Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/android-phones-will-soon-reboot-themselves-after-sitting-unused-for-3-days/

by namanyayg • 1 year ago

410 340 1 year ago

jfkimmes• 1 year ago

This is a Google Play Services update. For GrapheneOS users without GApps wondering: A similar feature is already built-in: https://grapheneos.org/features#auto-reboot

Freak_NL• 1 year ago

Heh, my first thought was “Don't they do this already?”, but apparently GrapheneOS was ahead of the curve there. Nice.

hackernewds• 1 year ago

How would an OS taking over your hardware would be ahead of the curve or nice?

kernal3• 1 year ago

GrapheneOS was ahead of the curve there

Not really. Samsung was the first with this, but their reasoning had absolutely nothing to do with security. It was because their phones slowed down over time and their solution was to give users the option to reboot it at specific intervals. You could even make the argument that the Samsung solution is still the superior solution because you get to set the interval.

illiac786• 1 year ago

Still ahead of the curve, as it can be disabled on grapheneOS while it apparently won’t bee possible in Android ;)

sva_• 1 year ago

Samsung has also had this feature for ages.

SG-• 1 year ago

not for security tho, it was for bloat/fixing random issues like a typical Win95 daily reboot.

amelius3• 1 year ago

Huh, I have GrapheneOS and I never noticed it rebooting. (And when i manually reboot, the "BIOS" prevents it from booting without acknowledging that I'm aware it's a non-Google OS, so how does it work?)

edent• 1 year ago

You don't have to acknowledge anything. The boot screen shows a warning which you can interrupt. If you don't do anything it'll continue to load as normal.

daneel_w2• 1 year ago

The feature is not enabled by default. Also, the boot doesn't wait for you indefinitely - it just gives you a few seconds to glance the checksum and halt it, before it proceeds automatically.

ignoramous• 1 year ago

This is a Google Play Services update

As the GrapheneOS docs note, the feature is better implemented in init and not in system server or the app/services layer like Google has done here? Though, I am sure Google engs know a thing or two about working around limitations that GrapheneOS developers may have hit (in keeping the timer going even after a soft reboot, where it is just the system server, and the rest of the userspace that depends on it, that's restarted).

NotPractical• 1 year ago

Typical lazy Ars reporting. The feature originates from GrapheneOS, not iOS.

kernal3• 1 year ago

No, the feature first appeared on Samsung phones to fix their bloat / slowdown issues. Now it’s suddenly a security feature.

morpheuskafka2• 1 year ago

That’s weird. I wouldn’t expect Play Services to handle a system function like rebooting unrelated to any Google services.

ffpip• 1 year ago

Play services is how Google delivers many Android updates now so that all users can get security updates without waiting for the device vendor to publish it for each device.

usr1106• 1 year ago

No. Play Services is Google's way to make Android closed source. Many new features don't get implemented in Android, but Play Services. Many apps don't work (correctly) without Play Services.

gumbojuice• 1 year ago

It's not great news for my old phone used for wifi at our guesthouse (let's a few security cams and our smart lock get online)

wizzwizz42• 1 year ago

You should be able to switch this off, if you notice it being enabled, so (now you know about it) it should be a one-time downtime.

devrandoom3• 1 year ago

I skimmed through the docs, couldn't see anything about soaking disabling it.

rixed3• 1 year ago

Same here, using several old androids as hotspots here and there. They stopped receiving updates long ago though, so I'm not worried.

clort• 1 year ago

Its not an OS update, its a Google Play Services update .. so if they still apply you would get it

I found it strange that things like 'prettier settings screens' and 'improved connection with cars and watches' would be included in Google Play Services. Surely those things are part of the OS not part of a thing which helps you access the Play store?

I've been using a LineageOS (prev. Cyanogenmod) phone for years and have never installed any google stuff so I don't get these updates anyway.

pengaru• 1 year ago

I used to do something similar for the security cams at my desert property.

Picked up a gl.inet x300b off ebay and never looked back.

1832• 1 year ago

Also bad news for my megayacht (use's an old android phone to monitor location and detect movement)

imcritic• 1 year ago

Isn't this stupid?

Why not flush something properly in the RAM instead to wipe the "cached" secrets?

A full restart feels like an overkill.

davikr• 1 year ago

The system is provably fully encrypted after a restart.

scarface_746• 1 year ago

It’s not just the RAM. Android devices and iOS devices are not that secure after first unlock (AFU).

https://blogs.dsu.edu/digforce/2023/08/23/bfu-and-afu-lock-s...

