Android Developers Blog: It’s not “rooting”, it’s openness

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/12/its-not-rooting-its-openness.html

by twapi • 16 years ago

156 49 16 years ago

android-developers.blogspot.com

mcritz• 16 years ago

> Unfortunately, until carriers and manufacturers provide an easy method to legitimately unlock devices, there will be a natural tension between the rooting and security communities. We can only hope that carriers and manufacturers will recognize this, and not force users to choose between device openness and security.

I don’t see that as likely. In fact, Android’s “openness” can lead to maliciousness on the part of carriers and phone makers against their users. I cite Android phones that come from carriers with unremovable junkware & phones that have hardware encryption that prevents user rooting.

yanw3• 16 years ago

That practice is being offset by the sheer number and variety of Android devices, consumers are buying the more ‘open’ handsets and thus signaling the demand for them.

ugh• 16 years ago

“Consumers are buying the more ‘open’ handsets and thus signaling the demand for them.”

Are they? What is your source for that?

barredo3• 16 years ago

I don't think that's the case, I would guess "Droids" outsold "Nexus", being the former more "open". But it will be nice to see some numbers.

CountSessine2• 16 years ago

Signalling to whom?

The telephone companies? They don't care - they don't want open. And they control the sales channel.

Signalling to the telephone manufacturers? They're powerless - if they anger Verizon they'll lose all of their customers.

Until that changes, Android, and wireless in general, will continue to be a lot less open than it should be.

barredo3• 16 years ago

I really didn't understand the article. Can someone explain it?

brown9-2• 16 years ago

An engineer on the Android Security Team objects to people claiming they've "rooted the Nexus S" by installing a custom ROM on it when all they've done is taken advantage of a feature named "fastboot_oem_unlock" which allows you to install a custom ROM.

jrockway4• 16 years ago

Actually "fastboot oem unlock" is the command you type into your computer to unlock the phone. "unlock" is the feature name :)

cwlq• 16 years ago

Engadget Commenter: OMG! You easily installed a new OS on your unlocked Nexus S?? Android security suxorz!

Android Dev: OMG! You easily installed a new OS on your Dell desktop?! Windows Security must suck!

gcb3• 16 years ago

given the lengths microsoft work with hardware manufacturers and computer assemblers such as Dell, being able to install anything and have the drivers working is indeed a breach of microsoft market security :)

mmastrac4• 16 years ago

This article nails it. Myself and the other folks who make up the Unrevoked team are basically searching for security exploits on the devices we support. We can't reveal these to the carriers, the phone manufacturers or the Android team because they'll be fixed in the next release and we'll invest the time to find another one.* Each additional exploit is marginally more difficult than the last to find.

We'd much prefer to abandon our rooting efforts entirely and have the market flooded with phones that have the equivalent of "fastboot oem unlock", or have easy ways to flash custom ROMs like the Dell Streak (no signature required), the original Droid and some of Samsung's devices. The energy we spend working on root could be better applied in finding and fixing the security holes that exist on the Android platform.

Until then we'll keep poking holes in the security of HTC devices (our focus) and make them work as hard as possible to figure out which holes we've exploited to keep the rooting window open as long as possible. We'll also keep recommending that people put their money on open devices like the Nexus One and the Nexus S.

* The exception to this was the skyagent hole, where HTC and Sprint shipped a suid-root program that would give any program you installed full control of your device. We notified them of the problem, then shipped a root based on it shortly after:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/34024714/Skyagent-Protocol-Descrip...

http://unrevoked.com/rootwiki/doku.php/public/unrevoked1_dis...

leif• 16 years ago

In a more perfect world, the general public would understand the important distinction between malicious "hackers" and you guys. Keep up the good work.

What do you tell your laymen friends and family that you do? Do you call it hacking? Security analysis? Something else?

mmastrac4• 16 years ago

Usually "phone hacking". "Security research" is what goes on my resume. :)

Xuzz3• 16 years ago

This is the same thing that the iPhone jailbreakers do: look for security holes to open up the window to "root" (or install another OS: http://www.idroidproject.org/) on the iPhone.

The sad part is that Android is supposed to solve this problem, but (for many of the devices) it doesn't seem to change it at all.

mmastrac4• 16 years ago

I'm not as familiar with jailbreaking the iPhone as I am with rooting Android phones, so feel free to correct me.

Android is much more difficult to exploit for us because most processes don't run with the equivalent of root. Even through we're able to exploit the browser occasionally, we can't normally use that to escalate to root (there are some exceptions to this that I won't go into :)). There are system processes, but generally these important processes run as "system" rather than root. Generally, only the processes that need to setuid() to another user run as root.

I believe (but I'm not sure) that the iPhone has two users: one at a root level for system processes/applications and another for installed applications. This allows the iPhone dev team to attack the browser and use that to quickly gain control of the entire device.

The nice part on Android for us is having access to the adb shell, which occasionally lets us poke into things we shouldn't normally be able to poke at. Most Android root attempts happen through this shell user which is generally inaccessible to installed applications. You can see the additional groups granted to the shell user here:

http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/system/core.git;a=...

gst• 16 years ago

Aren't most unbranded HTC Android phones already sold unlocked? E.g., on my HTC Wildfire there was an engineering bootloader preinstalled, so shouldn't this bootloader provide me with the same features as an "oem unlock'ed" Nexus?

wynand• 16 years ago

Not in my case. My HTC Desire was untouched by Vodafone in the Netherlands but still required rooting with unrevoked.

doron• 16 years ago

Thank you so much for your work guys. you facilitated turning my "nice" htc incredible device, to a rooted awesome custom rom souped up droid phone that is truly incredible.

zmmmmm• 16 years ago

Nice to see a clear statement from Google that they believe all manufacturers should ship a way to unlock their phones. It's largely symbolic since it is out of Google's hands but at least Google is making their view heard for what it is worth.

brisance• 16 years ago

What is Google's position on phones being rooted for the sole purpose of acquiring pirated apps? From where I'm sitting it seems Google is not doing anything to discourage this and is implicitly saying that the ad-driven revenue model is the way to go, natch.

orangecat2• 16 years ago

Probably the same as my position on buying a wrench for the sole purpose of assaulting people with it.

CountSessine2• 16 years ago

I wonder how many Home Depot customers go on to kill people with wrenches compared to how many iPhone & Android rooters/jailbreakers go on to pirate apps? And no, I'm not talking about the average HN'er - rather every Uncle Dick in my family who doesn't know sh*t about tech but is only too happy to tell me about all the 'free' apps he's downloaded now that he jailbreaked his crummy iPhone.

Sorry - it's a question that's worth asking. If everyone was assaulting each other with wrenches, we'd declare martial law - the constitution isn't a suicide pact. If Android is the hottest smartphone OS in the US right now (and it is), why are the app attachment rates so low?

As a console game developer whose friends have developed iOS and Android apps that have seen huge download and play numbers (as measured by leaderboard submissions) but have seen almost no purchases, I have zero interest in developing for either platform.

elblanco• 16 years ago

It'd feel more open if they actively designed the OS to make it hard to lock down, thus requiring rooting.

yuhong• 16 years ago

Why don't Google just make Android GPLv3?

Android Developers Blog: It’s not “rooting”, it’s openness

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