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Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

arstechnica.com

311–320 of 357 posts

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't had any problems in at least 7+ years, but I work in coffee and I can remember at least two instances where an Apple update made half the staff late by turning off their alarms, myself included.

What's the link between coffee and iOS?

Everybody in the coffee shop had an iPhone?

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#314
post #258
post #16

Not bad. If I could make a feature request it would be something like, After 3 days of being idle: - [ ] Reboot - [ ] Power Off - [X] WIPE triple opt-in Maybe there is a custom phone OS for this that makes the phone act more ephemeral and network boot off my self hosted iPXE/immich server? A dumb smart phone so to speak. An ephemeral diskless phone.

I've been fantasizing about building an iPXE netbooting phone for a while now, glad to see that I'm not the only one. Mine was sparked by seeing some journalists in my country getting arrested recently. I think it should be doable _technically_, but I think getting the mobile radios working before the OS boots would be challenging.

If the phone can boot off a thumb-drive then people could have a keychain thumb-drive that serves the sole purpose of a minimal OS that can iPXE, boot the real OS and pull down the users contacts, apps, etc... maybe?

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't had any problems in at least 7+ years, but I work in coffee and I can remember at least two instances where an Apple update made half the staff late by turning off their alarms, myself included.

What's the link between coffee and iOS?

Coffee shop workers on the morning shift wake up at 4am.

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#317
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Italians do the same thing. If your name matches some name or you’ve travelled to some naughty place, you’ll get picked for this sort of thing. That said, the last time I went to Italy the customs guy looked annoyed at being awake. He asked my son’s age (he is huge but too young to use the electronic gate), then shrugged and stamped my passport with all of his strength.

Don't spread misinformation. The difference is that in Italy it is not against the law to not hand out the password to your phone -- or anything else for that matter.

That is also true in the US. Of course they can use it as a reason to deny you access to the country if you’re a noncitizen, but you don’t have to hand it over.

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#318
post #82
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, using several old androids as hotspots here and there. They stopped receiving updates long ago though, so I'm not worried.

Its not an OS update, its a Google Play Services update .. so if they still apply you would get it I found it strange that things like 'prettier settings screens' and 'improved connection with cars and watches' would be included in Google Play Services. Surely those things are part of the OS not part of a thing which helps you access the Play store? I've been using a LineageOS (prev. Cyanogenmod) phone for years and…

One possible option would be to install Netguard (open source Android firewall that doesn't require root) and block Play Services.

I have that on a spare unrooted Android phone. Seems to be working so far. But I'm sure Google could bypass it if they really wanted to. I don't know if they've ever made an effort to bypass Netguard (or similar) in the past.

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#319
post #50

It's good to have an option like that, even being a default, but there definitively need a switch to disable that if it is your own will. It's not even necessarily that good enough against cops, because in a lot of shitty countries, even some pretending to be democratics, not disclosing or at least inputting your password might be a crime severely punished. If I'm not wrong, there was a guy that had to stay years in…

Interestingly, it could also be seen the other way around; it's a potential way for Google to force deployments of system updates (potentially at the request of law enforcement). With an automatic reboot, then the update can automatically be applied without user action.

If the user data is properly encrypted, then that still won't give access to any important information until the key is entered by the user.
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