MattPalmer1086• 1 year ago

Not really.

Restart - simple with known and predictable effects, data no longer accessible, all secrets flushed no matter where they were or cached.

Turn off disk encryption, suspend all running services, overwrite all secrets in the O/S wherever they are, and then restore all that on entering password. Probably can't do anything about secrets cached by actual apps. Complex, hard to maintain and probably buggy.

crote• 1 year ago

That "something" is at least the entire userspace, so any attempt at doing so ends up being UX-equivalent to a full restart - while having a decent chance of leaving unintended trace data lying around in memory.

A full restart guarantees that everything will be wiped.

scarface_746• 1 year ago

It’s not about data being wiped. It’s that neither Android nor iOS has fully encrypted storage after you reboot and enter your credentials - biometric or passcodes.

subscribed5• 1 year ago

It also terminates almost all malware and makes sure the device is encrypted and the keys cannot be extracted.

udev40962• 1 year ago

They stole the idea from GrapheneOS and shipped a barely half-baked version with hardcoded time. GrapheneOS has configurable time for it since years

mcraiha• 1 year ago

Can you set the time to one minute?

ThePowerOfFuet• 1 year ago

Why would you want it to auto-reboot after one minute?

The minimum on GrapheneOS is 10 min and the maximum is 72 hours. It can also be disabled.

devrandoom3• 1 year ago

Not against it, but I'm genuinely curious what the use case would be for that?

udev40962• 1 year ago

No, that is unrealistic. Please stop trolling

OneDeuxTriSeiGo2• 1 year ago

Graphene's autoreboot has 12 different options (excluding disabling it) ranging from 72 hours down to 10 minutes and the timer is reset each time the device is unlocked. Tbh I think a 1 minute setting would actually be nice (for things like when you are going through customs, etc) but I get why they don't provide it.

iancarroll• 1 year ago

I would guess the more likely inspiration would be Apple recently adding this to iOS, if GrapheneOS had it for years and they didn’t add it...

lysace2• 1 year ago

I'd claim that Microsoft pioneered this time limit security concept with Windows 95 almost 30 years ago.

They went with 2^32-1 milliseconds or about 49.7 days.

We don't talk enough about Microsoft's strong legacy of security innovations, IMHO.

philistine• 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure you're joking. Windows 95 crashed if you sneezed in its general direction, I'm pretty sure it would blue screen due to some edge case well before 49 days of runtime.

yalok• 1 year ago

I’m not sure it was because they cared about security - looks more like accounting for 32-bit timestamp rollover would be very disruptive to the huge (legacy) code base and it was a quick fix to work around the problem :)

Dwedit• 1 year ago

To this day, some programs malfunction after 2^31 milliseconds have passed since bootup, which is the halfway point. Milliseconds since bootup has just become negative, and has not rolled over yet. Just having a negative number of milliseconds is enough to mess with those programs.

rvba4• 1 year ago

More like "innovation" that makes all those machines in factories break every 49 days.

surajrmal4• 1 year ago

As the article alludes to, Apple recently shipped the same policy to iOS so this is likely just following the precedent from them. Android developers don't pay attention to community forks.

Beijinger• 1 year ago

Pff. Windows does this since decades. No? I vaguely remember this nag screens after unauthorized updates.

booleandilemma• 1 year ago

I just want software that will do nothing user-observable without me explicitly asking it to. No pop-ups, no suggestions, no automatic anything.

I don't know if it'll take a fancy buzzword or what. Unobtrusive software? Silent Software?

kranke155• 1 year ago

Not shit software

layer83• 1 year ago

Inert software. Inertware?

mystified50162• 1 year ago

Good software

bobsmooth2• 1 year ago

This is a terrible idea for an internet connected device.

TheBicPen• 1 year ago

No notifications? Depends on what your definition of "asking it" is, but having to explicitly do an action to check for notifications and even phone calls seems counter-productive for a phone.

MiddleEndian3• 1 year ago

I've mused about writing a distribution license where every type of notification and update can be disabled, and any modification must follow the same license.

STFU (BSD equivalent) and STFU-O (GPL equivalent)

No LGPL equivalent because I would want even software that uses STFU-* licensed code as a library to follow the STFU-* license.

Just have to explicitly define what counts as a notification lol

pabs32• 1 year ago

Respectful software.

