Bad NAND blocks causing problems? - Tilt, TyTN II, MDA Vario III Android Development

I've installed and reinstalled android since the .7 builds before android 1.0 was out, i've installed using data images and ext2 partitions... I've put my time in, so i've had a G1 since december and have pretty muched stopped playing with my kaiser, I picked it up today and have been trying to do a NAND install of Poly's build with no luck... got the 320x240-Panel2-Tilt NBH installed and booting, along with poly's build dropping into the andboot folder... and updated to radio 1.71*, after doing a install to NAND (and wiping /data & /system)... I see that I have bad blocks on my mtdblock3 (NAND) when its mounted... I cant seem to boot android all the way, anyone else have a bootable android that has bad blocks... AFAIK most devices that use NAND work around potential bad blocks (Wii, XB360, etc) will it format around these blocks?

wow, I reflashed the .NBH, and still getting the same bad block error, set the phone down and was browsing the web and listening to TwiG, look back over at the phone and it WAS sitting on a shell on a blank line ie. "#", and started the NexusOne logo!!! so I guess its all good with bad blocks and all!

Now another question, I'm on a $9.99 featurephone unlimited dataplan for AT&T, if I throw my sim back in my Tilt, will they figure it out? I dont have my IMEI registered, but obviously they can see it... lol, I know its a little off topic.

I have 3 bad blocks on my Tilt and doesn't seem to be affecting anything.

Yes bad blocks are a part of every NAND memory device. I read somewhere that there is like a 5% failure rate on these types of memory. It's just how the tech is. However, there is a system built into it to keep track of the bad blocks, once it's marked bad, it will never be used. I also have 1 bad block and have had no ill effect on my kaiser. It just seems that the boot process lists which blocks are being reported as bad by the memory.
Hope this helps.

I have around 7 bad blocks, and OK with my sistem.hahahahahahaha.

jmhalder said:
Now another question, I'm on a $9.99 featurephone unlimited dataplan for AT&T, if I throw my sim back in my Tilt, will they figure it out? I dont have my IMEI registered, but obviously they can see it... lol, I know its a little off topic.
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Click to collapse
Yeah they will. They figured it out in less than a week when I got my old Hermes. Even without my IMEI registered, and a custom ROM installed, my account on the site showed I was using a Cingular 8525. They automatically switched me to the $30 data plan. There was absolutely nothing I could do.

at&t
"They" do know, but if you have a feature called "smartphone exclusion" you can get away with a $15 data plan, but as soon as you upgrade to a smartphone the exclusion feature is removed.
So, if you have two lines always upgrade the one that will not be using a smartphone, then switch sim cards.
The only way to know if there is a smartphone exclusion feature is for a rep to open your account and look at your feature codes, even the $0 features.
This probably doesn't make any sense, but I wish there was a way to block an IMEI, then no problem. In the past we could put all 1111's for an imei in the system as a non att phone and there were no reprocussions.
peace

I've wondered the same thing at times about the imei. It seems every time I went exploring the "making imei different' option, all I would ever get is the big lecture about stealing phones.
(RANT ALERT)
Kinda like when you go buy allergy medicine and get carded, cause there are a bunch of losers out there doing something illegal with it.
I am not sure of the ethical issues with using 'too much data' or paying more, b/c I use my wife's Samsung Flite (insured non-smartphone) with $15.00 internet tethered bluetooth to my laptop, so eh...... I'm always a stickler for paying what I think something is worth to me, especially after a company has REALLY taken advantage of me a time or two. And btw, where I live, I only get 1 bar most of the time. Really, our phones hardly work, so we have skype on the PC to make calls from our home. They work great in the city that I work in, but i'm on a computer using google talk mostly. Can you say "Holes in the coverage map?" And yes, i've tried all the radios. Be it my kaiser, the old hermes, my wife's samsung flight, or the 3 we've had Blackjacks, theres just never been good coverage. So ya, I think i'm overpaying a bit. I just use my phone as a toy, a hobby, a see what it can do.
I've read about IMEI changing being illegal in certain countries. What about the USA? I mean seriously, I drive a car with no catalytic converter, but we don't have emissions checks in my state. Yes that means I'm breaking the law, but I also think that relatively speaking, i'd rather the police spend their time busting Meth labs than worrying about my car emitting 20% more stuff from the exhaust.
Its all about saving money, because everyone is trying to get ALL of it from you.
(/RANT)
Can the imei on the kaiser be changed, or killed for that matter? Has it been explored?
And please, spare me the stolen phone lecture. I just don't think I can take it.

carcomp said:
And please, spare me the stolen phone lecture. I just don't think I can take it.
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Click to collapse
How about the "It's illegal to change your IMEI number in most countries and you could face prison if you do it" lecture?

carcomp said:
I've read about IMEI changing being illegal in certain countries. What about the USA? I mean seriously, I drive a car with no catalytic converter, but we don't have emissions checks in my state. Yes that means I'm breaking the law, but I also think that relatively speaking, i'd rather the police spend their time busting Meth labs than worrying about my car emitting 20% more stuff from the exhaust.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pulling out the catalytic converter won't increase your mpg, as many modern cars actually require the back pressure. You'd have to also modify the computer, or own a car made in the 70's and older.
Its all about saving money, because everyone is trying to get ALL of it from you.
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Click to collapse
I bought my Kaiser off Ebay, and it's actually made for the UK. Just to try and avoid having to pay a $25 fee for having access to unlimited internet. Course the 3G doesn't work with T-Mobile in USA, but I use 2G anyway to save battery power.
Cell phone industry is just one big scam. You can't afford to buy a new phone, unless it's under contract, and switching cell phone companies will cost you a disconnection fee. Not to forget that their cell phones are locked to them only, and requires you to beg for the unlock code.
Honestly wish that T-Mobile had a $10 fee for getting unlimited internet, cause relying on wifi is a huge hassle.

