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Well this is neither bad nor good. Because custom Roms will have a hatch out of it. This is against something the article itself describes: > We've actually b

• distantsounds 9y ago
  the english language already has characters like commas and periods to delineate sentences, inserting newlines and '>' characters is only breaking the flow. this is really bad form.
  • Dylan16807 9y ago
    English doesn't have a standard way to do block quotes. And you definitely need block quotes when it's an entire paragraph containing its own quotes. Using ">" is just fine as a way to accomplish that goal.
  • fao_ 9y ago
    The newlines are for markdown not to automatically join the sentences, and the `>` is a standard internet quote colloquialism.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • colanderman 9y ago
    Initial > lines indicate quoted material. This is extremely common in e-mail. Because the developers of Hacker News have chosen not to implement block-quote markup, this is what we are stuck with. (The alternative being unreadable-on-mobile code blocks.)
  • robinduckett 9y ago
    This is Markdown formatting. The comment boxes on reddit support it, as does the text post box on hacker news, but not the comment boxes. A shame really.
• mtgx 9y ago
  What I want to know is why isn't Google allowing users to uninstall some of the apps that come with the devices? You can only disable them. Surely they can't still use the excuse that deleting those apps will "mess with the OEM's image", now that Project Treble exists, and everything can be put into their own separate modules? If they do use that excuse, I don't buy it. It's likely an internal decision to cater to their partners who don't want their users to uninstall those apps. But it's really a petty move from the OEMs, too, because if I'm willing to disable that app, then I might as well uninstall it, because clearly I don't intend to ever use it.
  • Jonnax 9y ago
    There are multiple partitions on android. The system partition is a read only partition that gets updated only in firmware updates. Apps can also be packaged on that partition. Since you can't delete files from it, you cmhave the ability to disable a system application. That deletes the updates (which are on the data partition) then disables the app.
    • zorkw4rg 9y ago
      with a rooted phone I was able to delete such a system app using pm uninstall, was this doing a remount,rw on the system partition to remove it under the hood, or how does this work then? Because I thought that was more of a "you pay us to make your app unremovable preinstalled on all of our phones"-thing rather than anything technical.
      • Klathmon 9y ago
        It works by actually deleting the data from the system partition, that's not a big deal. But what happens is that there isn't any way using just the device to reset it back to factory defaults, and that's a problem now. If your average joe can uninstall the play store by accident, they then can't get it reinstalled again without a PC and some technical knowhow. By making it so you can only "disable" preinstalled apps, you limit the damage that can be done, and because of partitions you don't really harm the user at all (because that space wouldn't be reclaimed if fully deleted anyway). It's also why most "preinstalled" apps are now just a 4kb placeholder that makes google play go and download the latest version of the app the second it's connected, so if you "disable" it you are only left with a 4kb "skeleton" of an app there.
• dingaling 9y ago
  That has been a * value-added feature* for years. Since at least 2014 when I started buying 'Chinese' Android phones. Many sellers advertise it as an advantage over their competition. Not of interest to me since I install LineageOS over the top, but useful to very many people and not at all 'scary' to them. Why is it any scarier than trusting the OEM's build? In fact the seller has more reputation to lose if he does something nefarious. The OEM can just shrug and issue a press release if they get caught installing dodgy stuff; a seller might go out of business.
  • RandomInteger4 9y ago
    Those types of sellers couldn't care less about reputation. Their customers don't come to them for reputation, but rather their low prices.
    • pishpash 9y ago
      Here's the rule-of-thumb, these small time sellers are interested in sales, not pwning you. They may counterfeit but they aren't going to bother installing backdoors nor are they sophisticated enough to do so. They may inadvertently do so out of incompetence but that was not their goal. People who really do want to pwn you wear suits and sit in large offices and they will get you to do it voluntarily by signing a EULA.
      • macintux 9y ago
        Seems like a market opportunity: if you're working on thin margins, why not take some NSA cash?
