root file system so they are seperate. Archangel will do just fine for this.
wdl1908 said:
Nope r/w access is not needed the only changes to be made are on /dev/mmcblk0p1 which is mounted on /mnt/rawfs the read-only is on the root file system so they are seperate. Archangel will do just fine for this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be correct, there is no write protection on internal MMC at all, there is readonly rootfs which is mounted from a squashfs archive (squashfs is compressed readonly filesystem commonly used on Linux Live CDs), so you can't modify _files_ on it while it is mounted. But, nothing stops you from updating it as a whole.
Urukdroid
Someone should give a shout out ro $auron, creator of the Urukdroid project about this, he might find it useful.
So, if your hack is confirmed, that would give us the possibility to port CW recovery and Cyanogen to Gen8 devices... am I right ?
shrewdlove said:
Someone should give a shout out ro $auron, creator of the Urukdroid project about this, he might find it useful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think he has already seen this thread but you can ask him
lechuckthepirate said:
So, if your hack is confirmed, that would give us the possibility to port CW recovery and Cyanogen to Gen8 devices... am I right ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you are^^ but the thing is you have to port cyanogen to our gen8^^ and this must be done by a or more devs
i heard the biggest problem is that our touchscreen is connected by an usb controller inside the archos thats why the honeycomb port by luisivan is not recognize our touchscreen ( but when the source code is released, finally, we will get a hc port )
Lennb said:
i heard the biggest problem is that our touchscreen is connected by an usb controller inside the archos thats why the honeycomb port by luisivan is not recognize our touchscreen ( but when the source code is released, finally, we will get a hc port )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this isn't a problem for cyanogen (v7 = Android 2.3.3) because we have the source.
Hi all,
Has anyone followed Rayman's excellent article the-inner-workings-of-secure-boot-key-and-nvflash and fully recovered a N7 from APX only mode?
I have this situation which I think resulted from the battery dying during the 4.4.2 update - Doh I know, but thought I had enough juice to complete the update.
Rayman says the required files will be made available but I cannot find them anywhere
Since every motherboard has a unique key, there is no generic blob. To be able to recover your N7, you will need a backup of it, but it's impossible to make if your device is dead.
Try to send it to Asus/Google.
Erovia said:
Since every motherboard has a unique key, there is no generic blob. To be able to recover your N7, you will need a backup of it, but it's impossible to make if your device is dead.
Try to send it to Asus/Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you read the article? Sounds like you can use the sbk which is a hash of the cpuid...
Nope, but why don't you ask around in the flatline topic?
Erovia said:
Nope, but why don't you ask around in the flatline topic?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
too much of a noob to post on the forum, but thanks for the pointer.
FYI Raymans article. It does sound possible to bring it back, but there was no follow up with the required files;
What is Secure Boot Key and how does it work?
I've been getting lots of questions about this, so here is some simple background:
The secure boot key is an AES128 encryption key that can used to encrypt various data on the flash memory. It's a generic nvidia tegra2 thing, that the manufacturer can optionally use to make their device more "secure".
When the SBK is set, it's stored in a one-time-programmable "fuse". This also means that now that the key is out, they can't change it on already released devices, only new devices.
When the tegra2 starts up, the AES key is available to the hardware AES engine only. E.g. not even the bootloader can read it back! However, the bootloader can *use* the key to encrypt whatever data it wants through the hardware AES engine. And here is the explanation why the blob flashing method actually works! The bootloader checks for the blob in the staging partition and encrypts and flashes it as needed.
Once the bootloader is done, it clear the key from the AES engine which makes it impossible to encrypt or decrypt things from within the OS.
So what happens when it boots into APX/Nvflash mode?
The basic APX mode is stored in the BootROM and hence can never be changed. It appears to accept only a very limited range of commands, and each command needs to be encrypted using the SBK to be accepted. If it receives a command that's not properly encrypted, it disconnects the USB and appears to be off. This is the dreaded "0x4" error that people have been getting when attempting to get nvflash working.
It should be noted, that even with the SBK inputted into nvflash, most regular nvflash commands won't be available. I'm still not entirely sure why (and I can't rule out it will change).
What *is* available, is the nvflash --create command. What this command does is repartition and format all partitions, set bct and odmdata and send over all needed partitions to the device (and encrypt them as needed). This means a full recovery is possible, but regular ability to flash e.g. just boot.img or read partitions off of the device is not possible at this point.
So what do we need for nvflash?
In order to get a working (e.g. --create) nvflash, we need a few bits of information as well as some files:
◦Secure Boot Key
◦BCT file (boot device setup, ram configuration and a bit more)
◦ODM data (board-specific bit-field specifying various board settings. *Needs* to be correct
◦flash.cfg (e.g. list of settings and names/identifiers of partitions.
On top of these files, we also need all the partitions, e.g. bootloader.bin, boot.img, recovery.img and system.img. Luckily, these partition files are available in official ASUS updates and can be extracted from the blob file using my blob tools
The first four peices aren't readily available, but through lots of effort and a good deal of luck, we have managed to recreate the needed files. Secure Boot Key has already been released (note that this was by far the hardest!) and the rest will most likely follow over the weekend. Keep in mind that we want to keep this legal, so don't expect us to release any ready-made packs for unbricking! We will however make the recreated files available. Since these are recreated and not actual ASUS files, there should be no problems with them.
I hope this helps give a better understanding of how and what secure boot key is and what it gives us.
