5 ms·

> It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it. It could come with root access enabled, just like your computer does.

• jmillikin 13y ago
  From a security and reliability perspective, having root enabled by default is a terrible idea. The arms race between OS vendors and malware developers means that defaulting root to disabled is both desirable and inevitable. Only root can install malware into the kernel or BIOS. Only root can pull keys and passwords out of /dev/mem. Only root can damage an installation beyond the ability to factory reset. I eagerly await the day when every major OS will require jumping over some basic hurdle (e.g. rebooting into single-user mode and running /sbin/root-me-harder) before enabling root access, because that will eliminate entire categories of security risks from consumer-oriented computing.
  • nileshtrivedi 13y ago
    Which of these arguments does not apply to computers?
    • jmillikin 13y ago
      I don't understand your question. Just so it's clear, I consider smartphones and tablets to be computers also, and I hope that one day all computers (desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, watches, goggles, Borg implants) come with root-equivalent access disabled by default.
      • nileshtrivedi 13y ago
        Fair enough.