        • AstralStorm 9y ago
          Good luck doing that in China. It is provably the best and quickest way to end up in an unmarked grave or a secret prison and doom your family at the same time.
          • 9y ago
• jotm 9y ago
  Unless it's explicitly described as EU/US version (I assume there's no difference in quality or hardware), I don't see the problem in buying a "China only" phone?
  • B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
    4G radio bands may differ - bottom table here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands
    • pishpash 9y ago
      Sometimes they have more features for cheaper - dual SIM and NFC come to mind. US phones are very crippled in general.
      • seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        What US phones don’t come with NFC these days? Dual sim is a niche feature that doesn’t make sense in the states.
        • jhoechtl 9y ago
          A US citizen consultant working for weeks abroad, buying a local sim card. That doesn't make sense to you? Niche maybe, but certainly useful enough to be included.
          • seanmcdirmid 9y ago
            I worked abroad for 12 years, 10 even in China where dual sims are even more common. Even my Chinese colleagues would often use an iPhone and just switch the SIM in the airplane, it isn’t that hard. Dual sims are actually meant for (a) people with a personal and business SIM or (b) people cheating on their wife (so an official SIM and a SIM for the xiaosan(s)). Both very niche even in China. Dual SIM simply isn’t really a feature that would drive phone sales in the states.
• derefr 9y ago
  Wow, I never realized that it's effectively impossible to tell if an Android device has a custom ROM intentionally set up to not look like a custom ROM. Is there any chance of Android gaining a "Secure Boot" logic—not in the sense of desktop PCs, but in the sense of ChromeOS devices? (i.e. not that you can't boot custom ROMs, but that you'd get a click-through warning each boot from the hardware boot loader that the OS signature check has failed.)
  • cyphar 9y ago
    > but in the sense of ChromeOS devices? You can fairly easily flash a custom ROM onto a ChromeOS device and remove the boot-up warning. It does require taking apart the device quite significantly, and then flashing different u-boot firmware using a firmware flasher. But it's definitely possible. The problem with ChromeOS devices' "secure boot" is that it is disabled if you want to boot something not trusted in the firmware, so if you have a custom OS you have to disable one of the main security features of the device (unless you flash different firmware onto the device). Oh, and Android already has this feature. But as with ChromeOS you can disable the warning if you re-lock the bootloader. However, each time you unlock (or relock in the case of Pixel devices) the bootloader, the device will be reset to factory defaults.
    • derefr 9y ago
      > Oh, and Android already has this feature. But as with ChromeOS you can disable the warning if you re-lock the bootloader. Ah, I was basically imagining that there was some separate "bootloader" stage sitting on a chip that can't be user-flashed (and is hopefully even fully WORM, like old school OTP-NVM PROMs) which would handle the secure-boot logic. So I guess I should rephrase my hypothetical technology as "like Secure Boot in x64-platform PCs—where the CPU checks the BIOS signature and then the BIOS checks the boot loader signature and then the boot loader checks the OS signature—and where the CPU and BIOS can't be tampered with after the factory, thus guaranteeing the sanctity of the bootloader—but where a failure of the boot loader to verify the OS just results in a click-through boot warning."
      • 9y ago
• izacus 9y ago
  > Which I find quite disturbing. That a seller (even on Amazon) could import cheaper "china" only phones and sell it to me as the EU/US version. (it's basically incorrectly labeled) The bigger problem here is the fact that the device had Gapps preloaded as system private apps, which have special privileges and can do things which normal apps can't. They also get permissions granted automatically. That's usually not a problem with Google sofware, but whoever preloaded Gapps could preload pretty much any kind of app which would have full system privileges and ability to hide itself.
  • AstralStorm 9y ago
    First you would have to crack Google public key system or modify your Android to not check signatures on installed packages. There are easier and sneakier ways to install malware on a phone you control completely that do not require messing with cryptography at all.
    • izacus 9y ago
      Any additional malicious APK next to Gapps wouldn't have to be signed with Google keys to do harm.