LG G5 VERIZON VS987
Unofficial bootloader unlock
In-Progress
This is a project to disassemble and rebuild an unlocked aboot that passes the sbl loader test, thus allowing installation of custom kernels, read/write access to system, TWRP recovery, and custom ROMs. You can follow the progress or ask questions about it here, or offer your help to make my life a little easier. Donations help, too, especially to maintain the machine these VMs and tools run on.
PHASE 1 - RAMDISK EXTRACTION: DONE
(Attachment 2 & 3): I have extracted the ramdisks from the KDZ bin data. I have the ramdisks and accompneying kernel files in tar files.
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PHASE 2 - TARGET DISASSEMBLY: DONE
(Attachment 1): I have disassembled the ELF binaries. objdump is sloppy, but I was able to get to the branch instructions and find my offsets for each subroutine. I also located the factory signature data for verification by sbl.
PHASE 3 - CERTIFICATE EXTRACTION: IN-PROGRESS
Extracting and parsing the PCS data. It's needed for verification by the sbl to avoid security fail when booting a modified aboot.
PHASE 4 - UNLOCKING NEEDS DONE
Re-coding aboot to accept a bootloader unlock, and access to fastboot.
PHASE 5 - RECOMPILATION AND TESTING (ABOOT)NEEDS DONE
Re-building the aboot binary and testing it.
PHASE 5 - LITTLEKERNEL AND SYSTEM ACCESS (BOOT)NEEDS DONE
Puling apart stock kernel, grabbing needed modules, disabling SELinux and dmverify.
Analysing system image, removing boot-time LG security checks, applying root.
PHASE 6 - TWRP BUILD (RECOVERY) NEEDS DONE
Building user-friendly recovery image.
PHASE 7 - BUILD TOT FILE NEEDS DONE
Package it all into an LGUp Flashable TOT and release.
If you would like to help with this project, please make yourself known.
If you would like to donate to show thanks, the button is underneath my name or in my profile.
If you have a comment or can leave documentation or advice, do so below
Nice.. Hoping for the best
LupineDream said:
LG G5 VERIZON VS987
Unofficial bootloader unlock
In-Progress
This is a project to disassemble and rebuild an unlocked aboot that passes the sbl loader test, thus allowing installation of custom kernels, read/write access to system, TWRP recovery, and custom ROMs. You can follow the progress or ask questions about it here, or offer your help to make my life a little easier. Donations help, too, especially to maintain the machine these VMs and tools run on.
PHASE 1 - RAMDISK EXTRACTION: DONE
(Attachment 2 & 3): I have extracted the ramdisks from the KDZ bin data. I have the ramdisks and accompneying kernel files in tar files.
View attachment 4016279
View attachment 4016280
PHASE 2 - TARGET DISASSEMBLY: DONE
(Attachment 1): I have disassembled the ELF binaries. objdump is sloppy, but I was able to get to the branch instructions and find my offsets for each subroutine. I also located the factory signature data for verification by sbl.
View attachment 4016278
PHASE 3 - CERTIFICATE EXTRACTION: IN-PROGRESS
Extracting and parsing the PCS data. It's needed for verification by the sbl to avoid security fail when booting a modified aboot.
PHASE 4 - UNLOCKING NEEDS DONE
Re-coding aboot to accept a bootloader unlock, and access to fastboot.
PHASE 5 - RECOMPILATION AND TESTING (ABOOT)NEEDS DONE
Re-building the aboot binary and testing it.
PHASE 5 - LITTLEKERNEL AND SYSTEM ACCESS (BOOT)NEEDS DONE
Puling apart stock kernel, grabbing needed modules, disabling SELinux and dmverify.
Analysing system image, removing boot-time LG security checks, applying root.
PHASE 6 - TWRP BUILD (RECOVERY) NEEDS DONE
Building user-friendly recovery image.
PHASE 7 - BUILD TOT FILE NEEDS DONE
Package it all into an LGUp Flashable TOT and release.
If you would like to help with this project, please make yourself known.
If you would like to donate to show thanks, the button is underneath my name or in my profile.
If you have a comment or can leave documentation or advice, do so below
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice to know there is people working on an unofficial bootloader unlock for the lg g5 good job !
I would also like to ask a question if you don't mind : once done, does this variant of the g5 is similar enough to some variants to be able to "port" the unlock or the approach is too specific to the variant ?
Im currently grabbing a more android build-friendly release of Xenial. Google does not support building from a x86 OS. When I tried to git the "official" google toolchain in consideration of doing things 100% correct in a VM, I ran into the dreaded "x86 build host unsupported" problem. The VM host I am grabbing is here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/chef-central/android/guide-how-to-setup-ubuntu-16-04-lts-t3363669 I am going to need the google build source for the kernel, plus the makefiles for the generic arm v7a neon arcitecture. Best do it all the right way instead of having to re-do it all later.
In the meantime, I am cramming some thumb-2 tutorials. La la la~
nalf3in said:
Nice to know there is people working on an unofficial bootloader unlock for the lg g5 good job !
I would also like to ask a question if you don't mind : once done, does this variant of the g5 is similar enough to some variants to be able to "port" the unlock or the approach is too specific to the variant ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd have to check the aboot and boot / kernel to see if there's any major differences. Since this is a direct aboot disassembly, it's varient specific, but I will surely be checking if the approach can be applied to different varients' booters via scripting or some such thing. It would mean coding of a patchfile and a TOT builder, adding an entire extra level of complexity, but I'll get to your answer as soon as I have finished with this model.
