Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

sammyguru.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 254 posts

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#201

Post by IshKebab »

Tharre wrote: post #169
IshKebab wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MTE was only supposed to be a debugging feature anyway It literally was. MTE is a padlock with 16 combinations.

The number of combinations is irrelevant if you're not relying on randomness. Graphene sets the tag to a static value on deallocation[0] to prevent use-after-free, you don't even need to guess! The same is true for a lot of buffer overflows, as their allocator ensures two adjacent allocations have different tags, so unless the vuln allows you to skip ahead you'll always trigger a fault. [0] https://github.com/Graphen…

Interesting, fair point! I guess it helps for vulnerabilities that don't allow pointer control (which is probably a lot of them).

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#202

Post by prmoustache »

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,…

Banking app do not need to protect data, they are just websites really.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#203

Post by M95D »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #87
sn0n wrote: post #4

dont worry, samsung knows only 300 people will actually care. As for me, I already swore off Samdung for their whole Samsung account bs and apps they bundle and won't let me remove (or disable).

What do you use? Samsung are anti-consumer but none of the other big phone manufacturers seem to be much better (and historically at least Samsung's flagship phones have been pretty good hardware-wise).

I try to avoid big manufacturers by default.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#204

Post by rickdeckard »

g-b-r wrote: post #192
rickdeckard wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

I don't understand your points, to my eyes if the bootloader is unlocked you simply either: - don't provide the features for which you require a locked bootloader - and don't do anything with the rest of the features And anyhow, I'm almost sure that this is AOSP code (with a quick search I didn't manage to find it). And, I don't know any carriers that require a locked bootloader outside of the US, and Samsung already…

You should read up a bit more on the matter then. The bootloader is not shipped in an unlocked state, even on a device which supports BL-unlock.

Bootloader-unlock describes a feature which supports a controlled break of the trust-chain of the device, so telling the bootloader that it should continue executing the bootshell even if the signature check has failed.

In this state the OS should continue to boot despite of this state, and applications should gracefully handle such a condition.

The crucial parts of this are also not part of AOSP, it relies heavily on the chipset manufacturer and the OS-implementation of the device-vendor.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#205

Post by mschuster91 »

mrheosuper wrote: post #194
mschuster91 wrote: post #123

Normally, I'd go and say "vote with your wallet" - but sadly, in the tablet sphere, it's either ultra low spec Alibaba junk or it's Samsung. No Fairphone, no Pixel, nothing. Seriously Samsung, go and screw yourselves. The reason I insist on rooting in the first place is because unlike iOS which has a true full backup that you can trigger from your Mac (and restore afterwards), Android decidedly does not, and a bunch…

there are countless decent android tablet not from Samsung. Lenovo, oppo, oneplus, xiaomi.

Oppo is Chinese, so is Oneplus, so is Xiaomi - those are what I meant with "alibaba garbage", especially when it comes to performance. I don't trust either of these brands to deliver updates on time or for more than two years, spare parts just the same, and that's before the question if one wants a brand that may be targeted by US sanctions like Huawei, locking the user out of Play Services.

With Samsung there are established networks on how to get spare parts and they have a proven track record of delivering updates on time.

Lenovo's offerings are a disaster performance-wise.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#206

Post by silverliver »

like_any_other wrote: post #185
mappu wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason IMO to block rooting is to stop resellers selling phones with preinstalled malware. If the phone has two Amazon/Aliexpress sellers, you're going to pick the cheaper one right? With who-knows-what alterations? It's a really prevalent problem and most people are not going to notice the "insecure" warning at bootup.

Phones can and do have a warning that they were rooted on boot. So this is not an excuse. But don't worry, I'm sure there are several marketing teams at work on new excuses why your computers should be controlled by benevolent corporations and not you.

Agreed. There truly is no good reason to prevent people from unlocking their phones' bootloaders. There are plenty of bad ones.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#207

Post by DoctorOW »

eddythompson80 wrote: post #175
DoctorOW wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean for the Microsoft Android phones it kinda makes sense, since they're not exactly shipping Android by choice. They'd much rather you use the Windows Phones which this says ARE locked down.

Wasn’t windows phone discontinued like 10 years ago?

Apologies for being unclear, it's true Microsoft didn't have the option of Windows Phone for their Surface Duo devices, so they had no choice but to use Android. To clarify, when I phrase something as being an unwilling outcome it does not mean both were equally viable options and they picked the one they wanted, rather that Microsoft's hand was forced due to this development. I hope this helps.

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#208

Post by phkahler »

WXLCKNO wrote: post #88
phkahler wrote: post #80

Samsung also removed my flashlight recently. The whole pull-down that contained it is gone. Not sure what they're thinking over there.

You're gonna have to explain that one. Do you mean the new One UI update that made the notification pull down split into left and right swipes instead swipe down and then swipe down again? Because if that's what you mean, you can configure it to be the way it used to be again. Little pencil button, then panel settings and choose together instead of separate.

That was it!! How was i supposed to know to swipe down and then right? Grrr!

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#209

Post by baybal2 »

Arch-TK wrote: post #187
codedokode wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your phone was in hands of police you better sell it anyway because they could install a physical GPS tracker, etc. So locked bootloader doesn't change much. Also if you live in a truly democratic country you don't even need to set the PIN code - your rights are protected by the law.

It would be relatively difficult to add a physical GPS tracker to a modern phone. Also, it's unnecessary, the government just needs to take a note of the IMSI and/or IMEI and then use the cell tower records to track you (rather accurately I should add). The problem is not the tracking inherent in the design of mobile telephony networks, which you can circumvent by using burner phones. The problem is for example abuse…

[dead]

Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

#210

Post by sunaookami »

unaindz wrote: post #135
sunaookami wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dont think you need to do the forum posts but you need to request unlocking every two days and pray it works. Supposedly at 00:00 chinese local time for any chances of getting permission. Took me several months of trying non continuously.

This was before the new system, yes.
Post reply on HN