• morsch 9y ago
  I think it's just bad. I use Lineage OS on all my devices -- I just bought a Tab S2[1] because it's among the initial round of devices supported by LOS15.1. It kind of feels like being put on notice. Chances are it'll be cracked sooner rather than later, but installing a custom ROM[2] is difficult enough as it is. It seems super unlikely to be a reaction to imports from China, which remain a niche phenomenon. And it's pointless anyway if they end up cracking it. At that point it'll only affect people who sideload the Google stuff on devices they only have limited control over, aka Amazon customers. [1] Which presumably won't be affected since it's a certified device; my phone's not, though. [2] Previously known as installing an operating system.
  • sangnoir 9y ago
    > Chances are it'll be cracked sooner rather than later, but installing a custom ROM[2] is difficult enough as it is Not permanently - the "Google Services" layer is continually updated and any crack would be the beginning of a cat-and-mouse game.
• Feniks 9y ago
  To be fair a lot of people want to avoid US carrier builds of phones like the plague. I don't understand why simlock free never caught on in the US.
• incompatible 9y ago
  I'm curious to know what mechanism allows users of custom ROMs to register their device IDs, but not users of pre-installed ROMs on "unlicensed devices".
  • shkkmo 9y ago
    The article says you have to tie the device ID to your google account. Presumably they don't have access to you google account.
    • incompatible 9y ago
      It also says the device ID is regenerated at every factory reset, so it can't have been pre-registered with Google.
    • sbx320 9y ago
      It doesn't need to be linked at the factory, you could just make the end user link it to their own Google account. As a cheap seller I'd just put a nice manual in the box which explained how to unlock Google services, going the same route as it is intended for custom roms.
• blihp 9y ago
  > Well this is neither bad nor good. Because custom Roms will have a hatch out of it. Given most of Google's other recent moves related to Android, I wouldn't count on that escape hatch being around for too long. More likely they're offering it as a short-term transition and will find a 'reason' to shut it once they've quantified the impact as minimal in a couple of years.
  • JepZ 9y ago
    I doubt that. Kicking the Rom builders out of the Android Eco-System would probably cause the rise of a new mobile OS. So as long as Google doesn't want to end its monopoly they won't do that.
    • bitmapbrother 9y ago
      No it wouldn't. You're seriously underestimating the resources and money it would take to even attempt that. Google has an army of Android developers working on all aspects of the OS from design, security, tooling, architecture, infrastructure, features, bug fixes, etc. Others have tried and spectacularly failed because it's hard. Besides, you'll never have the developer support.
      • taneq 9y ago
        Maybe a smaller army would be a good thing, at least in terms of API stability.
• user5994461 9y ago
  Xiami phones have two officials ROM from the manufacturer, chinese and international. The chinese ROM is Asian languages and English only. It is loaded with the usual Asian apps instead of google play. The phone is not usable out of the box for a westerner, for instance you don't have a typical English keyboard. You can install google play by following the instructions. The international ROM has 10+ European languages. It comes with google play and the usual apps pre installed. Both ROM can be downloaded from the manufacturer website but you need special hardware and possibly an unlock code to swap them. It's possible that the importer gave an international version that is perfectly legit, or that he installed google play by himself, which is also legit. The ROM can be checked in the about page. Some re sellers might replace the system with a fake OS loaded with adware/spyware but that's a different problem.
• Abishek_Muthian 9y ago
  Re locking boot-loader after any aftermarket changes to stock android generally results in trouble. I wonder whether there's more to this aspect of the story.
• Laforet 9y ago
  To clarify, on MIUI devices one can install Google Play at anu time without having root or system fs access, though the author's concern still stands.
• gcb0 9y ago
  by definition, only the manufacturer can "lock it back" if the manufacturer keys are in the open, then it is an even worse state of affairs.
  • gcb0 9y ago
    who downvoted me should read up on how a signed bootloader works