Howdy there,
Looks like you're attempting to modify an element in the Qualcomm Secure Boot chain (aboot in this case) - unfortunately what you're trying to do won't work.
I don't want to rain on your parade here, or discourage you from learning something for the sake of learning it but simply modifying a component of the boot stack by recompiling it and slapping the same signatures on it isn't possible.
I'd recommend you take a look at any of the awesome posts on XDA about how the Secure Boot 3 (is there a newer version?) process works as you'll see that each step in the boot process (pbl -> xbl -> {tz, rpm} -> aboot) is verified using RSA public/private key signatures.
You won't be able to simply extract the certificate chain from the old aboot (LK) image and append it to your source-built LK, as the hash embedded in the certificate chain won't match the computed hash of the LK application.
Your next thought would be "what if I could find where the validation function is called and replace it?", but you'll find that each step in the boot process calls TrustZone's secureboot verification functions which rely on data stored in qFuses.
Even then, the function TrustZone itself calls is actually provided by PBL and is burned into the chip itself.
Essentially, the path you're trying to take is one that Qualcomm has thoroughly hardened the boot process to protect against.
I'm not trying to discourage you from learning, since doing this sort of reverse engineering is very fascinating and a fun learning exercise - I just want to let you know that if you try to flash a modified aboot image that you'll end up with a brick (and no way that I'm aware of to recover short of soldering up some UFS lines and reflashing like that since iirc even JTAG is disabled now and we lack signed programmers for USB recovery).
Check out one of the Secure Boot PDFs that are available on Google/XDA and you should see what I mean.
Best of luck to you, and happy learning!
LupineDream said:
(Attachment 2 & 3): I have extracted the ramdisks from the KDZ bin data. I have the ramdisks and accompneying kernel files in tar files.
View attachment 4016279
View attachment 4016280
PHASE 2 - TARGET DISASSEMBLY: DONE
(Attachment 1): I have disassembled the ELF binaries. objdump is sloppy, but I was able to get to the branch instructions and find my offsets for each subroutine. I also located the factory signature data for verification by sbl.
View attachment 4016278
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like thecubed said, by flashing a modified aboot you'll brick the device, but the fact that you figured out how to extract the aboot image is EXTREMELY impressive! If you wouldn't mind it would be very helpful if you make a guide on how you did that or if you could post your extracted aboot files that would be much much appreciated An insight on how aboot for the G5 works would be something very nice to have
thecubed said:
Howdy there,
Looks like you're attempting to modify an element in the Qualcomm Secure Boot chain (aboot in this case) - unfortunately what you're trying to do won't work.
I don't want to rain on your parade here, or discourage you from learning something for the sake of learning it but simply modifying a component of the boot stack by recompiling it and slapping the same signatures on it isn't possible.
...
[ removed in quote ]
...
Best of luck to you, and happy learning!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the inspiration. The task has been a thorough crash-course in arm v7a NEON Cortex technology and thumb-2 assembler. I was concerned when I saw the TrustZone documentation from ARM and the ACEP (Arbitrary Code Execution Prevention) stack. Your mention of qfuse brings back memories of the Samsung "Golden Routines" folly.
Unfortunetly I wasn't a backer of the Raspberry PI, but there are other PCBs with GPIO pins. My reason for mention this is the JTAG connundrum you mentioned. It is null and void to a soldering gun, a few resisters ($2-$3, and the on-chip ARM debugging interface included in most integrated ARM chipsets. PCBs that run Linux with a GPIO pin array are the cheapest and most flexable solution to an expensive piece of lab / R & D equipment (JTAG), and the impact on the bank account is a fraction of what it would cost the end-consumer.
Hash collisions and backprop neural nets. What? OK, I'll explain. Most reverse engineering begins with monitoring the usual operation of the device as you are aware. Approach 1 involves training a backpropping neural network to recognize (within a reasonably less amount of computation) a hash collision. Of course, you aren't going to be getting to these pre-coded hashes without breaking the RSA chain (thats 100 zeros O__O ) , this is fixed by monitoring the debug interface we both mentioned earlier, at power-on. ARM processors work such that they cannot do DMAC (direct memory access computation), so the values need to be pushed into registers and acted on as plain byte, then pushed back to memory. Sniff, find out what's coming to/from the qfuse memory bus area into registers, dump the data, and you'll have your root CA with luck. You'll be looking for the in operand, that is, the one that is to be acted on in the cipher that is incoming from qfuse. Cycle-timing to ignore the rest of the computations for this byte, you're basically waiting until qfuse pushes the next byte of its keys into a register and grabbing it in the same cycle the instruction is working on it.
That said, with a $100 and a soldering gun and a laptop, you have your RSA key direct from CPU memory via the debug interface. After you've got your root CA, would it be feasable to start decrypting the intermediate CA chain for each component of boot until you get the hash? In theory this should work without brute-force, but a lot of time in a code window and with an oscilliscope. Once you've had the decrypted hash, you can begin to look for a hash collision. There are open source tools that will find hash collisions in an hour or less using neural nets. Write an aboot that complies to this hash collision, flash it, and qfuse will not be able to tell the difference.
Thats my theory on exploiting the fact ARM needs to do its computations in an area that is accessable to the debug interface. Of course my theory falls apart if the TrustZone chipset has its own processor.