Bender• 1 year ago

Not bad. If I could make a feature request it would be something like, After 3 days of being idle:

- [ ] Reboot

- [ ] Power Off

- [X] WIPE triple opt-in

Maybe there is a custom phone OS for this that makes the phone act more ephemeral and network boot off my self hosted iPXE/immich server? A dumb smart phone so to speak. An ephemeral diskless phone.

dist-epoch• 1 year ago

The WIPE is doable with a custom "management app", which has the permission to wipe the phone. Maybe such a thing already exists.

kccqzy2• 1 year ago

A long long time ago, adding Gmail to your phone via the Exchange protocol over m.google.com gives Google the ability to wipe your phone remotely, including iPhones as well. No management profile needed.

al_borland• 1 year ago

A wipe seems extreme. An unexpected trip to the hospital could leave someone with a wiped phone when they come to.

criddell• 1 year ago

If that’s something you are worried about, don’t choose that option.

LinuxBender2• 1 year ago

Someone may want that behavior if they were intentionally injured and kept from their phone for 3 days. The perpetrators will eventually get past the hospital security. Contents should be backed up in a safe place either way, possibly in a place that someone that cares about them may access it.

mapkkk• 1 year ago

I've been fantasizing about building an iPXE netbooting phone for a while now, glad to see that I'm not the only one. Mine was sparked by seeing some journalists in my country getting arrested recently.

I think it should be doable _technically_, but I think getting the mobile radios working before the OS boots would be challenging.

LinuxBender2• 1 year ago

If the phone can boot off a thumb-drive then people could have a keychain thumb-drive that serves the sole purpose of a minimal OS that can iPXE, boot the real OS and pull down the users contacts, apps, etc... maybe?

Aeolun3• 1 year ago

Wait, why is this presented as a good thing?

Why would I want my phone to auto reboot without my intervention? Never mind that it’ll never make three days on a single charge even if I don’t touch it.

WD-42• 1 year ago

Just be glad it’s not windows, which does it every 3 hours.

recursive4• 1 year ago

Topical joke 25 years ago

jillyboel2• 1 year ago

For when it's sitting in an evidence baggy in the police station connected to a charger waiting for forensics

Aeolun3• 1 year ago

If that is a good thing what does that imply about my activities (or what an utter failure your justice system is)?

alistairSH• 1 year ago

It’s pretty well spelled out in the article…

The BFU state is more secure than AFU.

crazygringo4• 1 year ago

It's very clearly explained in the article.

Aeolun3• 1 year ago

It is not clear to me at all why the ‘benefits’ presented outweigh the negatives (which is _my_ device doing anything without me instructing it to). Even if you can turn it off, this is apparently enabled by default.

Law enforcement keeping hold of my phone for 3 days is simply not a realistic problem for me. Coming back to an annoyingly locked phone after forgetting it for a weekend very much is. The chances of law enforcement wanting anything with it are low enough that dealing with an extra unlock is more likely to be an impactful issue, even considering the potential impact that law enforcement or others stealing it could have.

627467• 1 year ago

I'm surprised this is something taken seriously only now by stock android. Isn't it known universally that AFU devices are insecure? What's the point of adding strict password policies, biometrics etc, if data from a stolen phone can be (relatively) trivially be exfiltrated unencrypted?

Samsung's have had some feature that lets you set days of the week for the phone to restart (IME during early morning hours) automatically. It's not perfect but it's something. iOS seems to have some unclear logic to either restart or re-request password (not biometrics).

This should be standard

kccqzy2• 1 year ago

Because they protect against different actors. A stolen phone? The thief likely just wants to strip your phone down to parts and sell the parts if there is a passcode. If there isn't anything, perhaps the thief would wipe it and sell it whole as a second hand device.

Only law enforcement cares about the difference between the AFU state and BFU state.

jonathanstrange• 1 year ago

Thanks, No. I'd like to opt out of this.

greatgib2• 1 year ago

It's good to have an option like that, even being a default, but there definitively need a switch to disable that if it is your own will.

It's not even necessarily that good enough against cops, because in a lot of shitty countries, even some pretending to be democratics, not disclosing or at least inputting your password might be a crime severely punished. If I'm not wrong, there was a guy that had to stay years in jail until he would comply with the judge order to unlock his device.

SXX9• 1 year ago

This is super annoying on newer iOS for device that I use purely for development. Before it was possible just keep iPhone unlocked indefenitely, but now it reboots and boom I have to use TouchID again.

This is again Apple being Apple making things harder without option to disable it even when development mode is on.

Has anyone found a way to bypass it?

layer83• 1 year ago

I have to use TouchID again.

