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User builds on some Chinese phones are pretty sloppy. I needed to access an old Oppo phone the other day, where I couldn't remember the PIN. Luckily ADB was ena
by mads 9y ago
User builds on some Chinese phones are pretty sloppy. I needed to access an old Oppo phone the other day, where I couldn't remember the PIN. Luckily ADB was enabled, which suggests that their production software might have been a userdebug build. I couldn't enable root via ADB, since it was at least a production/user build, but the su binary was already on the phone, so I just su'ed and got a root prompt. From there I could pull the sqlite settings database, reset the PIN and push it again. After a reboot, the phone booted without PIN.
Unfortunately there was an Oppo homebrewn secondary PIN on some of their built in apps, which hadn't been reset, but it turned out I could enter the PIN as many times as I wanted, so I made a small script to brute force it via ADB (input text). Took half an hour to disable the secondary PIN with my script.
- ksk 9y agoMy Chinese phone (iPhone 6s) had a similar flaw. Okay, that was tongue in cheek, but I don't see how adding the China qualifier adds anything new or interesting other than inject bias.
- octalmage 9y agoDoes the iPhone 6s have a similar flaw? I'm still using one.
- matt_wulfeck 9y agoHe was joking. The 6s and pretty much every new phone using a Secure Enclave to make brute forcing anything technically impossible.
- ksk 9y agoI was not joking. There was a lockscreen bypass bug where you could access the photos/contacts. Also, I haven't kept up with jailbreaking, so I'm not sure if they can still be rooted. So, yeah, iphones have had several security flaws in almost all versions.
- mads 9y agoSorry, I didn't mean it in a bad way or to bash anything Chinese, which usually also grinds my gears and I fully understand what you say as I used to live and work in China for some years and I am fully aware of the capabilities of many Chinese factories. I should probably have said "cheap phones" - I am not sure. Every ODM/OEM is different. But it is an interesting discussion for sure and made me think about my experiences. What kind of software engineering department would make a mistake like this? I bet 1 USD that I could spend one hour with their engineers and I would be able to predict if this would be a mistake they would make. :)
- willstrafach 9y agoIt is definitely a bit vague, but it can be reasonably assumed that it was meant as shorthand for "Obscure (or no) brand generic MTK phone sourced from China"