Dukenukemx said:
Pulling out the catalytic converter won't increase your mpg, as many modern cars actually require the back pressure. You'd have to also modify the computer, or own a car made in the 70's and older.
I bought my Kaiser off Ebay, and it's actually made for the UK. Just to try and avoid having to pay a $25 fee for having access to unlimited internet. Course the 3G doesn't work with T-Mobile in USA, but I use 2G anyway to save battery power.
Cell phone industry is just one big scam. You can't afford to buy a new phone, unless it's under contract, and switching cell phone companies will cost you a disconnection fee. Not to forget that their cell phones are locked to them only, and requires you to beg for the unlock code.
Honestly wish that T-Mobile had a $10 fee for getting unlimited internet, cause relying on wifi is a huge hassle.
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Well i've officially derailed this thread. sorry. I'll go join the ranks of losers that I always complain about
BTW, my car doesn't have a cat cause its a 18 year old Cutlass Calais, and I'm not paying to put one back on where the original one rusted away. It does have a new exhaust however, and right where that cat converter goes is a nice shiny honda resonator from a civic Si (got it from a friend at college when he put an aftermarket exhaust on his car).
I don't think you'll get prison time in the United States for messing with your phone, I'm not sure either. I've never heard of it actually happening due to someone changing imei numbers in order to profit criminally in some way.
BTW, just to tie this thread back into its original form, i've gotten Bad Nand blocks reported one time. I flashed hardspl again using sdcard method, and haven't seen them mentioned in android boot since. Weird huh?

carcomp said:
BTW, just to tie this thread back into its original form, i've gotten Bad Nand blocks reported one time. I flashed hardspl again using sdcard method, and haven't seen them mentioned in android boot since. Weird huh?
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I get errors with bad nand blocks as well, but as someone mentioned, that's normal. It's like buying a LCD TV and you see a few dead pixels. That's normal, even though it pisses you off, knowing that companies dare make products with some defects. Even CPUs have this too. For example, when Intel or AMD makes CPUs, they pick the ones that happen to be made well. The ones with the less defects can clock higher, and therefore cost more money. The CPUs with the more defects get clocked lower, and sold cheaper. It's gotten to the point where some companies are disabling cores. ATI and Nvidia first did this with their videos cards, disabling pipelines that were bad. Now AMD does this with their Athlon and Phenom CPUs, by disabling 1 or even 2 bad cores. Good news is that, many products were sold without defective cores or pipelines, and if you know what you're doing, and lucky enough, you could turn cheap products into expensive ones.
Yea I derailed myself. Anyway, after messing with Android on my Kaiser for 5 hours, I decided it wasn't ready. There's 6 issues that bothered me. Doubt any of it is related to bad nand blocks.
#1 Random features don't function unless you restart phone. Couldn't play MP3's because format wasn't supported. Restarted phone, and now I can play MP3's. There's a lot of instances where restarting the phone will fix a problem, but that brings me to the second issue.
#2 Restarting phone can cause it to not boot. Wouldn't be a huge problem if I didn't need to restart often, but I do. Usually, pulling the battery and holding the power button for a while, usually fixes it for me.
#3 Random freezing. You never know when your phone will just freeze. I got it to freeze when changing my ring tone.
#4 Installing applications must be in internal memory. A specific Android related problem, but annoying as hell. There's a solution to this, but it requires me to partition my SD card, and format it as ext2.
#5 No offline GPS. Again, specific to Android but something I can't live without. I heard Ndrive can do it, but I'd rather use the GPS that comes with the Android. I'm sure there's a way around it, but no good step by step guides to do it.
#6 Can't send audio with texts. I'm not sure if this is a Android issue, or if I needed to restart my phone. I love being able to send pictures and music formatted in the AMR format to friends, but for the life of me I couldn't select any AMR audio to send with texts. I could attact pictures with no problem, but couldn't find any of my mp3's or amr files. The same could be said about changing my ring tone to a mp3, as it just couldn't see it.

Did what i said to you in the other thread help with the sticky boot, and the lockups?

You mean the 3.29 boot loader? It still happened when I flashed it. Though, I did notice that Android booted faster, but that maybe my perception.