Honestly Annoying said:
Like thecubed said, by flashing a modified aboot you'll brick the device, but the fact that you figured out how to extract the aboot image is EXTREMELY impressive! If you wouldn't mind it would be very helpful if you make a guide on how you did that or if you could post your extracted aboot files that would be much much appreciated An insight on how aboot for the G5 works would be something very nice to have
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd be okay with writing such guide as long as it followed community guidelines. I should not be posting disassembled code and analysis if it's against the rules to do so. If a mod could clear this for me....
After searching around I located the true specs for the G5. It's a Snapdragon 820 SoC. It runs the new ARM v8A instruction set.
More detailed information here -> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/snapdragon-820-performance-preview,4389-2.html.
More specifically, it's on the msm8996 platform: http://system-on-a-chip.specout.com/l/1170/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-820-MSM8996
Phones with this arcitechture: https://www.kimovil.com/en/list-smartphones-by-processor/qualcomm-snapdragon-820-msm8996
Xiaomi Mi5 has official bootloader unlock via a tool (reverse engineer to work with our platform?)
HTC 10 bootloader on certain models can be oem-unlocked.
Lenovo ZUK Z2 bootloader can be oem-unlocked
LG V20 bootloader can be oem-unlocked, and is the closest in hardware to our G5!
Perhaps stealing a kernel and boot from a similar varient that allows it, signing it with our key, hash-matching it? It all runs on the same platform with the same instruction set. Most of these phones have unlockable bootloaders.
I'd say the best target would be that unlock tool by Xaoimi. Its usually the third party vendor's tools you can find the biggest security holes in. xD From their documentation, it isn't an "enable OEM unlock" switch in Developer Options used to enable the unlock, the tool itself actually works on the bootloader. Perhaps the tool uses a feature of the MSM8996 we aren't aware of. It's worth looking into.
LupineDream said:
Thank you for the inspiration. The task has been a thorough crash-course in arm v7a NEON Cortex technology and thumb-2 assembler. I was concerned when I saw the TrustZone documentation from ARM and the ACEP (Arbitrary Code Execution Prevention) stack. Your mention of qfuse brings back memories of the Samsung "Golden Routines" folly.
Unfortunetly I wasn't a backer of the Raspberry PI, but there are other PCBs with GPIO pins. My reason for mention this is the JTAG connundrum you mentioned. It is null and void to a soldering gun, a few resisters ($2-$3, and the on-chip ARM debugging interface included in most integrated ARM chipsets. PCBs that run Linux with a GPIO pin array are the cheapest and most flexable solution to an expensive piece of lab / R & D equipment (JTAG), and the impact on the bank account is a fraction of what it would cost the end-consumer.
Hash collisions and backprop neural nets. What? OK, I'll explain. Most reverse engineering begins with monitoring the usual operation of the device as you are aware. Approach 1 involves training a backpropping neural network to recognize (within a reasonably less amount of computation) a hash collision. Of course, you aren't going to be getting to these pre-coded hashes without breaking the RSA chain (thats 100 zeros O__O ) , this is fixed by monitoring the debug interface we both mentioned earlier, at power-on. ARM processors work such that they cannot do DMAC (direct memory access computation), so the values need to be pushed into registers and acted on as plain byte, then pushed back to memory. Sniff, find out what's coming to/from the qfuse memory bus area into registers, dump the data, and you'll have your root CA with luck. You'll be looking for the in operand, that is, the one that is to be acted on in the cipher that is incoming from qfuse. Cycle-timing to ignore the rest of the computations for this byte, you're basically waiting until qfuse pushes the next byte of its keys into a register and grabbing it in the same cycle the instruction is working on it.
That said, with a $100 and a soldering gun and a laptop, you have your RSA key direct from CPU memory via the debug interface. After you've got your root CA, would it be feasable to start decrypting the intermediate CA chain for each component of boot until you get the hash? In theory this should work without brute-force, but a lot of time in a code window and with an oscilliscope. Once you've had the decrypted hash, you can begin to look for a hash collision. There are open source tools that will find hash collisions in an hour or less using neural nets. Write an aboot that complies to this hash collision, flash it, and qfuse will not be able to tell the difference.
Thats my theory on exploiting the fact ARM needs to do its computations in an area that is accessable to the debug interface. Of course my theory falls apart if the TrustZone chipset has its own processor.
I'd be okay with writing such guide as long as it followed community guidelines. I should not be posting disassembled code and analysis if it's against the rules to do so. If a mod could clear this for me....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello again!
Regarding your points:
JTAG is disabled on most production devices, as in 100% inoperable. No amount of soldering will enable it. I'm sure there are some exceptions to the rule, but in this case I'm fairly confident in saying that the JTAG interface on the G5 is unusable.
...even if JTAG was enabled, the Qualcomm Secure Boot stack is designed to protect itself from the exact type of attack you're describing here. The component of TrustZone that is doing the verification of boot images is not running in anything that is JTAG-accessible, and to my understanding it's not even running in the main ARM core.
Re: hash collisions and neural nets... What you're describing sounds neat in theory, but in application (again, to my knowledge) won't work. I suggest you read up on how RSA works.
RSA is public/private key cryptography - in this case, the certificates contained on the phone are the public component, and LG/Qualcomm are the only ones with the private component. "Extracting the CA" will yield the public portion that is only useful for verifying signatures, not signing them.
The only way you'd be able to sign anything and have the phone trust it is to either a) replace the CA on the phone (not possible, it's burned into qFuses) or b) obtain the private component of the CA or any of it's subsidiaries (also burned into qFuses)
CA chains aren't encrypted, they're just a list of things that the device will accept a signature for. In our case it's Qualcomm as the Root CA, then LG as an intermediate (and possibly a few other intermediates to allow OTA updates to come from differing builders/engineering teams within LG). Again, extracting the 'hash' of a CA will do no good here, as there's no meaningful collisions that can be generated and still be a valid boot image. I'm not the best person to explain RSA in depth, so I'd really recommend doing some further research on it.
