Root **Official** Droid X encrypted bootloader and efuse thread

arcturussage said:

Google built it into android because it doesn't matter to them. It's not their networks that have to deal with the bandwith. They're just adding it to android because there are other phones and features that let you tether/set up a hotspot.

The $30 a month that you pay for unlimited eats up a TON more bandwith if you tether. You're talking about the difference between a single cellphone using up a certain amount of data vs having one or more Computers connected to it.

I could tether my laptop, then torrent an 8 gig blu ray movie. In an hour or two. On top of regular web browsing and whatever else I want to do. That would have huge implications for the 3g network. Not only that but if I could use my unlimited dataplan with my computer why would I spend $50+ a month of FIOS internet?

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LMAO There is no way that you could torrent 8gb of data over 3G in an hour or two, it would take like a day!

paul89 said:

LMAO There is no way that you could torrent 8gb of data over 3G in an hour or two, it would take like a day!

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Under good conditions, you can do it in about 12 hours
(assuming constant 1.5mbps speeds)

schizrade said:

I am getting the feeling that people do not understand what encryption is...

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Noticed that did you?

Rooting will happen. Custom roms. highly doubtful. it would take someone extremely determined and a very long time to crack the encryption.

Piiman said:

According to the leaked sales flier I saw it says only DRM protected media will not play through the hdmi not just user generated.

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exactly.

Sorry, I'm new to the forums and as an iPhone user there was never any "openness". I have been reading about the droid x and how it may be able to be rooted but it's encrypted. I'm not a developer or a techie or anything, so trying to understand everything is a little overwhelming. What I was wondering was, let's say if I dont like the menu configuration or want to change a feature that the standard interface will not let me change, is it possible to download some program that can customize it beyond what motorola gave, or can I only stick to motorola's given settings?

The only thing I think has been determined so far is that the bootloader is locked. That is no surprise since every phone (even the Nexus One) has a locked bootloader. Until we can root the device, how can someone determine if it only accepts digitally signed ROMs?

Lets all take a breath and be patient enough to stop speculating until the device is rooted (if it ever is).

just4747 said:

Tweets between myself and Cyanogen:


@cyanogen Hey, are you guys going to be attempting to root/load custom roms to the X at all? Didn't know if you were going to try X stuff


@guts311 eventually, the DroidX I have right now isn't mine to keep though


@cyanogen Ahh I see. All a matter of getting one to hack away at I didn't see any mention of X in your stream, we all hope you guys can!!.


@cyanogen And whats the word so far on encryption and the loader? @mrweeeedbirdman seems to think it's locked down too tight for custom roms


No other replies yet....

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This doesn't tell us ANYTHING (written more for all the people hanging their hats on this post - not for just4747). All we know so far is that the device has a locked bootloader which every phone has. It obviously hasn't been rooted yet, and how can we determine if the bootloader only accepts signed ROMs until we have gained root?

Excellent question....I have NO idea either!



Jayme

now i'm not too familiar with the cell phone roms and such but could we do something like we did with the xbox 360, where we would flash the roms or just completely do a hard erase on them? its prob a noob question but i thought it might be worth asking

If you aren't a techie then you won't care what it means.

*disclaimer: no insult intended

kwest12 said:

The thread was started b/c the OP found some proof in someone's twitter acct that the boot loader was indeed encrypted (not just locked) as we suspected. Whether person with the twitter account is correct remains to be seen, but based on a few of his other tweets, he seems to know what he's talking about.

The post you quoted between just4747 and cyanogen was simply proof that just4747 was trying to get in contact with a well known hacker who makes roms to see if he was working on the X. I'm sure that just4747 wasn't trying to prove anything with that post, he was just letting us know whether or not cyanogen has been playing around with the DX yet. Since cyanogen is involved in the hacking scene and works with boot loaders (obviously) I think the relevance of that post to this thread is pretty clear. TBH I'm not really certain what it is you were getting upset about or "shouting" about....

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What you said is correct. I don't know what sic is getting at or what problem he has with me....I never said this shows or proves anything, I am just showing the contact I am trying to make since we haven't heard much news on this yet, and other phones have been hacked (or had more progress) before the phones have even been released. Now, if Cyanogen ever tells whether he is working on it or not on his Twitter, that is a lot more important..

And there is something closer to "proof" that the boot loader is in fact encrypted, through that Twitter guy, http://twitter.com/mrweeeedbirdman
Now I don't know who he is but I'm sure he's somewhat telling the truth about it being encrypted.

Rooted = Super user access like being a administrator in windows. Whats encrypted is the boot loader, this means only Motorola can put roms on the device. So you can't go download a modified froyo build some guy cooked up in his basement you can only use whats pushed to your phone from Motorola. the phone is still open compared to the iphone you just cant load sense or anything like that on it. If you care about hacking your phone then you won't care about this.

just4747 said:

What you said is correct. I don't know what sic is getting at or what problem he has with me....I never said this shows or proves anything, I am just showing the contact I am trying to make since we haven't heard much news on this yet, and other phones have been hacked (or had more progress) before the phones have even been released. Now, if Cyanogen ever tells whether he is working on it or not on his Twitter, that is a lot more important..

And there is something closer to "proof" that the boot loader is in fact encrypted, through that Twitter guy, Stephen Bird (mrweeeedbirdman) on Twitter
Now I don't know who he is but I'm sure he's somewhat telling the truth about it being encrypted.