Don’t set it up with a passcode in the first place?

crazysim2• 1 year ago

Do you think it's possible to jiggle it ala mouse jigglers and USB jigglers?

nativeit• 1 year ago

Considering this is all about Android adopting a very similar feature, it doesn’t sound like “Apple being Apple”…

saagarjha5• 1 year ago

Keep an app running?

gcanyon2• 1 year ago

For this use case there needs to be a reasonably quick way to erase/permanently lock a phone. Or maybe it needs to be something that is both 1. Less severe than that 2. Secure against personal inducements 3. More automatic.

So maybe something like a paired app with a friend/someone who is beyond the reach of the authorities, and if the phone isn't unlocked in a given definable period (or it can be triggered immediately), it then can't be unlocked without that person's active cooperation.

That's off the top of my head, so I'm sure there are optimizations.

dsr_• 1 year ago

GrapheneOS offers hardening before first unlock, and an optional distress code that wipes the storage rather than unlocking.

Currently only available for Pixel phones, 6 and later. Offers many other security-related features.

hypeatei• 1 year ago

You might get even more charges for doing that, though. Destroying evidence, obstruction or some made up charge.

NekkoDroid• 1 year ago

This just gave me an idea: How about the phone accepting 2 password. One is the regular password and brings you into your regular account and then a dummy password that brings you into a dummy (but somewhat plausible, maybe user set up) account. That way you can still enter your normal account whenever you feel like it and if you are being pressured you just put in your "alternative password" and it just brings you to the dummy account.

LWIRVoltage• 1 year ago

A Veracrypt style hidden OS profile that is forensically invisible would be a better option - This would allow one to enter a password and give another "profile" or OS- that unlike current alternate profile stuff- would be solid against Cellebrite and GreyKey snooping into the device, and it'd be impossible to tell there was a hidden user/etc on it

rvnx• 1 year ago

Interestingly, it could also be seen the other way around; it's a potential way for Google to force deployments of system updates (potentially at the request of law enforcement). With an automatic reboot, then the update can automatically be applied without user action.

mystified50162• 1 year ago

This is the real reason

markus_zhang• 1 year ago

I actually think this is the reason. But I think Android has an option to disable auto update?

rixed3• 1 year ago

Except that on most phone you can already reboot the device if you long-press some button, can't you?

kokada2• 1 year ago

This makes no sense, Android already will reboot itself after receiving an update and being inactive for a while (generally while charging it will install the update in its secondary partition, do some verification checks and reboot if there is no user interaction).

VWWHFSfQ• 1 year ago

It's already trivial to reboot a locked android phone

rtpg• 1 year ago

At least on iOS an update requires an explicit unlock, is this not the case on Android?

There could be secret pathways but I don’t know them.

dheera• 1 year ago

They should really implement a dual user / dual password system to combat those countries.

If you enter password 1 it goes into your normal account, if you enter password 2 it goes into another user account with a burner environment where you can install a few token commonly used apps for plausible deniability.

The existence of password 2 should be optional and you should not be able to tell if the system has one or two passwords configured.

resource_waste• 1 year ago

When Apple does it: "Brilliant! Love the security! Walled Prison!! Wooo"

When Google does it: "Google is using it to help the FBI"

(But the iphone was hacked by the FBI...)

gf0003• 1 year ago

If the user data is properly encrypted, then that still won't give access to any important information until the key is entered by the user.

kwanbix• 1 year ago

I don't get the difference. Today after 72 hours (3 days) my phone asks me for my password and won't accept biometrics. Also, this is a problem for all the people that use them as alarm clocks. I use Alarm Clock Xtreme for example.

h4x0rr• 1 year ago

The phone doesn't accept biometrics but is still in AFU state. Encryption keys are in memory.

xrisk• 1 year ago

(At least on iOS) shutting down the phone has something to do with wiping credentials/keys from RAM from where they can potentially be dumped. A just-booted phone is fully encrypted with no keys in memory.

krisoft• 1 year ago

Also, this is a problem for all the people that use them as alarm clocks.

Yes. But quite honestly the right solution for that would be Apple providing an alarm clock API. The alarm clock application could call it with the next scheduled alarm’s time and the os would just wake up at that time and let the application do the sound / alarm thing.

xg15• 1 year ago

I was thinking this would be the final death knell to using an (unrooted) Android phone as a cheap home server. But then again, not sure if that was even possible before with all the "battery protection" logic built into Android.

joak• 1 year ago

It's good to be able to disable this option: I use old Android phones as servers and don't want them to reboot every 3 days.

blackoil• 1 year ago

https://xkcd.com/1172/

Don't think old Androids will get this update.

