Root Help me convince my wife it is ok to root her Evo....

[cesarcal]

Ok so I finally rooted my Evo about a month ago and so far no problems and have been playing around with it and love it. Now I am trying to convince my wife to root but she is hesitant especially because of the whole wifi thing. Currently we use our Evos as our hot spot so she is afraid that Sprint would somehow catch on that we have rooted our phones and still using the hotspot. I told her since we have unlimited data I doubt there is anyway they can tell if we are rooted and using the Wirelees Tether on our phones. Can someone chime in and help here??

 

[Mr. Ed]

pics of wife? JOKING

No issues here... i use the tether occasionally and my internet usage hasn't changed at all 5-6 gb per month ...no phone calls or nasty letter from sprint.

 

[jamesdean]

Ok so I finally rooted my Evo about a month ago and so far no problems and have been playing around with it and love it. Now I am trying to convince my wife to root but she is hesitant especially because of the whole wifi thing. Currently we use our Evos as our hot spot so she is afraid that Sprint would somehow catch on that we have rooted our phones and still using the hotspot. I told her since we have unlimited data I doubt there is anyway they can tell if we are rooted and using the Wirelees Tether on our phones. Can someone chime in and help here??

I have an idea, you are currently paying $30.00/month for the privilege. Try the rooting for a month and save the $30.00. If Sprint finds out you will start paying the $30.00 per month again and be exactly where you are now.

 

[goodboy]

If she doesn't want to root theres no sense in forcing her to root it. Just download PDA.net on her Evo so she can BlueTooth tether or tether with the USB cable. With your Evo rooted and hers using pda.net, theres no reason to maintain the hotspot service.

 

[akazabam]

Technically, they could tell you are using it for wifi tether if they really took the time to look, but it's rarely worth their time. If they notice you are not paying for wifi tether, and you suddenly start using several GB of data, you're going to raise red flags. How much data do you currently use with hot spot enabled? If it's a lot, you're taking more of a risk that they'll notice when you stop paying for it.

 

[Brian Rubin]

It's her EVO. If she doesn't wanna root the thing, don't push it.

 

[bvbull200]

It's her EVO. If she doesn't wanna root the thing, don't push it.

I'm trying to play this out in my head and I can't help but chuckle at the prospect of the OP missing out on some nookie because he wants to root his wife's phone.

 

[Brian Rubin]

I'm trying to play this out in my head and I can't help but chuckle at the prospect of the OP missing out on some nookie because he wants to root his wife's phone.

Bwahahahahahaha

 

[IsaacRCCL]

i say Man up and say "AYE! I wear the pants here, I pay the phone bill, i DEMAND some respect"

take the phone from her hand

than say: "No go make me some supper while i root your phone!"



You might have to spend a few months at a friends house, but look at the money u can be saving.

 

[novox77]

Technically, they could tell you are using it for wifi tether if they really took the time to look, but it's rarely worth their time. If they notice you are not paying for wifi tether, and you suddenly start using several GB of data, you're going to raise red flags. How much data do you currently use with hot spot enabled? If it's a lot, you're taking more of a risk that they'll notice when you stop paying for it.

There is no way for Sprint to prove you are tethering. What happens behind your device is completely unknown to Sprint. When your computer (tethered to your Evo) requests a web site, for example, that request does go through Sprint, but it appears to come from your phone's IP, not the computer's. Your phone is the router/gateway when you are tethering.

Now, if you're using Sprint's tethering app, the app could very well be reporting what's happening behind the gateway. But then it's irrelevant because you have to pay the $30 to use Sprint's app. The android wifi-tether app that all root users use does not provide any supplemental info to Sprint for them to track your activity.

There's no restriction on bandwidth, so just because you suddenly start using a lot more bandwidth doesn't mean Sprint can just assume it's caused by tethering.

 

[TBon350]

There is no way for Sprint to prove you are tethering. What happens behind your device is completely unknown to Sprint. When your computer (tethered to your Evo) requests a web site, for example, that request does go through Sprint, but it appears to come from your phone's IP, not the computer's. Your phone is the router/gateway when you are tethering.

Now, if you're using Sprint's tethering app, the app could very well be reporting what's happening behind the gateway. But then it's irrelevant because you have to pay the $30 to use Sprint's app. The android wifi-tether app that all root users use does not provide any supplemental info to Sprint for them to track your activity.

There's no restriction on bandwidth, so just because you suddenly start using a lot more bandwidth doesn't mean Sprint can just assume it's caused by tethering.

