I read a troubling thread over at MyDroidWorld this weekend from famed community developer P3Droid. His report spoke of an industry-wide movement to crack down on users who root their devices. Yes, tethering your data is a violation of your contract and any carrier has the right to shut you down and make you pay for that right. But it’s more than just “illegal” use of data if he’s to be believed.
Starting with the locked bootloader trkend that seems to be taking off, it seemed Motorola was the only manufacturer keen on locking their devices down for one reason or another, but P3Droid says that isn’t the case. (We know HTC’s newer line of phones implement newer, tougher security.) It’s a mix of carriers, OEMs, and Google themselves working together to find ways to better “protect” users. This means implementing security features that circumvents common exploits used to gain root access.
The end result is supposed to ensure that no malicious applications can steal a user’s data. (Something that has actually become a reality as of late.) That’s noble, but the next bit of information is what really worries me – carriers and OEMs are supposedly beginning to implement tracking applications that will allow them to know who’s on a rooted phone and carrying out actions such as unauthorized tethering. He reports that there are several different methods they implement.
They can simply see which MEID numbers refuse over the air updates. It’s common for custom ROM developers to disable that functionality to ensure the users of those ROMs aren’t interrupted. (And to make sure any OTA doesn’t somehow brick their phones.) Verizon seemed to be the first, but he reports that all major carriers have expressed their interest in it and are pleased with how well it works. It’s not yet known which devices carry this tracking application, if any at all.
“So why don’t developers just remove that tracking application?” That’s a good question, but a horrible answer is to follow – your phone would no longer be able to operate on the network via voice or data. And if the carriers don’t want to go to such extremes, they could simply just throttle your data speeds – Verizon reportedly successfully tested this on several devices that met the conditions.
None of this is confirmed, but P3Droid is a name that we trust after all he’s done for the development community. None of this is 100% going down for now, but just the thought of it is quite unsettling. If true, we hope Google and its partners reconsider such practices and come up with better ways to protect the users who they claim they’re protecting. (It really sounds like they’re just intending to punish the users that they can’t trust with their chain-free devices.) What are your thoughts on all of this? [MyDroidWorld via AndroidForums, Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