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I recognize birdman from the droid root scene. I think he was involved, if not totally by himself, in deodexing 2.2 for the droid. So I would say he is definitely a credible source.

Steven58 said:

Ok.. perhaps you might want to add a smiley? Because without one? This is one rude post. I would edit it, if I were you. It is my belief that the only stupid questions are the ones that are unasked. I applaud the OP for asking it. If you can't help, please step aside and make way for someone who will. Your post was not helpful in the least.

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I didn't think it was a rude post, the TC said himself he wasn't techie, so I I thought he was letting him know that since he wasn't techie that he wouldn't need to know.

Now back on topic, if you don't like how certain things are setup you can change them to a degree. Also in the market place there are other home launchers you can install and try out as well.

Wolfedude88 said:

the TC said himself he wasn't techie, so I I thought he was letting him know that since he wasn't techie that he wouldn't need to know.

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That's fair enough, it may simply not have come across like that to everyone due to the limits of text-only communication. Thanks for clarifying, and for your helpful suggestions above.

There are plenty of paid apps on the market that can theme android os. While some of these will hamper performance on the older droids, the moto x should have no problem with them at all.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

AJ_EVO said:

If you aren't a techie then you won't care what it means.

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maybe... maybe not. a better explanation would be what can a rooted droid run that a non rooted droid cannot? does a rooted droid give you ability to run free android wifi tether? any other apps rooted can run as opposed to non rooted? I think there are numerous reasons to know and not be a techy. your answer while might not be rude offers nothing in terms of anything helpful.

Birdman just Tweeted this, so hopefully we'll have something soon:


ok guys, thanks to vzw's screw up im finally getting a REAL RETAIL droidx system dump tonight....this is the moment of truth...

mitchellmyler said:

now i'm not too familiar with the cell phone roms and such but could we do something like we did with the xbox 360, where we would flash the roms or just completely do a hard erase on them? its prob a noob question but i thought it might be worth asking

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While I'm just taking a gander at this, it would be akin to trying to flash the BIOS on a sophisticated computer, if the BIOS has a long, encrypted, password, protecting itself.

There would be only three main ways that I know of (and I'm no expert, so feel free to flame away).

1. Brute force -- Have a program run a crap load of password attempts at cracking it. Any solid modern encryption will make this nearly impossible, because of the length of time it would take to run all of the possible combines. Of course cycles and time will theoretically always beat this method, you might very well have a neurologically implanted phone by the time you break it, even if you're a cryptologist trained by the NSA, using supercomputers. Sure, it works fine for the average porn site, but that's because users use predictable passwords.

2. Crack the encryption method. This could be harder or not, than brute forcing the key, depending on how complex the encryption is, and if you can get leaked data to tip you off from internal sources. A leak would be key to getting access, and is also a reason why many PC games are cracked prior to 0-day (aside from major holes in the programming [see 3]). If Motorola had a change of heart, they could release this type of information, and make the phone accessible to devs whenever they decided to.

3. Find an exploit to bypass the whole system, before it takes control. This appears to be how ROMs were loaded onto another Motorola device that had a hole. On a PC, this would be similar to a root-kit, except embedded into the firmware, thus bypassing the BIOS protection altogether. Far beyond my knowledge, but certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. The W95.CIH virus exploited this type of method before CMOS' could be better protected, and some variants would literally wipe your CMOS on a specific payload date, requiring a battery pull and CMOS jumper clear, if not a complete motherboard replacement (I got infected by this one years ago; very nasty, though I was able to remove it by doing the above method).

Of course, literally gutting the hardware would be the best method in terms of success, but it's highly unlikely that a phone community is going to go through all of that. This is what we did on the old playstation, when we modded in a chip, and soldered it onto the circuit board itself, in order to play games that were burned to CDs.

So, option 3 is the best case scenario. The problem is that once a hole is discovered, it will likely be patched. So, in the case that you can bypass the initial firmware completely, you will need to always use that hole to bypass the system. If the firmware is updated in any way, you run the risk of losing the exploit. This is what seems to cause delays in new jailbreaks for the iPhone.

/TL-DR? Only time will tell how difficult it will be to crack the DX to the core, but it's possibly going to be very difficult, especially if you update the phone using official upgrades.

Wolfedude88 said:

I didn't think it was a rude post, the TC said himself he wasn't techie, so I I thought he was letting him know that since he wasn't techie that he wouldn't need to know.

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Thanks WD! It wasn't meant to be rude

Wolfedude88 said:

I didn't think it was a rude post, the TC said himself he wasn't techie, so I I thought he was letting him know that since he wasn't techie that he wouldn't need to know.

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The guy asked a question. He made a statement that he wasn't a techie and that was why he was asking. AJ took the time to post "If you're not a techie, you don't need to know". It might have been more prudent to take that same time and just answer his question. Nobody is born a techie. But maybe if he knew what root means he might become a techie.

How would AJ have liked it if when he was in school, he asked a teacher what is geometry? And her answer was, "If you're not going to be a mathematician, you don't need to know." How did that teacher know AJ wasn't going to become one and rewrite Einstein's Theory of Relativity?

Everyone, do any of you every remember you mothers or grandmothers telling you, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."?

If we all ask questions and get good answers, we all collectively become smarter..... and that can't be a bad thing.

Now I didn't write this post to start an argument or heated discussion, I just thought it might be my .02 of relevancy. Then again, AJ might think I should take my mothers advice and, If I can't say something nice, don't say anything. Haha!


Anyway, I remain, Patiently/Impatiently waiting for the release of the Droid X!