LupineDream said:
After searching around I located the true specs for the G5. It's a Snapdragon 820 SoC. It runs the new ARM v8A instruction set.
More detailed information here -> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/snapdragon-820-performance-preview,4389-2.html.
More specifically, it's on the msm8996 platform: http://system-on-a-chip.specout.com/l/1170/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-820-MSM8996
Phones with this arcitechture: https://www.kimovil.com/en/list-smartphones-by-processor/qualcomm-snapdragon-820-msm8996
Xiaomi Mi5 has official bootloader unlock via a tool (reverse engineer to work with our platform?)
HTC 10 bootloader on certain models can be oem-unlocked.
Lenovo ZUK Z2 bootloader can be oem-unlocked
LG V20 bootloader can be oem-unlocked, and is the closest in hardware to our G5!
Perhaps stealing a kernel and boot from a similar varient that allows it, signing it with our key, hash-matching it? It all runs on the same platform with the same instruction set. Most of these phones have unlockable bootloaders.
I'd say the best target would be that unlock tool by Xaoimi. Its usually the third party vendor's tools you can find the biggest security holes in. xD From their documentation, it isn't an "enable OEM unlock" switch in Developer Options used to enable the unlock, the tool itself actually works on the bootloader. Perhaps the tool uses a feature of the MSM8996 we aren't aware of. It's worth looking into.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bootloaders for other phones will not work on our phone, as of course it'll fail the Secure Boot check.
Bootloader unlock tools for other phones will not work because they're relying on manufacturer specific unlock code that's compiled into aboot (LK). Qualcomm's CAF version of LK doesn't include any unlock code checking functionality, so most manufacturers add that themselves.
LG, in this case, is not even including the code for a bootloader unlock in the US model bootloaders. If you're familiar with C, essentially LG has `#ifdef`'d the entire section of code out (including fastboot).
The V20 bootloader does indeed contain oem-unlock code, but Secure Boot will prevent you from flashing the V20's bootloader (even if it magically was code-compatible with the G5) because Secure Boot checks the hardware ID that's burned into qFuses.
This means, to add a bootloader unlock, you'd have to modify aboot, which can't be done because of Secure Boot. Secure Boot components can't be modified because of RSA, and the RSA verification can't be altered because the keys are burned into qFuses.
thecubed said:
Hello again!
Regarding your points:
JTAG is disabled on most production devices, as in 100% inoperable. No amount of soldering will enable it. I'm sure there are some exceptions to the rule, but in this case I'm fairly confident in saying that the JTAG interface on the G5 is unusable.
...even if JTAG was enabled, the Qualcomm Secure Boot stack is designed to protect itself from the exact type of attack you're describing here. The component of TrustZone that is doing the verification of boot images is not running in anything that is JTAG-accessible, and to my understanding it's not even running in the main ARM core.
Re: hash collisions and neural nets... What you're describing sounds neat in theory, but in application (again, to my knowledge) won't work. I suggest you read up on how RSA works.
RSA is public/private key cryptography - in this case, the certificates contained on the phone are the public component, and LG/Qualcomm are the only ones with the private component. "Extracting the CA" will yield the public portion that is only useful for verifying signatures, not signing them.
The only way you'd be able to sign anything and have the phone trust it is to either a) replace the CA on the phone (not possible, it's burned into qFuses) or b) obtain the private component of the CA or any of it's subsidiaries (also burned into qFuses)
CA chains aren't encrypted, they're just a list of things that the device will accept a signature for. In our case it's Qualcomm as the Root CA, then LG as an intermediate (and possibly a few other intermediates to allow OTA updates to come from differing builders/engineering teams within LG). Again, extracting the 'hash' of a CA will do no good here, as there's no meaningful collisions that can be generated and still be a valid boot image. I'm not the best person to explain RSA in depth, so I'd really recommend doing some further research on it.
Bootloaders for other phones will not work on our phone, as of course it'll fail the Secure Boot check.
Bootloader unlock tools for other phones will not work because they're relying on manufacturer specific unlock code that's compiled into aboot (LK). Qualcomm's CAF version of LK doesn't include any unlock code checking functionality, so most manufacturers add that themselves.
LG, in this case, is not even including the code for a bootloader unlock in the US model bootloaders. If you're familiar with C, essentially LG has `#ifdef`'d the entire section of code out (including fastboot).
The V20 bootloader does indeed contain oem-unlock code, but Secure Boot will prevent you from flashing the V20's bootloader (even if it magically was code-compatible with the G5) because Secure Boot checks the hardware ID that's burned into qFuses.
This means, to add a bootloader unlock, you'd have to modify aboot, which can't be done because of Secure Boot. Secure Boot components can't be modified because of RSA, and the RSA verification can't be altered because the keys are burned into qFuses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So in this case, what would be the next image in the stack that would allow any kind of modifications? Should I be looking at boot.img instead? Would there be a method of tricking the signed and secure boot chain into believing what it sees isn't executing as root?
had been looking through some old methods of root, like causing a boot error by zeroing laf or flashing over it, causing the bootloader to drop you into fastboot, booted securely from there you could call a kcal perameter of the stock kernel that allowed a sort of debugging mode with systemwide root. That exploit was in the G2 era, and how that device obtained root.
