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Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

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Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#101

Post by rickdeckard »

293984j29384 wrote: post #43
kotaKat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always said that it’s been “Google’s Android”, and wellp —- Welcome to Google’s Android, where the garden walls have been turned into a razorwire fence and you’re not welcome to leave. It’s really funny that Apple’s finally allowing carefully controlled access outside of their own fences and slowly adding more APIs and expansion (hell, Apple are the only platform now with third party APIs for RCS in the EU) whil…

Google is first and foremost an advertising company. They're going to do whatever makes them the most profit. It always had razor wire fences unfortunately.

I'd argue that they are not merely an advertising company, they are an "attention facilitating company", taking and curating attention of large groups of users and making it systematically available to other parties, acting as middleman.

You know, like Apple...

> [A] is first and foremost a [B] company. They're going to do whatever makes them the most profit.

This is the definition of any commercial business.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#102

Post by piperswe »

Ambroos wrote: post #83
aeblyve wrote: post #23

The writing's been on the wall for custom ROMs in general for a while, so I've been starting to think about a mobile phone vendor I could actually have a decent business relationship with. I.e. use their stock ROM and be fairly happy with it. Any opinions? Samsung was a candidate for their somewhat unified ecosystem. Maybe even apple.

I still really like Sony phones. Excellent hardware. They have no online services they are trying to push, they just want you to buy their phones. As a result, the stock software is very clean Google Android without much extra. But they're not available in every region, and quite expensive. Used to have very short software support but now they do 4 major Android version updates / 6 years of security updates. You get…

Though for Americans, Sony sadly doesn't release their phones in the USA anymore

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#103

Post by anonymousiam »

nunez wrote: post #79

As someone who roots single-purpose Android devices, this is one of those things that sucks big-time but makes total sense. The only reason one would unlock a bootloader is to root the system partition. It is impossible to protect data on rooted phones and makes data exfiltration attacks significantly easier to do. This is a huge problem for banking and music apps that absolutely rely on this capability. Samsung is,…

I'm not sure if this is true, or for how long it has been true. I rooted my company phone (Samsung Galaxy S4), removed the crapware, and un-rooted it so that it could join the corporate network. This was a long time ago.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#104

Post by rickdeckard »

kotaKat wrote: post #46
rickdeckard wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's been Google's Android, I don't think anyone ever questioned that. The whole reason why the OS still lives as a single entity and the app-ecosystem is not completely fragmented is due to Google's governance to keep it in check. All the stuff Apple now slowly starts to allow on iOS due to EU's Digital Markets Act is still just scratching the surface of what Android already supports. > hell, Apple are the…

> Samsung uses their own RCS Messaging service on its devices No? They’ve switched to Google Messages, and most/all carriers have switched to Google Jibe RCS (again, Google forcing its services into operator hands), which basically forces SafetyNet attestation to use.

Sorry, you're right. I stand corrected, Samsung discontinued their own RCS-Service in January 2025. Yet the point stands, Google doesn't restrict usage of alternative RCS-services on its devices, Apple does.

> again, Google forcing its services into operator hands

Frankly no. Carriers tried to make RCS work and failed for many years. I was involved in so many meetings, individual projects, interoperability testfests, just to make all the crazy "flavors" of RCS required from different operators work with each other. Each of the large carriers thought he could do RCS better than the next one, destroying simplicity, reliability, interoperability.

Many of them rolled out their own RCS-service initially, with flaky UX and ridiculous limitations making it weaker than WhatsApp at that time.

Google didn't start this mess, and didn't force itself into this matter. But yes, they ended it by acquiring Jibe and unifying the platform.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#105

Post by sunaookami »

zxcvgm wrote: post #54

Xiaomi apparently have also stopped unlocking their bootloaders, so the "workaround" was to go to an official store and ask them perform a downgrade, and before the staff can relock the bootloader, grab the phone and run: https://x.com/kobe_koto/status/1949154478298456531 Absolutely hilarious.

It's still possible outside of China but you have to have a Mi account and for newer phones you have to make some forum posts or some dumb shit.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#106

Post by IshKebab »

Tharre wrote: post #69
lordofgibbons wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do anyone know why GrapheneOS doesn't support fairphone?

No secure element, no memory tagging support, no proper cellular baseband isolation, no verified boot, taking months to ship security updates .. the list is long. From a security/privacy perspective the fairphone is on the worse side of options unfortunately.

> no memory tagging support

That's not a security feature though... We established that. Fair enough on the other points.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#107

Post by microtonal »

anonymousiam wrote: post #103
nunez wrote: post #79

As someone who roots single-purpose Android devices, this is one of those things that sucks big-time but makes total sense. The only reason one would unlock a bootloader is to root the system partition. It is impossible to protect data on rooted phones and makes data exfiltration attacks significantly easier to do. This is a huge problem for banking and music apps that absolutely rely on this capability. Samsung is,…

I'm not sure if this is true, or for how long it has been true. I rooted my company phone (Samsung Galaxy S4), removed the crapware, and un-rooted it so that it could join the corporate network. This was a long time ago.

Rooting certainly blows the Vault eFuse. Knox Vault, etc. are newer than the S4 (Knox Vault was introduced in the S21).

For removing bloatware from the user partition you don't need to root, adb or the universal android debloater will do.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#108

Post by rickdeckard »

g-b-r wrote: post #51
rickdeckard wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely, bootloader unlock is a controlled process and state of the OS for many years now. The procedure explicitly hands over the responsibility of OS-integrity to the end-user, it's not Samsung's responsibility after that and the user needs to confirm that. It's much more likely that the cost/benefit profile to develop/maintain/support that feature and its related unlock-process is simply not sufficient, all while…

What's the cost to develop/maintain/support the feature? It's a simple switch, and since it's probably in AOSP there's cost in removing it, not in leaving it there

The cost is in managing a permitted device-state without a full trust-chain, and maintaining the unlock-logic and service of such an unlock of a device.

It should be simple, but since some carriers required BL-unlock to not be supported at all, many carriers required the availability of a list of all devices being unlocked and all required unlock to be irreversible, there are quite a few considerations to keep this working securely whenever something is touched in the trust-chain of a device.

I hate to say it in this case because I was advocating for BL-unlock for YEARS, but if there's no sufficient commercial demand and no "higher motivation" to justify it, it's a security-risk that's easy to avoid and easy to descope...

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#109

Post by delfinom »

trollbridge wrote: post #41
inoperable wrote: post #3

And fuck you over with data mining everything all the time without you having any means to cut it out

Doesn’t seem to be any vendor option to avoid this other than Apple, or the niche guys like Fairphone.

Apple 1000% datamines you, it's in their ToS that you agree for them to use your data for their own marketing.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#110

Post by microtonal »

pentamassiv wrote: post #14
saidinesh5 wrote: post #7

Pixel stopped providing device trees, kernel history, Samsung has been doing this for a while now. Which are the devices/vendors that still allow / encourage this? Even Graphene OS reported that they're in talks with some vendor... Have there been any updates towards that? The main reason i used to root devices are: * Get longer support/OS updates than what the vendor provided * System level adblock using adaway * Ti…

Fairphone does! https://www.fairphone.com/en/bootloader-unlocking-code-for-f...

Unfortunately, it's hard to make Fairphone secure. No separate secure element (so much easier to do brute force PIN attacks) and always lags in monthly security bulletin patches and major OS releases (remember that the monthly patches typically only address high/critical vulnerabilities, for the rest you need OS updates, QPRs, etc.).

Until Graphene works out the deal with the OEM that they are talking to, Pixel is pretty much the only secure phone that allows installing alternative firmware.

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