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Interesting. I still have a bricked phone from my onboarding at Google, and no internal people cared either. There's a tool I could have used to fix it, but it'

by hansvm 1y ago

Interesting. I still have a bricked phone from my onboarding at Google, and no internal people cared either. There's a tool I could have used to fix it, but it's accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired.

xmprt 1y ago
> accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired Probably why none of the internal people cared either. They didn't want to be the person on the line in case it was determined that the usage wasn't valid. I'm curious how you bricked it beyond repair though. Most devices have a way to enter a recovery/flash mode where you can upload your own firmware from the bootloader. And if you haven't unlocked the bootloader then I don't get how you could have bricked it unless there's an Android bug... which would have probably triggered a more serious look.
- odo1242 1y ago
  Most likely, the tool to upload the firmware from the bootloader required some sort of hardware signing key, which was present within the tool that he wasn’t supposed to use without permission.
- bongodongobob 1y ago
  A company the size of Google will for sure have it enrolled in MDM that prevents that.
- withinboredom 1y ago
  It used to be, if you left a provider without paying for the device on time, they would remote-brick it, which would burn a fuse so it wouldn’t work anymore. I used this to get out of paying for the device once (Verizon), since I couldn’t use it anymore, why would I pay for it?
hamandcheese 1y ago
> There's a tool I could have used to fix it, but it's accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired. Sometimes I name certain APIs/function names/whatever with a "do_not_use_or_you_will_be_fired" suffix. Generally for hacks I don't want people to copy-pasta. I can't actually fire anyone, but it gets peoples attention (especially more junior folks).
- cyberax 1y ago
  React has a bunch of those: https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/ddf8bc3fbac7aefbf557e2e4a3e14d8de1b80872/compiler/packages/react-compiler-runtime/src/index.ts#L15 https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/ddf8bc3fbac7aefbf557e...
  - cyphar 1y ago
    Of course, it doesn't stop people from asking if they can use it: https://github.com/reactjs/react.dev/issues/3896 https://github.com/reactjs/react.dev/issues/3896
userbinator 1y ago
FRP? Plenty of ways to bypass that, even without any official tools.

by hansvm 1y ago

xmprt 1y ago

> accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired Probably why none of the internal people cared either. They didn't want to be the person on the line in case it was determined that the usage wasn't valid. I'm curious how you bricked it beyond repair though. Most devices have a way to enter a recovery/flash mode where you can upload your own firmware from the bootloader. And if you haven't unlocked the bootloader then I don't get how you could have bricked it unless there's an Android bug... which would have probably triggered a more serious look.

odo1242 1y ago
Most likely, the tool to upload the firmware from the bootloader required some sort of hardware signing key, which was present within the tool that he wasn’t supposed to use without permission.
bongodongobob 1y ago
A company the size of Google will for sure have it enrolled in MDM that prevents that.
withinboredom 1y ago
It used to be, if you left a provider without paying for the device on time, they would remote-brick it, which would burn a fuse so it wouldn’t work anymore. I used this to get out of paying for the device once (Verizon), since I couldn’t use it anymore, why would I pay for it?

hamandcheese 1y ago

> There's a tool I could have used to fix it, but it's accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired. Sometimes I name certain APIs/function names/whatever with a "do_not_use_or_you_will_be_fired" suffix. Generally for hacks I don't want people to copy-pasta. I can't actually fire anyone, but it gets peoples attention (especially more junior folks).

cyberax 1y ago
React has a bunch of those: https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/ddf8bc3fbac7aefbf557e2e4a3e14d8de1b80872/compiler/packages/react-compiler-runtime/src/index.ts#L15 https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/ddf8bc3fbac7aefbf557e...
- cyphar 1y ago
  Of course, it doesn't stop people from asking if they can use it: https://github.com/reactjs/react.dev/issues/3896 https://github.com/reactjs/react.dev/issues/3896

userbinator 1y ago

FRP? Plenty of ways to bypass that, even without any official tools.