FloatingFatMan said:
How about the "It's illegal to change your IMEI number in most countries and you could face prison if you do it" lecture?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not illegal in america, it IS undoubtably illegal in lots of europe... its obviously illegal to exploit that to do malicious things... but whatever, the knowledge to do so is obviously NOT illegal, I'm VERY tired of that argument... that kind of info IS on this site... also, claiming illegality in the US will require citing law for me to really take ANY credibility in it...
*once again, I'm only promoting the KNOWLEDGE to be able to modify this, not the actual act... obviously there are a TON of scumbags that want this info to push devices illegally in the EU, but I personally could give a crap about them.*
/Rant

jmhalder said:
Its not illegal in america, it IS undoubtably illegal in lots of europe... its obviously illegal to exploit that to do malicious things... but whatever, the knowledge to do so is obviously NOT illegal, I'm VERY tired of that argument... that kind of info IS on this site... also, claiming illegality in the US will require citing law for me to really take ANY credibility in it...
*once again, I'm only promoting the KNOWLEDGE to be able to modify this, not the actual act... obviously there are a TON of scumbags that want this info to push devices illegally in the EU, but I personally could give a crap about them.*
/Rant
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess someone totally missed the smiley at the end of my post.
As for the knowledge how to do it, it took be approx 5 seconds to put a search in to XDA's search box and come up with the results how to do it. Try it yourself instead of complaining about it.

FloatingFatMan said:
I guess someone totally missed the smiley at the end of my post.
As for the knowledge how to do it, it took be approx 5 seconds to put a search in to XDA's search box and come up with the results how to do it. Try it yourself instead of complaining about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've searched, and used good forum etiquette, no need for the harshness, i've tried the single piece of software available that isn't INTENDED for the Kaiser, and I couldn't get it to work, also couldn't find any reports of it working for the Kaiser. PM me if you have any other info.

Please PM me too. I've performed the same searches and haven't found anything useful.

Actually changing your IMEI in order to get a service you have not paid for would be fraud, which I believe would be a felony charge at least.
There are US laws on the book regarding changing electronic "serial numbers" on mobile communications devices. They don't say IMEI (this was to deal with ESN cloning fraud in the late '90s with analog cell phones) but if you actually read the laws as they are written - you'd see they could easily interpreted a lot of different ways.
And in todays climate of anti-terror paranoia, I'm sure that changing your imei might also be construed as an attempt to avoid legitimate surveillance, i.e. wiretapping, which uses the imei in order to intercept traffic to and from a suspects device.
Not that i'm being a killjoy, I just had a look for ways of changing imei, and found a few ways of doing it, i'm just about to point anyone in their direction, since i'm in the UK

Related

Warrantless cellphone searches any way to block them?