MattSayar2• 1 year ago

Completely agree, I don't want this to disrupt the Bop Spotter

https://walzr.com/bop-spotter

glenstein3• 1 year ago

not disclosing or at least inputting your password might be a crime severely punished

And to your point, I believe it's now the case in the U.S. that you can be legally compelled to unlock a fingerprint lock, but not a pin for whatever reason.

baby_souffle• 1 year ago

Compiled unlock via biometrics is still somewhat contested. The general argument boils down to biometrics being something you can't really protect internally. A passcode that is only known inside of your gray matter can therefore can only be externalized via some sort of testimony. Being compelled to reveal a passcode violates your ride against compelled speech and self-inccrimination.

intrasight• 1 year ago

In US you are protected by 5th. But it seems like the question hasn't been addressed by the Supreme Court since currently the answer depends on your jurisdiction. Which inspired me to check: here in Pennsylvania, the court cannot compel you to unlock your device with the password.

sneak3• 1 year ago

Biometrics aren’t testimony.

You don’t have to do anything for someone to hold a phone to your fingertip, or a camera to your face.

crazygringo4• 1 year ago

because in a lot of shitty countries, even some pretending to be democratics, not disclosing or at least inputting your password might be a crime severely punished

What's your point? That because it isn't useful in every country, it's not worth making available to any countries?

It's not preventing you from providing your password.

You started by saying it's a good option to have, so I don't understand the point of your second paragraph.

oarsinsync2• 1 year ago

in a lot of shitty countries, even some pretending to be democratics, not disclosing or at least inputting your password might be a crime severely punished. If I'm not wrong, there was a guy that had to stay years in jail until he would comply with the judge order to unlock his device.

This sounds a lot like the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 in the United Kingdom, where several people have been prosecuted and imprisoned for failing to provide encryption keys.

chgs• 1 year ago

USA

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/man-in-jail-2-ye...

londons_explore3• 1 year ago

imprisoned for failing to provide encryption keys

This scares me, because I have plenty of old devices I no longer know the passwords for. I don't think I'm alone - plenty of people forget passwords they don't use in years.

If the police came and searched my house, they could probably find some ancient laptop or phone from a decade ago, demand I unlock it, and then put me in prison forever when I cannot do do so.

ololobus• 1 year ago

I can only second this. I have an old iPhone with a second sim-card, because I need it from time to time. And Apple introduced this auto-reboot a bit earlier, iirc last year. The problem is that after rebooting it also disconnects from wifi, so e.g. SMS/handoff synchronization stops working until you enter a passcode. This is very annoying because it was very convenient for me to receive calls/SMS to my main iPhone.

It’s a good and reasonable feature, especially if for some reason you are afraid of state or security agencies in a place where you live, or maybe during travel. It’s still questionable, because in some states you can indeed go to jail if you don’t unlock. Yet, I really want to be able to turn it off for use-cases like mine.

Talanes2• 1 year ago

It’s still questionable, because in some states you can indeed go to jail if you don’t unlock. Yet, I really want to be able to turn it off for use-cases like mine.

Even if the end result is the same, anything that forces authorities to use official power over informal power is a net win.

sneak3• 1 year ago

Apple doesn’t like supporting the use case of multiple phones for one person. They even encourage their employees to use their personal devices and accounts.

epolanski3• 1 year ago

Stories about airport security and officers demanding access your phone is one of the reasons I will never come to the US.

An (Italian) friend of mine was stuck in Newark for 8 hours after he refused access to his phone, dragged in some room and questioned for hours along his wife while split from him own kids, even though he later gave them the password (he initially said no because he thought it was out of the line, he had nothing to hide).

He left livid for Italy 16 hours later despite being free to go on with his vacation.

Land of the free my ass.

SoftTalker• 1 year ago

Ok, but try refusing the requests of border authorities in any country and see how far you get before you find yourself escorted to a back room.

Spooky235• 1 year ago

The Italians do the same thing. If your name matches some name or you’ve travelled to some naughty place, you’ll get picked for this sort of thing.

That said, the last time I went to Italy the customs guy looked annoyed at being awake. He asked my son’s age (he is huge but too young to use the electronic gate), then shrugged and stamped my passport with all of his strength.

matheusmoreira• 1 year ago

Buy a travel phone specifically meant to be opened by them.

scarface_746• 1 year ago

There is nothing any technology company can do to protect against rubber hose decryption.