Website requests usually include data on what browser you're using to access the website. Since the traffic is going through Sprint, they could essentially be listening for browsers not of the type of Chrome or an android-specific browser. Now, they can't _prove_ you're not jacking with that data yourself on your phone, but the odds are...you're tethering.

 

[novox77]

Website requests usually include data on what browser you're using to access the website. Since the traffic is going through Sprint, they could essentially be listening for browsers not of the type of Chrome or an android-specific browser. Now, they can't _prove_ you're not jacking with that data yourself on your phone, but the odds are...you're tethering.

sure, but Android also allows you to spoof your phone's browser's user-agent.

This is what you need to do (among other things) to watch videos on Hulu.

In your browser address bar, type:

about:debug

Nothing will happen, but now go to menu -> settings, and you will have a lot more options. one of them is UAString. That's where you can spoof your user-agent. Other browser apps for the phone have even more powerful spoofing abilities. So once again, Sprint can't conclusively prove you're tethering.

 

[TBon350]

sure, but Android also allows you to spoof your phone's browser's user-agent.

This is what you need to do (among other things) to watch videos on Hulu.

In your browser address bar, type:

about:debug

Nothing will happen, but now go to menu -> settings, and you will have a lot more options. one of them is UAString. That's where you can spoof your user-agent. Other browser apps for the phone have even more powerful spoofing abilities. So once again, Sprint can't conclusively prove you're tethering.

The issue isn't about spoofing android's browser, but spoofing whatever device's brower you're tethering to the Internet via your phone.

 

[novox77]

The issue isn't about spoofing android's browser, but spoofing whatever device's brower you're tethering to the Internet via your phone.

you're not getting it. If your phone's browser can legitimately look like any browser your PC can run, how can sprint tell whether an incoming request is from your phone or your PC?

 

[GrandMasterBirt]

pics of wife? JOKING

No issues here... i use the tether occasionally and my internet usage hasn't changed at all 5-6 gb per month ...no phone calls or nasty letter from sprint.

*SMACK*

Ok seriously here are the facts:

1) Sprint can't know the packets are not coming from your phone. Because they are.

2) Sprint can guess that you have wireless tethering by inspecting your data.

3) Its not theft of service.

4) I've never heard of even a threat made against someone for "stealing wifi hotspot". So even though they may be aware they don't care. Unlocking the application is literally an application. Its NOT tethering features of your plan. Sprint just wans 30 bucks for it. They don't change your quality of service or anything. In the future unlocking tethering may up your bandwidth cap, but that does not exist at the moment. They care much more about bit torrent traffic than you wifi hotspotting.

5) Sprint shipped a phone with a platform designed for wifi hotspots, its just up to someone to unlock the phone.

6) Root access to android is in NO WAY ILLEGAL.
6a) Android is open source, and thus hacking it is hacking an open source program, thus this is not an iPhone issue.
6b) There is a court ruling at the federal level that backing an iPhone does not break DMCA because you own the hardware.
6c) Hacking the firmware even though its copyrighted and protected is no longer illegal according to the DMCA revisions (last 1 or 2 months)
6d) Rooting your phone voids your warrenty. So don't root then throw it in the bathtub. If you can unroot before returning the phone, you should be pretty safe when it comes to getting a replacement.

7) You are not "hacking" sprint's tethering app, you are just using something else. So no violation there.

8) Nowhere in your contract does it explicitly state "you may not run a rooted android device on this network"

8) My wife won't let me root her phone because rooting = headaches she don't want.

 

[lordofthereef]

I think we are on a fine line when we try to define the legalities of this (in terms of tethering). You can say all you want, but you are not paying for Sprint's app to tether, you are paying for the potential astonomical bandwidth increase as a result of tethering. The $30/mo fee is what they want you to pay for that potential bandwidth increase. That said, unless we get tons of people abusing the hell out of something like this (ie transfering dozens of gigs in data per month), I wouldn't expect this to effect anyone, much less ever make it to court.

 

[BondoDaKilla]

I used to work for sprint we have never cared what u do as long as you dont complain to us about it afterwords ;]

 

[hortstu]

W/o paying for the hotspot or sprint's tether, I already pay a 30$ a month data fee. I believe that's for unlimited data. I can use easy tether w/o rooting my phone and really make use of that unlimited data.

My point is that you don't need to be rooted to abuse the data services. So if you're worried about someone discovering that you're rooted the fact that you use large amounts of data doesn't prove that.