I don't live in one of these states but I have read about the machine they use in mich and it says it can pull data off iphones android etc. Is there anyway to block this thing just curious what exactly its doing sounds like its "hacking" our phones isn't that illegal too?
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=21443
quik99 said:
I don't live in one of these states but I have read about the machine they use in mich and it says it can pull data off iphones android etc. Is there anyway to block this thing just curious what exactly its doing sounds like its "hacking" our phones isn't that illegal too?
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=21443
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, get a cheap phone that is not a smartphone. All of our data is already available to Google and Sprint.
Do you BONSAI?
Interesting read, thanks
@kenny
what kinda data do they read besides our texts and phone numbers??
kennyglass123 said:
Yeah, get a cheap phone that is not a smartphone. All of our data is already available to Google and Sprint.
Do you BONSAI?
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Click to collapse
nope is there something in it that would help? Currently using ACS which has carrier IQ removed..and neither google or sprint have the entire contents of my SD card pictures I have taken etc
davidrules7778 said:
Interesting read, thanks
@kenny
what kinda data do they read besides our texts and phone numbers??
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Click to collapse
Everything pictures call logs gps data. The device in mich says it pulls about everything and works on 95% of phones and they are using it for normal traffic stops
quik99 said:
nope is there something in it that would help? Currently using ACS which has carrier IQ removed..and neither google or sprint have the entire contents of my SD card pictures I have taken etc
Everything pictures logs gps data
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Well im on bonsai and no carrior iq as well so i think we will be good, plus i really dont think unless your dealing drugs via text and phone calls and get in trouble with the law they arent going to arrest you and check whats on your phone.....
Again I dont live there so its really not a bit deal was just kinda asking but they are pulling all of this data for traffic stops I do get those quite a bit on my bike the below is from the article
"Michigan State Police officers have been using a device called Cellebrite UFED Physical Pro for the last couple years. The device scrapes off everything stored on the phone -- GPS geotag data, media (pictures, videos, music, etc.), text messages, emails, call history, and more.
Michigan State Police have been reportedly regularly been scraping the phones of people they pull over."
davidrules7778 said:
Well im on bonsai and no carrior iq as well so i think we will be good, plus i really dont think unless your dealing drugs via text and phone calls and get in trouble with the law they arent going to arrest you and check whats on your phone.....
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davidrules7778 said:
Interesting read, thanks
@kenny
what kinda data do they read besides our texts and phone numbers??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google keeps track of apps downloaded, usage, contacts, emails (gmail), texts, GPS data, and basically anytime you use your phone with the Android system. They are worse than big brother. If you so choose they can also use gps data tagging everytime you take a pic, better than satellite spying.
tthe epic is not supprrted by this device. if you go to the cellebrite website it lists what devices are. 99 percent of the phones ARE NOT ACCESSIBLE WIRELESSLY.
if you select a device it lists how it connects. i found the evo on the list and it says you have to manually hook it up with a usb cable. same thing with the galaxy tab and the continum. this thing doesnt scare me. im pretty confident in my ability to hard reset my phone before the cop gets to my window.
http://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-products/ufed-standard-kit.html
device list.
http://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-products/ufed-standard-kit/ufed-logical-supported-phones.html
What do you all have on your phone that you may be arrested for?
kennyglass123 said:
What do you all have on your phone that you may be arrested for?
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Click to collapse
Nothing, its the principle of it all...
Just another way for the government to take a dump on the bill of rights. I'd really like to know what BS loophole they hide behind to get around the 4th amendment. After they do away with the 4th they'll just work their way up the list. Next thing you know they'll be living in your house, taking your guns and not letting you speak out about the whole thing.
austin420 said:
tthe epic is not supprrted by this device. if you go to the cellebrite website it lists what devices are. 99 percent of the phones ARE NOT ACCESSIBLE WIRELESSLY.
if you select a device it lists how it connects. i found the evo on the list and it says you have to manually hook it up with a usb cable. same thing with the galaxy tab and the continum. this thing doesnt scare me. im pretty confident in my ability to hard reset my phone before the cop gets to my window.
http://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-products/ufed-standard-kit.html
device list.
http://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-products/ufed-standard-kit/ufed-logical-supported-phones.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well ya if you got something to hide but I dont think rushing to do a hard reset and also deleting all of yoru SD card data anytime you get pulled over sounds like a good idea/fun unless you are a drug lord lol
kennyglass123 said:
What do you all have on your phone that you may be arrested for?
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Click to collapse
nothing but I dont think a cop should get a copy of my girls titty picture she sent me because I went 5mph over.
[QUOTEnothing but I dont think a cop should get a copy of my girls titty picture she sent me because I went 5mph over. [/QUOTE]
HA! Nice...can we see? J/K
Good point. Apparently it needs to be placed next to the device. You can refuse to give it to them.
Agreed that it's not about having anything to hide, it is indeed the principle. Fourth amendment is supposed protect our privacy and the courts have processes in place for authorities to collect evidence. This device cracks open everything in your life and all information about you that comes across your phone. It might seem trivial, but does anyone else need to know about your shenanigans, deepest secrets revealed via text to your best friend(s), banking information, and anything else? Not ok IMO!
Agreed. They should NOT be allowed to look into your phone. EVER. Unless they HONESTL beleive it to be packed with drugs (which would probably take FOREVER), then no. I Will NOT hand it over. Thank god for clock work mod, and the 10 minutes they spend logging data. means you could pull battery, go in, wipe data, and have it done before they can do ANYTHING. No i have nothing to hide (privacy is not HIDING), but NO you may not read my, or my freinds texts of problems. Just not gonna happen.
Easy answer...write your congressman and lawmakers to make this illegal without warrant.
carry a ****ty prepaid phone with you and just give that to the cop. I would prob have one in my car for just that if I lived in mich. I mean for a speeding ticket they get my ****ty phone and I get a ticket. But obviously if i'm busted for something serious and get taken in they would get my phone. But the second senario is not really what i'm worried about.
The article was updated with a press release by the Michigan State Police. They only use the device with a warrant or consent.
The Supreme Court of the Ohio ruled in State v. Smith that mobile phones are now akin to laptop computers in that they can be seized but not searched until a warrant has been issued. With California (who would have thought they would be the one to rule that way) giving an opposite decision, this will probably end up in front of the Supreme Court of the United States for a decision before long.
For now, turn your phone off when the red and blue lights come on.
they can't crack the epic as of now, not even on list of cable supported phones.
so really doesn't even matter (for now) .
still kinda scary that they do this, and they're allowed to.
Magic Oreo said:
they can't crack the epic as of now, not even on list of cable supported phones.
so really doesn't even matter (for now) .
still kinda scary that they do this, and they're allowed to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not true, it is supported via wire. This is pretty sketchy.
legalize it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So... Sprint rooted my phone...