I've seen a method that causes Knox to lock up on some Samsung devices by overloading its memory addresses or repeatedly zeroing certain bits of RAM.
I'd really need to find out what method works. If you can't make any modification, maybe there's a workaround to make it THINK everything is legit beyond the boot chain.
aboot decription
Ok I have been working on an lg g5 vs987 myself and I got to the recoding the aboot part and was totally lost its all encrypted and I have no idea where to start to even see what the code is really saying I am new to this website and I am also new to coding on android if you can guide me in the right direction I might be able to help. I have always dreamed of being a part of a development like this and now I might have a shot. Thank you so much for your work and I hope to hear from you soon!
alphawolves said:
Ok I have been working on an lg g5 vs987 myself and I got to the recoding the aboot part and was totally lost its all encrypted and I have no idea where to start to even see what the code is really saying I am new to this website and I am also new to coding on android if you can guide me in the right direction I might be able to help. I have always dreamed of being a part of a development like this and now I might have a shot. Thank you so much for your work and I hope to hear from you soon!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dissembling and recoding aboot wont work no matter even if it is not encrypted..
It is already mentioned above by @thecubed ..
The secure boot will always verify the signature and dissassembly will generate no signature.
We need to find the private keys used for generating the public hash.. but that is not possible unless leaked from lg which is also very unlikely..
What a hacker can do is find a bug/vulnerability in aboot that can bypass secureboot..or a hardware loophole..
Plus there is a trustzone that itself secures the secureboot process.. so we have to find ways to exploit the bootchain so that we can somehow make the bootloader load unsigned ramdisks/recovery and such..
experienced people could do it.. but i guess there has been a lot of fuss between devs and wannabees..
Also if we can get debug build of aboot/ramdisk we can flash them to get unlock or at the very least root..
I am not expert on this but that how its simply put
A brave member sent me a very useful PDF specification on the TSF. The TSF is the official name for the portion of the integrated circuitry that controls the storage of the secure boot chain. The hardware routines are there to allow root to happen, but as stated before by @thecubed, LG commented out the entire section of a boot at compile time that allows anything to occur. Now the approach is to disassemble HOW the code that LG commented out works in the international variant that has an OEM unlock. Hardware routines exist that place the TSF into non-commercial mode, disabling functionality of certain enterprise software and deauth-ing the root CA in qfuse, allowing the user to flash their own signing certificates to the TSF (TrustZone) when a request to switch off CC mode is sent. There are all kinds of virtual memory protections, ACE protections, malicious code protections, and other things that the TSF handles. Trying any kind of unauthorised write to protected areas of memory results in blow of qfuse write fuse. It's actually a physical microscopic fuse that when pushed a specific voltage pops at a microscopic level kind of like a big fuse blowing only at a very tiny level. At this point write access anywhere is gone. This happens at the same time a full wipe of the system happens. That is why they say once qfuse blows your phone becomes a very expensive cup holder. Because after the qfuse blows there is no way of software recovery.
The only way to be able to disable commercial (CC mode) and be allowed to do anything to put your own boot chain in is to place the device in debug mode. The international varient contains code how to accomplish this, our devices don't. You would need to compile an app that runs in normal mode, causes a flag to be set that places the device into debug mode, then reboot. While in debug boot, you should be able to execute a CC unlock manually. The PDF I got says it's very specifically timed when this can happen, what parts of boot the TSF allows it to happen, and a rough explanation if what disabling CC mode means. The only way of getting root is to use the TSF-approved method but all this code is removed. The TSF does not stop you from executing code if booted into factory debug mode. The new approach I propose is to find an exploit to get into userdebug, and manually write an unlock routine with disassembled information from the international varient., pushing it directly into execution memory while in userdebug, being absolutely sure to give the TSF what it asks for, when it asks for it, at the exact timing for it.
LupineDream said:
A brave member sent me a very useful PDF specification on the TSF. The TSF is the official name for the portion of the integrated circuitry that controls the storage of the secure boot chain. The hardware routines are there to allow root to happen, but as stated before by @thecubed, LG commented out the entire section of a boot at compile time that allows anything to occur. Now the approach is to disassemble HOW the code that LG commented out works in the international variant that has an OEM unlock. Hardware routines exist that place the TSF into non-commercial mode, disabling functionality of certain enterprise software and deauth-ing the root CA in qfuse, allowing the user to flash their own signing certificates to the TSF (TrustZone) when a request to switch off CC mode is sent. There are all kinds of virtual memory protections, ACE protections, malicious code protections, and other things that the TSF handles. Trying any kind of unauthorised write to protected areas of memory results in blow of qfuse write fuse. It's actually a physical microscopic fuse that when pushed a specific voltage pops at a microscopic level kind of like a big fuse blowing only at a very tiny level. At this point write access anywhere is gone. This happens at the same time a full wipe of the system happens. That is why they say once qfuse blows your phone becomes a very expensive cup holder. Because after the qfuse blows there is no way of software recovery.