14• 1 year ago

There is always something that can be done. Like if phone is not actually powered on for x time set by the user it automatically factory resets all data. Or if phone is out of cell service for x time like as in a faraday bag in evidence then it resets itself. Or make it so that after a reboot it can only be opened if on a certain wifi hotspot or geolocation. Ultimately I am not a security expert or know if any of those ideas would actually work but it seems like you could add a few steps making it harder. Maybe it can be locked out and you can set a specific apple store which would require your ID before they can send a release code allowing it to be unlocked. All of that is probably way to complicated to be worth it for a typical user but I do think there can be a way if it was truly critical.

redbell• 1 year ago

but there definitively need a switch to disable that if it is your own will

Sure! Otherwise we won't be able to smoothly run our own servers on our phones: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31841051

closewith• 1 year ago

a lot of shitty countries, even some pretending to be democratics,

I think you're basically calling out all the democracies, then.

hbrav• 1 year ago

Yeh, the quoted commentary is hyperbole. My homeland (the UK) has such a law. I do think that law isn't great. But my country isn't shitty, and it's certainly a democracy.

If we start being perfectionist, we pretend there's no difference between most nations in the rights their citizens have. And that's not even remotely true.

andylynch3• 1 year ago

This isn’t unusual, the USA is a an exception; commonly the view is that electronically unlocking a phone or laptop is much like any other legal search, e.g. opening a garage or a locked room.

nickslaughter02• 1 year ago

in a lot of shitty countries

In December 2024 all UN member countries voted in favor of "UN Cybercrime Treaty" which binds signatories to adopt a legislation to force you to give cops your passwords and other credentials.

https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n24/426/74/pdf/n24426...

Spoom• 1 year ago

Eh, I see the language "urges" in there regarding putting it into force. It would still need to pass Congress etc. and my guess is that such a provision would face massive domestic pushback.

vkou• 1 year ago

The UN isn't a world government, it has no power to affect your nation's laws. If your legislature legislates this into existence, it's on them.

amelius3• 1 year ago

Can't it run two OSes, so the booting becomes instantaneous? (Like swapping graphics buffers, but now with the entire OS)

edelbitter• 1 year ago

Android ships a feature called bootchart which you can use to prove that most of the time your phone spends booting.. it is actually far from bottlenecked on storage or compute - bugs to be fixed; not worked around with even more complexity. Heck, some phones do not even stop playing their vendors fancy animated logo when they are finished before the animation is.

surajrmal4• 1 year ago

Does it take into consideration thermal and power? Doing too much too quickly can be bad for both, so sometimes it's worthwhile to go slower.

fguerraz• 1 year ago

How about instead of patching up our societies with technology we vote for the right people / laws for once?

recursive4• 1 year ago

How about both?

homebrewer• 1 year ago

This won't help those of us living in countries where "elected" officials elect themselves. We haven't had a single honest election in decades (and probably won't ever have one), so measures like this are better than nothing.

dagmx3• 1 year ago

Does passing laws against a crime/overreach completely stop it happening?

bigyabai2• 1 year ago

The "right people" aren't represented by either side of America's bipartisan system. Good luck with your mass popular movement.

teddyh• 1 year ago

This feudal system is too oppressive! Let’s put a good king on the throne!

beeflet• 1 year ago

That plan, if implemented, may last as short as 1 election cycle. All political progress will inevitably be undone.

In contrast, technological change will forever alter the balance of power. What we should be asking is "Instead of patching society with political solutions, how about we solve fundamental problems permanently with technology?".

scarface_746• 1 year ago

You don’t vote for the police or the three letter agencies and elected officials have little power over people with guns. Yes I know both on the the state level the police are suppose to be under the command of the civil government. But no elected official wants to get on the wrong side of the police unions.

Besides most people support the police no matter what. Police know not to abuse their powers against Whites.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/white-protesters-form-human-...

tehjoker• 1 year ago

If you vote for the wrong people (i.e. people that want a more humane society), the billionaires will simply coup the government. Remember: they own the things that keep society running, so they have real power. We run the things that they own, so we also have power when combined together.

wiseowise2• 1 year ago

This actually caused some annoyance among law enforcement officials who believed they had suspects' phones stored in a readable state, only to find they were rebooting and becoming harder to access due to this feature.

Lmao.

The early sluggishness of Android system updates prompted Google to begin moving parts of the OS to Google Play Services. This collection of background services and libraries can be updated by Google automatically in the background as long as your phone is certified for Google services (which almost all are). That's why the inactivity reboot will just show up on your phone in the coming weeks with no notification. There are definitely reasons to be wary of the control Google has over Android with elements like Play Services, but it does pay off when the company can enhance everyone's security without delay.