I have had both Camera and GPS issues since the day I bought my E4GT. My Camera will randomly give me "Recording Failed" when I try to take photos. Changing Camera settings was also a good way of reproducing "Recording Failed" And my GPS simply just doesn't lock, and if it does it is unbelievably inaccurate.
So, I took my phone in several months back, of course all they did was flash it to stock, I came back in an hour and they claimed it was fixed. Within 24 hours I was still having the same Camera issue, and GPS wasn't improved.
I have dealt with this issue up until today and simply ignored it, used my girlfriends GPS etc. Keep in mind that both these issues exist on stock EK02, EL30, and any custom ROM I install, and GPS status or other GPS related apps don't help either.
So, after flashing to EK02, using a USB Jig to reset my download count and then doing the OTA to EL30, the problem persisted. I brought it to the Sprint store, came back an hour and a half later, and they claimed it was fixed. I instantly starting taking photos in the store, after 2 photographs my phone actually just restarted itself. Once it restarted, I tried taking several more photographs and received my usual "Recording Failed" message. At this point the tech takes the phone back, fiddles around on his computer and tells me they will just have to order a new one.
Great news! Glad I'm getting a brand new E4GT. The real kicker... I got back in my car, drove to work and then I noticed something funny, I have the superuser app installed. I installed Titanium backup to confirm I had root, and I did. The Sprint tech seems to have rooted my phone, most likely in attempt to try a few 3rd party fixes.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Doesn't rooting technically void my warranty... Or is it only flashing non-official ROMs? I know I'm still ok on my warranty because they already confirmed they are shipping a phone to the store for me to pick up. I was just shocked to have Sprint root my phone.
Fendulon said:
I have had both Camera and GPS issues since the day I bought my E4GT. My Camera will randomly give me "Recording Failed" when I try to take photos. Changing Camera settings was also a good way of reproducing "Recording Failed" And my GPS simply just doesn't lock, and if it does it is unbelievably inaccurate.
So, I took my phone in several months back, of course all they did was flash it to stock, I came back in an hour and they claimed it was fixed. Within 24 hours I was still having the same Camera issue, and GPS wasn't improved.
I have dealt with this issue up until today and simply ignored it, used my girlfriends GPS etc. Keep in mind that both these issues exist on stock EK02, EL30, and any custom ROM I install, and GPS status or other GPS related apps don't help either.
So, after flashing to EK02, using a USB Jig to reset my download count and then doing the OTA to EL30, the problem persisted. I brought it to the Sprint store, came back an hour and a half later, and they claimed it was fixed. I instantly starting taking photos in the store, after 2 photographs my phone actually just restarted itself. Once it restarted, I tried taking several more photographs and received my usual "Recording Failed" message. At this point the tech takes the phone back, fiddles around on his computer and tells me they will just have to order a new one.
Great news! Glad I'm getting a brand new E4GT. The real kicker... I got back in my car, drove to work and then I noticed something funny, I have the superuser app installed. I installed Titanium backup to confirm I had root, and I did. The Sprint tech seems to have rooted my phone, most likely in attempt to try a few 3rd party fixes.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Doesn't rooting technically void my warranty... Or is it only flashing non-official ROMs? I know I'm still ok on my warranty because they already confirmed they are shipping a phone to the store for me to pick up. I was just shocked to have Sprint root my phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol the only thing that happened to me like that was:
i brought my evo 3d in so they could check out the power button... (it was pushed down and wouldnt turn on) the phone had cm7 on it... and the tech showed me his OG evo with cm7 on it with the same theme on it (cm7 red remix)
i couldnt restore it back to a stock RUU because of the power button...but he got a replacement for me even when he got it turned on and seen cm7 on it
I've noticed that most techs don't care if your phone is rooted or not. In fact, I used to go down to the Sprint store to look at new accessories, and I would show off that mine was rooted and running CM. I had a couple of the people working there have me root their phone for them.
It would surprise me at all if the tech rooted your phone. Probably jumped on XDA to see if anyone else had solved the problem yet too.
blackroseMD1 said:
Probably jumped on XDA to see if anyone else had solved the problem yet too.
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Click to collapse
LOL i bet he did... anyone that has any problems with their phones i direct them here... im waiting for the day that the techs in the sprint store ask me "have you checked xda to see if they have any resolution to this problem"
because ive had customer service reps/android tech department (on the phone) tell me to check xda or android community..
Out of curiosity, when recording video were you recording to internal memory or a microSD card? And if a microSD card, what Class? I got that error all the time with my Class 2 16GB, but when I upgraded to my 32GB Class 4 I have no trouble. Apparently the write speed wasn't high enough for the video stream.
Weird. I've got problems where my GPS sometimes won't lock.... but I reboot and it seems to work for another day or whatever.
TurboFool said:
Out of curiosity, when recording video were you recording to internal memory or a microSD card? And if a microSD card, what Class? I got that error all the time with my Class 2 16GB, but when I upgraded to my 32GB Class 4 I have no trouble. Apparently the write speed wasn't high enough for the video stream.
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Click to collapse
I actually never recorded video really. This was an issue with simple picture taking at any resolution. I could save to internal or external storage and receive this error. I currently have a class 8 16gb that I use that hasn't given me issues that I know of.
As for the GPS, it was a longstanding and ongoing issue with my phone. No amount of reboots, reflashes or GPS fixes would remedy it. I've tried at least a half dozen roms, plus every OTA and sprint leak. I'm just glad to be getting a new phone.
Also, I've never dropped this phone once. It is literally in pristine condition, you could probably put it in a box and nobody would know that it was used.
yea crazy.. obviously the sprint rep thought he knew what he was doing but in the end, you probably know more than he does .. then again, anybody can read lol. i would have pointed it out in the store and been like hey buddy, whats this? lol then watched him try to explain himself..
elliwigy said:
yea crazy.. obviously the sprint rep thought he knew what he was doing but in the end, you probably know more than he does .. then again, anybody can read lol. i would have pointed it out in the store and been like hey buddy, whats this? lol then watched him try to explain himself..
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Lol that would have been a fun one to watch him try to talk his way out of. At least you had a competent sprint guy, my stores in reno seem to never have people who know anything, not even the selling points of a phone in their store!
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
Haha I would have loved to ask in store, but unfortunately I didn't notice this for about a half hour when I was at work.
I'll definitely be asking them about it when I go to pick up my replacement phone. I still have my "Sprint Rooted and certified" phone in my hands haha.
Lol.
Once again, contrary to popular belief, rooting does not void your protection plan with us, nor does it prevent us from doing a paid repair (no TEP). Only the iPhone holds the distinction of having it's protection plan voided by software modification, as per Apple.
Now, are we allowed by corporate rules to root your phone as a method of repair? No, of course not. But we're also supposed to only use software that's provided to us, and a lot of times that just isn't enough.