The only way to be able to disable commercial (CC mode) and be allowed to do anything to put your own boot chain in is to place the device in debug mode. The international varient contains code how to accomplish this, our devices don't. You would need to compile an app that runs in normal mode, causes a flag to be set that places the device into debug mode, then reboot. While in debug boot, you should be able to execute a CC unlock manually. The PDF I got says it's very specifically timed when this can happen, what parts of boot the TSF allows it to happen, and a rough explanation if what disabling CC mode means. The only way of getting root is to use the TSF-approved method but all this code is removed. The TSF does not stop you from executing code if booted into factory debug mode. The new approach I propose is to find an exploit to get into userdebug, and manually write an unlock routine with disassembled information from the international varient., pushing it directly into execution memory while in userdebug, being absolutely sure to give the TSF what it asks for, when it asks for it, at the exact timing for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that post @LupineDream ! I unfortunately doesn't understand most of the things you explained but perhaps I can save you a bit of time (your last post looks like you aren't aware of that exploit but thats maybe only me misundertanding) ; as far as I know the adb root method develloped by @HonestlyAnnoying include a userdebug kernel so (afaik) we already know an exploit to get into userdebug on marshmallow(dirty santa) and the fact that the users needs to run marshmallow shouldn't matter as (afaik) once the bootloader unlocked, the userdebug kernel is no longer needed and it is possible to change it.
Edit: just saw your post on the adb root thread, so I guess you are now aware of the exploit Sorry for the post, I just wanted to be sure you didn't missed it.
nalf3in said:
Thanks for that post @LupineDream ! I unfortunately doesn't understand most of the things you explained but perhaps I can save you a bit of time (your last post looks like you aren't aware of that exploit but thats maybe only me misundertanding) ; as far as I know the adb root method develloped by @HonestlyAnnoying include a userdebug kernel so (afaik) we already know an exploit to get into userdebug on marshmallow(dirty santa) and the fact that the users needs to run marshmallow shouldn't matter as (afaik) once the bootloader unlocked, the userdebug kernel is no longer needed and it is possible to change it.
Edit: just saw your post on the adb root thread, so I guess you are now aware of the exploit Sorry for the post, I just wanted to be sure you didn't missed the exploit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes thank you for affirming that, but not to worry, I got it. LG has an sbl module called anti-rollback that prevents flashing older software. If we look at the boot chain:
Code:
recovery
| /------------------ laf (fastboot)
__________________|__|_________________________________________ laf (security fail screen)
/ / / /
pbl -> sbl > aboot > boot (kernel/ramdisk) > system
^ ^
| |
| \-- IS_UNLOCKED and sig_Check()
Anti-rollback
I beleive anti-rollback was updated to a new version that prevents this on Nugout. Correct me if I'm wrong. I've tried every LG hidden menu code I could find to see, but can't even seem to get the hidden menu working... And the reason they did this is because of the worldwide alerts about dirtycow, which affects not only Android, but the whole of Linux, so we need a nogout kernel. A marshmallow kernel with the new anti-rollback would theoretically end up in the red triangle of death.
We need someone that has an engineering model with a userdebug kernel. LG makes you apply. Their program is called "LG GATE", and they are very picky. I think that's what helped out the Sprint community. Someone got a hold of a developer / engineering model with a marshmallow kernel.
Well, I already heard of that strange issue with the hidden menu and I always though it was a code 18 but after googling, it looks like it some carrier potentially disabled it.. Anyway, I can confirm you that the anti-rollback version is still 0 on my h831 running the latest nougat unless the hidden menu is "lying". (And most variant I know except sprint, which did triggered the counter with the update, stayed at their rollback version). I still encounter the same issues most people on nougat experienced with the adb root (wasn't able to get past reboot and needed to flash with uppercut a fresh 7.0 ) so I guess the issue is somewhere else.
Also, if you need any information that is on the hidden menu, feel free to ask me
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/fTwgSUF
Very exciting, gl
finally they are working on it
What about this line in the aboot.bin
(from canadian aboot)
LOAD:0F960100 aBootVerificati DCB " : boot verification skip ",0xA,0
Is there any way to disable boot verification? no need to go with full bootloader unlock.. if it's possible to just disable boot verification, right?
Hello and thank you to anyone that can point me in the right direction.
I was recently given a Note 3 from a friend and for whatever reason it will not detect any SD card. The SD cards are fine and work in my other Android phones, Windows computers and anything else. So aside from that, is there any way to unlock the bootloader on this phone without the use of an SD card? All the methods I've come across mention one is needed. Thanks.
NM. I think I found what I was looking for here.
riotstarter said:
NM. I think I found what I was looking for here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possibly* a lesser-effort way - same thread, but here.
I say "possibly" because you didn't state which OS release was on the phone. (I can assume MI9->NC4, OB6, or OF1 as you must be rooted. NJ6, NK1, and PL1 are - as of this time - problematic for easy rooting).
There were some dependencies of the exploit code on OS version due to the location of the "CID" value moving around inside the kernel volatile filesystem /sys. You might have to take account of that in building/modding the code. (Either that or just get rid of the CID check if you know that you have a 0x15 eMMC chip device). Unfortunately, you need to thoroughly read about the first 350 posts in that thread to completely understand the discoveries that were made.
Anyway, some pointers to version compatibility are here.
* @beaups code is very straightforward. (@donc113 's mods of that code have the correct binary patching blob for the SM-N900V - beaups's github code was for the AT&T version of the phone) You probably will have more troubles setting up a toolchain than actually modding or compiling the code if you go that route.
good luck.
ps good to see someone in here that's not afraid of a compiler
bftb0 said:
Possibly* a lesser-effort way - same thread, but here.
I say "possibly" because you didn't state which OS release was on the phone. (I can assume MI9->NC4, OB6, or OF1 as you must be rooted. NJ6, NK1, and PL1 are - as of this time - problematic for easy rooting).