All the more reasons to move to AOSP forks.

675938747483• 1 year ago

Google locking features behind the closed source, proprietary Play Services is "more reason to move to AOSP"?

bigyabai2• 1 year ago

You don't need Play Services for this feature to work. The design is not proprietary or even hard to reverse-engineer.

graypegg• 1 year ago

...the new Play Services will limit that exposure to three days, even if it's plugged in.

This will be fun to track down after a long weekend in embedded devices once this android patch number is old enough to be baked into crappy payment terminals and mall kiosks.

Probably overall a good thing though.

tripdout• 1 year ago

I don't think those would be likely to have Play Services, though.

rixed3• 1 year ago

« This actually caused some annoyance among law enforcement officials who believed they had suspects' phones stored in a readable state, only to find they were rebooting and becoming harder to access due to this feature. »

Wouldn't the phones run out of battery after a few days anyway? Or do they keep them plugged in?

aftbit2• 1 year ago

They keep them plugged in

FeistySkink• 1 year ago

How is this going to work with SIM cards that need a PIN? I'll be just unreachable until I notice the reboot?

switch007• 1 year ago

Locking the SIM is considered part of the feature on GrapheneOS AIUI

myself248• 1 year ago

Or if you're primarily reachable by an app that can't launch until AFU, the phone reboots silently and you don't realize it, and you're incommunicado.

Some time later, you need to do something on the phone, you unlock it, the app starts up, and a flood of messages pours in. Wow, some of those would've been really useful to receive in a timely fashion! Whoops!

vultour• 1 year ago

I don't remember the PIN to my work SIM card. Can't wait to lose my work phone halfway through a conference / business trip because I haven't touched it in a while.

cubefox• 1 year ago

The Ars article seems to be inaccurate. Here is what the release notes say:

Security & Privacy
[Phone] Enables a future optional security feature, which will automatically restart your device if locked for 3 consecutive days.

So it only "enables" a "future" "optional" feature.

bobsmooth2• 1 year ago

I misread this as reformat and was concerned for a sec. This is a good idea.

vishnuharidas• 1 year ago

I found that this saves a lot of battery. My old Motorola G5G is now sitting idle, and I had to charge it every 4-5 days. I found that if the phone is restarted and NOT unlocked, it will stay charged for more than 10 days. My best guess is that a screen unlock is required to start many of the OS-level services, which takes up all the battery.

If this is true, then the new update will save a lot of battery for those phones that are sitting idle.

emrah• 1 year ago

A phone sitting idle is very unusual though, a very edge case

kshacker• 1 year ago

I have 3 phones, for various reasons. Not SIMs, but 3 devices. The usage is radically different between them. 2 of them are used daily but even there one routinely runs out of battery and other does not dip below 80%. The third one gets used when it gets used :)

chowells• 1 year ago

Everything except a very minimal core is kept on an encrypted partition. Until the password is provided, most things can't launch.

rvba4• 1 year ago

Witout the pin u lock of simcard... nobody can call you?

chmod775• 1 year ago

I don't touch my phone for days at a time. It's just sitting there on my desk most days.

Not sure I'm too happy about this...

m-p-32• 1 year ago

uhh, that's going to disrupt Briar Mailbox, which relies on an Android device to act as an always-on node. I really hope there is a way to toggle this.

https://briarproject.org/download-briar-mailbox/

subscribed5• 1 year ago

If you need to use Briar Mailbox, you're likely better off with GrapheneOS where this feature can be turned off.

It works there better anyway, because it's integrated with the OS, and not just one privileged service.

m-p-32• 1 year ago

To be honest, I kinda hope they'll offer it as a Linux service at some point, not super thrilled at running an old Android device as a server.

yellowapple2• 1 year ago

Can I configure this? In some cases I'd want the auto-reboot to be more aggressive (for example: after 3 hours). In other cases I'd want to disable the auto-reboot entirely.

hnburnsy• 1 year ago

So the phone will reboot it self, but...

1) There is no developer accessible API to allow app developers to create an app to allow me to script power options (example, as an end user I want to script a restart or shut down my phone nightly).

2) Asking Google Assistant will not restart or shut down the phone.