Of course, there are special cases; if somebody carelessly lost their wimax keys when trying to get s-off, i wouldn't replace the phone for two reasons: it's nonessential to telephony functions (meaning youre not stuck if you need to call 911), and it's technically DBR (damaged beyond economical repair), because our warehouse wont be able to get them back, and the board would end up being scrapped.
To that end, hard bricked phones could be rejected due to DBR, but i have no way of telling if it happened due to flashing the phone, now do I?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
squshy 7 said:
Lol.
Once again, contrary to popular belief, rooting does not void your protection plan with us, nor does it prevent us from doing a paid repair (no TEP). Only the iPhone holds the distinction of having it's protection plan voided by software modification, as per Apple.
Now, are we allowed by corporate rules to root your phone as a method of repair? No, of course not. But we're also supposed to only use software that's provided to us, and a lot of times that just isn't enough.
Of course, there are special cases; if somebody carelessly lost their wimax keys when trying to get s-off, i wouldn't replace the phone for two reasons: it's nonessential to telephony functions (meaning youre not stuck if you need to call 911), and it's technically DBR (damaged beyond economical repair), because our warehouse wont be able to get them back, and the board would end up being scrapped.
To that end, hard bricked phones could be rejected due to DBR, but i have no way of telling if it happened due to flashing the phone, now do I?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well thank you very much for this info. Its nice to know the ins and outs of my warranty service. May even take a look into the the terms of service and such for it. It'll nice to have a shiny new phone though for sure.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
Bear gri11z said:
because ive had customer service reps/android tech department (on the phone) tell me to check xda or android community..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the Viewsonic G-tablet and if you contact viewsonic customer support, they always point you to XDA fourms. lol. I wish i could get paid just telling people to check XDA
Just wanted to second this. At this time only jailbroken iPhones have their warranty/protection voided.
You should have no problem getting help even if your phone is rooted, though we should not be the ones doing it for you lol
squshy 7 said:
Lol.
Once again, contrary to popular belief, rooting does not void your protection plan with us, nor does it prevent us from doing a paid repair (no TEP). Only the iPhone holds the distinction of having it's protection plan voided by software modification, as per Apple.
Now, are we allowed by corporate rules to root your phone as a method of repair? No, of course not. But we're also supposed to only use software that's provided to us, and a lot of times that just isn't enough.
Of course, there are special cases; if somebody carelessly lost their wimax keys when trying to get s-off, i wouldn't replace the phone for two reasons: it's nonessential to telephony functions (meaning youre not stuck if you need to call 911), and it's technically DBR (damaged beyond economical repair), because our warehouse wont be able to get them back, and the board would end up being scrapped.
To that end, hard bricked phones could be rejected due to DBR, but i have no way of telling if it happened due to flashing the phone, now do I?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Full Disclosure: I am a Sprint employee. Any opinions are my own and in no way endorsed by Sprint.
Sent from my SGSII on the Sprint network.
When i went to go get my e4gt one of the salesmen was talking about his jailbroken iphone to someone he was selling an iphone to. I wasnt really paying attention since they were talking about iphones and i was downloading the xda app while they finished my paperwork.
You sure your method of returning to stock didn't preserve your root? It's possible.
Bear gri11z said:
LOL i bet he did... anyone that has any problems with their phones i direct them here... im waiting for the day that the techs in the sprint store ask me "have you checked xda to see if they have any resolution to this problem"
because ive had customer service reps/android tech department (on the phone) tell me to check xda or android community..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im a sales rep in a preferred retailer. but because of the time ive spent here, im also the unofficial lead technician in our store, and the last resort for our actual techs when they cant fix it themselves... and they went into training for their job..
evantribley said:
Just wanted to second this. At this time only jailbroken iPhones have their warranty/protection voided.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
99% correct. if an android has a rom flashed, its warranty is void. but we can still repair/replace them with TEP, and paid repairs are fine too. its the unlocking of the bootloader that is looked at, not the actual rooting
see: htc evo3d (htcdev dot com), unlocking nexus s, flash/binary counter in E4GT
As much as I like to side with Sprint employees in regards to TEP & rooting, it tends to be more of a personal Sprint employee decision as opposed to actual TEP policy.
After reading over the TOS in regards to TEP, there are some things written in there that could potentially be used against you should rooting be considered the cause of your problem:
"Sprint is not liable for the websites you visit or anything you download or cause to be downloaded to your device. Damage related to websites visited or downloads to your device may not be covered by Sprint's Service and Repair policy or your device insurance policy."
Personally, it's a chance one takes & it depends on who you deal with on any given day should you run into any trouble. There just seems to be alot if what if's in how it's written, how it's defined & how a Sprint rep would handle the situation.
You are right in that it may change but their are policies and procedures in place that dictate how we do our job. We have clear direction to help Android customers who have rooted devices. The other poster who corrected me is right in the fact that your manufacturer warranty is likely voided from rooting but Sprint will still make an attempt to help you with paid repair or TEP.
We also have clear direction that a jailbroken iPhone loses it's protection.
That is in the ToS so you cannot hold Sprint liable if you break your phone, if you download a virus/malware, install custom apps/software etc.
Yes you can break your phone beyond a point that can be fixed but that doesn't mean that we won't try to help you. Sprint doesn't get anything out of a customer who cancels because their rooted phone breaks and can't be fixed.
EL TEJANO said:
As much as I like to side with Sprint employees in regards to TEP & rooting, it tends to be more of a personal Sprint employee decision as opposed to actual TEP policy.
After reading over the TOS in regards to TEP, there are some things written in there that could potentially be used against you should rooting be considered the cause of your problem:
"Sprint is not liable for the websites you visit or anything you download or cause to be downloaded to your device. Damage related to websites visited or downloads to your device may not be covered by Sprint's Service and Repair policy or your device insurance policy."
Personally, it's a chance one takes & it depends on who you deal with on any given day should you run into any trouble. There just seems to be alot if what if's in how it's written, how it's defined & how a Sprint rep would handle the situation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Full Disclosure: I am a Sprint employee. Any opinions are my own and in no way endorsed by Sprint.
Sent from my SGSII on the Sprint network.
Overstew said:
You sure your method of returning to stock didn't preserve your root? It's possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can honestly say I am absolutely certain I didn't have root when I handed them my phone to be repaired.
I ODINed EK02, which removed my root, then I used a USB Jig, which reset my download count, and then I booted up my phone and was informed there was an update, and so I did the OTA to EL29. At this point I actually tried to install Titanium for ****s and giggles, only to be told I didn't meet the requirements to use the app, root, so I uninstalled it.