There were some dependencies of the exploit code on OS version due to the location of the "CID" value moving around inside the kernel volatile filesystem /sys. You might have to take account of that in building/modding the code. (Either that or just get rid of the CID check if you know that you have a 0x15 eMMC chip device). Unfortunately, you need to thoroughly read about the first 350 posts in that thread to completely understand the discoveries that were made.
Anyway, some pointers to version compatibility are here.
* @beaups code is very straightforward. (@donc113 's mods of that code have the correct binary patching blob for the SM-N900V - beaups's github code was for the AT&T version of the phone) You probably will have more troubles setting up a toolchain than actually modding or compiling the code if you go that route.
good luck.
ps good to see someone in here that's not afraid of a compiler
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks I appreciate the response. Yes I am on OF1 with a 0x15 chip. I've downloaded donc113's file and Android SDK/NDK. Does donc113's mod of the code already include what I'd be needing the SDK/NDK for? I'm definitely not afraid of trying something unfamiliar, I just want to ensure I'm doing it right. I'll do some more digging and see if I can figure things out a little more.
riotstarter said:
Does donc113's mod of the code already include what I'd be needing the SDK/NDK for?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Should be. Really the only thing you should check to see is if the path in /sys to the CID file on your OF1 phone is one of the paths that he is checking for. You can use the "strings" command for that.
OK, I just downloaded his code and did that ("strings" command). Here are the paths he is searching:
Code:
/sys/devices/msm_sdcc.1/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc0:0001/cid
/sys/devices/platform/msm_sdcc.1/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc0:0001/cid
/sys/class/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc0:0001/cid
/sys/devices/msm_sdcc.1/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:0001/cid
If OF1 uses one of these, then you don't even need to compile anything, just run the binary.**
**there is a brutal form of "avoid compiling" hackery where you simply perform a binary edit of an executable file in order to change a constant value in the code such as a string. So long as the replacement string is shorter than the original, you can just replace the string and null-pad the unused length (as strings are assumed to be null-terminated in C). For example, if there was a pathname in a .bss or .rodata segment such as
Code:
/foo/original/path/filenameX
/bar/replacement/myname\0\0\0\0\0
this works so long as the replacement string's bytelength is less than or equal to the length of the original string. (And the code is not performing a signing or other integrity check of itself.)
Only to be used when you don't have the code to be compiled or emergencies such as when you are in a hurry LOL.
(Obviously you can not shorten or lengthen the file at all doing this: all the byte offsets in the file must remain unchanged).
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=71448959
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
Am on Sm-n900v (Rooted)
Android 5.0
0B6.
Want to unlock bootloader but need some strict instructions
Hello everyone, I need help. As English is not my native language, please forgive me for grammar and spelling errors if there is any. I am a Chinese student and our school uses a modded version of the Lenovo TB-X605M for teaching, which has restricted recovery (unable to mount any storage device) , no recovery mode (you have to scan a QR code provided by the service provider to enter) and no developer options (which means I cannot use ADB).
Now I’d like to use it for more purposes, so I decided to flash it through EDL mode (9008).
I read from online that this tablet uses the programmer file “prog_emmc_firehose_8953_ddr.mbn”, but I can’t find this file, and I also can’t find ROM for fastboot flashing (where I can extract the file).
Does anybody have the programmer file or the ROM for fastboot flashing? In addition, will it be OK to use programmer files for the same SoC but designed for other OEMs? I need your help. Please comment below. Thank you very much.
Did you try all these? https://github.com/bkerler/Loaders/tree/main/qualcomm/factory/msm8953
You might have a chance.
In any case, you need to start trying an EDL client (before you find a loader) to get the HWID and Hash.
Renate said:
Did you try all these? https://github.com/bkerler/Loaders/tree/main/qualcomm/factory/msm8953
You might have a chance.
In any case, you need to start trying an EDL client (before you find a loader) to get the HWID and Hash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for replying.
No. I'd like to try it later as I don't want to risk too much.
For EDL Clients , will "QPST Tool" be OK? And does HWID and Hash do? I never read about them on Chinese Android forums. Anyway, I am going to check out if I can connect to it and try to find them in QPST Tool and write them down.
I've never mixed it up with any of those tools.
I keep it simple, just a bare EDL client.
With them it's not likely you can click a button and accidentally flash all the partitions on your device.
Finding a loader will be the toughest part. You should start now instead of waiting for something to flash.
Just querying for HWID/Hash has zero risk.
Trying out random Firehose loaders has a very small risk.
Renate said:
I've never mixed it up with any of those tools.
I keep it simple, just a bare EDL client.
With them it's not likely you can click a button and accidentally flash all the partitions on your device.
Finding a loader will be the toughest part. You should start now instead of waiting for something to flash.
Just querying for HWID/Hash has zero risk.
Trying out random Firehose loaders has a very small risk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your advice.
As I have said before, I have never heard of what is HWID and Hash and I don't know what they do. What I am going to do is to wipe userdata , and I have no idea whether I need to know about HWID and Hash to do this. I am going to try some loaders I found on a Chinese forum. I will start trying from some other Firehose files for the same SoC.
Moreover, I viewed the link in your first reply and found all these files are with the extension name .bin , instead of .mbn . Are they loaders? If they are , how should I use them?
I am just an ordinary student and I am not familiar with command lines. I seldom use it unless I can't do it with GUI.
The HWID tells your processor, the Hash tells you who signed it.
To get a loader to work the two must be compatible.
I am not responsible for the content on Chinese forums.