3) Apple and Android have made it harder to shut down the phone, requiring double key press kung fu to even bring up the power menu.

gxs2• 1 year ago

FWIW on iPhone you can just create a shortcut to restart the phone

One click for me and it restarts fyi

AnonC• 1 year ago

One click where? Have you mapped it to the Action button on the newer phone models? Or do you launch the shortcut by tapping somewhere (widget on Control Center or elsewhere)?

panny• 1 year ago

Why would it reboot instead of just power off?

subscribed5• 1 year ago

So you could still answer a phone call or have your phone reachable for "find my phone".

iggldiggl• 1 year ago

Doesn't work if the SIM is pin-locked, too, though.

greyjoyduck• 1 year ago

My samsung rebooting in the middle of writing this comment

nubinetwork• 1 year ago

Android theft protection already locks my phone constantly, usually because I pick up my phone before unlocking it...

userbinator• 1 year ago

More "security" bullshit when all they want to do is secure their control over us.

Not falling for it anymore. Fuck Google and the rest of Big Tech.

thund• 1 year ago

What if just while that occurs I need to make or receive an emergency call?

Sometimes it feels like tech is going backwards. Rather than rebooting, just develop a proper method to unload/uncache, without making a device useless while that happens. Or use that multicore arch to swap the “dirty” instance with a clean one, in realtime.

erelong2• 1 year ago

I was wondering about this too, or even benign annoying situations like you were doing research and forgot it was going to reboot on schedule and now you lose your train of thought

Suppafly• 1 year ago

Mine randomly reboots semi-periodically already, even when it hasn't been shown as having downloaded an update.

That said, I think this is a fairly good idea, although with the encryption stuff they do, this will cause people who rarely use their phones to miss calls and alarms.

morpheuskafka2• 1 year ago

It would be easy to store alarms in an unencrypted partition or even EEPROM as they take no space. Calls is a harder problem, although in principle if the SIM doesn’t have a PIN, you should have everything you need.

28304283409234• 1 year ago

Except that after a reboot of my Android phone, it still asks confirmation to activate my SIM (even though it has no PIN).

morepork• 1 year ago

Probably vendor specific whether it works, but alarms and calls should still work before unlocking/decrypting in "direct boot" mode

kernal3• 1 year ago

Samsung phones have had this feature for years. But it’s not what you think. Samsung phones gave you the option to reboot at various intervals because their phones would slow down over time and their solution was to allow the user to schedule a reboot. Now it’s.a security feature.

erelong2• 1 year ago

sounds good as opt-in configurable feature, but like it could have unforeseen consequences if forced on all users?

est• 1 year ago

One thing to consider is for SIM with a PIN lock, after reboot there won't be any signal unless you input the PIN everytime.

danielEM• 1 year ago

Google saying they gonna reboot my phone for my safety - not suspicious at all ;)

suddenexample• 1 year ago

This feature is optional: https://support.google.com/product-documentation/answer/1434...

rvba4• 1 year ago

Optional so far. In 6 months will be mandatory

ant6n• 1 year ago

Reminds me of ms windows. Except it reboots, no matter what’s running - for example if ms office is open with some unsaved changes.

rvba4• 1 year ago

Another shitty idea that makes life harder:

If you are in a hospital- your phone will reboot to pin level. So you need to unlcok it few times and wait 3 minutes before it becomes reactive.

Then all your alarms will not work.

They add crap like this, yet the stock calendar app needs a separate appto play music to warn you. This of course breaksafter a reboot..

My grandma has a second phone as backup - it will constantly reboot and will never be ready to be used the time it is needed - as a backup. Since it will keep rebooting and requiring a pin.

Who comes up with those anti user ideas?

That we will probably be unable to turn off (or the option to turn off will disappear after few months). Also old people will not know how to turn it off

alex_suzuki• 1 year ago

I imagine this is going to disrupt some Continous Integration setups that have fixed testing phones.

roflmaostc• 1 year ago

But it says "unused"? If it's used for CI it shouldn't break.

867-5309• 1 year ago

"unused"

firstly how about fixing software which forces 'inactive hours' yet reboots even when cpu is at 100% utilisation, and software which dims or locks a mobile screen during video playback, and soft/hardware which doesn't respect user-supplied suspend/standby timeouts in their power plans, and ....

SwayamDas• 1 year ago

This is better actually, it will prevent bot farming or screen enabled activity that are in set and forget mode.

t1234s• 1 year ago

Is it even possible to recover data in BFU state without knowing the pin?

doright• 1 year ago

I use microG instead of Google Play Services (for YouTube Vanced) so I wonder if they will implement an equivalent feature.

kevincox• 1 year ago

Yeah, this should be an OS feature, not a feature in a proprietary framework.

frozenlettuce• 1 year ago

Bad idea, as some people use old Android phones as IOT devices

Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

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