[Q] Clarifications on R800x Rooting Status

I know all of this has been covered but when searching all the threads I found were from last year at some point so I figured I would see if there was any new news that I just wasn't finding with my search terms. I apologize in advance if I put this thread in the wrong place or didn't follow the forum format in some way.
Basically, is the Verizon version of the Xperia Play, R800x with 2.3.3 still locked and there is no way to root this phone now? Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought the Supreme Court or something had ruled that we were legally able to do what we wanted with devices we owned? Does that not apply here or am I crazy? Let me guess, I inadvertently signed all my rights away by clicking something that automatically means I agree with whatever restrictions they wish to put on me, am I getting warm? Lol.
I knew I should have done this earlier but I honestly wanted to give my phone a good run stock before tinkering with it. Now that I am having to delete just about every app I have downloaded on my phone, including games I paid good money for, just so I don't get continuous memory warnings mostly due to updates for the preinstalled software that I never use that Verizon saw fit to saddle me with, I decided to look into rooting it only to find that this is no longer an option. Honestly, I am fed up with this phone, Verizon, the whole nine yards. Excuse me while I rant a bit but I wish I have never upgraded to a "smart" phone and I am seriously considering dropping back to a normal plan without all the data and use my old, reliable Samsung Flipshot. It was a phone and a camera and it did both very well. My Play is supposed to do all sorts of things but it does nothing well and even when I am inclined to surf the 'Net or play a typical game or even txt I am constantly bombarded with the popup that the app has stopped responding and do I want to Wait or Force Close. It honestly smacks of the Windows 95 and 98 days when nothing seemed to work right and the BSOD was a common, everyday thing. Ok, rant over, I apologize.
Seriously though, is there anything I can do to stop the slow, inevitable death of my phone? I have uninstalled the largest of the updates for most of the programs I don't use like the Kindle app, some sort of "office" app and a few other updates that were over the 10mb mark but is this a viable solution? Are these apps just going to update again later or harass me with notifications to update? What the hell happened to the 250mb of extra space I had before and why can't I get it back by deleting the apps I downloaded myself? When my phone was new I had all kinds of room to do stuff and had many apps installed that I rarely used but were very handy when I needed them, now I find that I have to delete anything non-essential just to get my phone to operate on a somewhat normal level. Is there anything I can do to fight this and get back enough memory to make my phone fun and somewhat useful again? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I guess I am just very disappointed with my first foray into the "smartphone" world. I honestly feel they are pushing the technology too far to fast since it seems almost like your phone is only something cool when it's new sitting on a shelf, then when you get it home and use it, it turns to crap in you hand. I suppose I am just angry over the whole situation and I feel sort of cheated. Maybe I misunderstood something somewhere but I thought these cool little gadgets were supposed to make life better and actually be useful. Then again, maybe I am just getting old.
So is there any hope or am I stuck with this for the time being or as long as I am stuck with Verizon in my rather remote area?
Read my sticky thread on "R800x Users: You've got Custom ROM questions? I've got answers." It still applies, at least until May 1st when you get an update.
In short: you can root your phone. There is something else called a bootloader that remains locked that controls whether you can use certain custom ROMs and kernels. There is a paid way to unlock it which gives you more access. There are quite a few custom ROMs you can use with a locked bootloader that will improve your phone's performance, and even more if you unlock the bootloader.
About the locked bootloader thing, Verizon can do that because they subsidize the cost of the phone in your contract. So, technically, they "own" the phone for the contract period and can dictate what you can do to said hardware.
You need to do a bit more digging. You can do a LOT more than stock.
Sent from my R800x using xda premium
Thanks for the info. I skimmed through the thread but I wondered if it still applied, good to know that it does so I'll go back and read it in detail. I guess I understand the Verizon thing. This is the real cost of buying my phone for a penny off Amazon, lol. Again, thanks for the info and I will definitely check out the info on rooting my phone, even if it's not totally unlocked. As long as I can get rid of most of the bloatware, I will be satisfied with that. Not really looking to make my phone do anything more than it does now, but improving it's performance and storage is definitely my motivation so hopefully something along those lines is still possible. Thanks again!
netizenmt said:
About the locked bootloader thing, Verizon can do that because they subsidize the cost of the phone in your contract. So, technically, they "own" the phone for the contract period and can dictate what you can do to said hardware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I paid the unsubsidized price for my Play (~$500 if I recall) so I wouldn't have to sign a contract, and they still won't let me unlock it, not that that stopped me...
Mogul345 said:
Well, I paid the unsubsidized price for my Play (~$500 if I recall) so I wouldn't have to sign a contract, and they still won't let me unlock it, not that that stopped me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Technically you pay for the device but Sony holds the rights to what is contained within. You don't own EVERYTHING in the phone. Just the right to use it. Sure its in the Terms and Conditions
Sent from my R800i using xda premium
Well even with Verizon's meddling I was able to root my phone even without unlocking the boot loader. I got Titanium Backup installed and was able to remove a lot of the bloatware on my phone and free up a lot of memory. I wasn't able to delete all that I wanted but I was able to get back about 100mb of phone memory with just the things I did delete and that is good enough for me. The phone is acting normal so I guess I did everything right and didn't do any damage and I got the space I needed so I am pleased. Maybe down the road I will want to do more to the phone and workarounds will exist then but for now I am happy with what I have achieved.
Thanks again to Netizenmt and all the people who posted the information listed in your sticky. It was a great help once I calmed down, dug below the surface and did some more research.

What happens to refurbished phones?

I recently had a Samsung phone of mine break, so I took it into the store, used my warranty, and they gave me a new one, and I gave them my broken one. I then began to wonder, what happens to my old phone's data? If my phone is fixed and sold (I don't know if they do that, but if they do) will its next owner be able to read my text messages, etc? Or are they wiped? If wiped, how do they make sure that the next owner doesn't have some way of recovering the previous user's data?
2momo123 said:
I recently had a Samsung phone of mine break, so I took it into the store, used my warranty, and they gave me a new one, and I gave them my broken one. I then began to wonder, what happens to my old phone's data? If my phone is fixed and sold (I don't know if they do that, but if they do) will its next owner be able to read my text messages, etc? Or are they wiped? If wiped, how do they make sure that the next owner doesn't have some way of recovering the previous user's data?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe they are fixed, a factory reset is done to erase all user data, then it is sold to insurance companies to be used as insurance replacements. I doubt they are too interested in your texts, but naked pics you left on there might show up on some adult websites, nothing to get too worried about...
Ye that what i did but they didnt look if it has root. So they sold my broken phone (fixed) and the guy that buyed it knowed thats not right.
Sent from my HTC EVO 3D X515m using xda app-developers app
They sell some to Asurion and keep some to use for Advanced Exchange replacements. In either instance, they replace the broken parts, flash a new ESN and then they do a clean ODIN flash (with Samsungs) which clears out any data anyways.
In my experience, Asurion refurbs are of lesser quality than Sprint refurbs.
I have gooten a refurb and used a recovery tool and found pics and videos on thr internal sd card. Its best to securely wipe the phone if possible.
sent from MY BAD A$$ ET4G
I guess if you're the kind of person who feels it is morally right to recover and look at someone else's data that you know you shouldn't look at, then more power to ya, buddy. Sure, they could have securely wiped their data, but seriously, how many people who own smartphones know how to do that? There's alot of people that don't even know how to do a hard reset on their own. Everyone should, but they don't.
I don't know if you're boasting or what, but whatever floats your boat.
agent852 said:
I guess if you're the kind of person who feels it is morally right to recover and look at someone else's data that you know you shouldn't look at, then more power to ya, buddy. Sure, they could have securely wiped their data, but seriously, how many people who own smartphones know how to do that? There's alot of people that don't even know how to do a hard reset on their own. Everyone should, but they don't.
I don't know if you're boasting or what, but whatever floats your boat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any time I get a used device I recover and then securely wipe everything using DoD approved software. Don't want to get in trouble cuz the guy before me had kiddy pr0n or some sh*t on there and it didnt get wiped properly. And I've recovered some really messed up sh*t off of phones and laptops I buy used and clean up and flip.
I like to break stuff!
I've never seen the need to do any more than 1 pass of 0's. Without actually pulling the platters out I've never seen any data other than 0's from raw data recovery. (i.e. dd) I've also never been able to recover anything that i'd overwritten on flash media either.
I guess if it makes you feel better, then by all means, write 27 passes of garbage.
I only used the program because I wiped the internal losing my pics. I had the phone for about a month and a half before I needed to. I deleted those pics and vids after I found them. It wasnt my intent to look for that. I did however get most of my pics back so ut was worth it.
And no I was not boasting or bragging. Just sharing info. Sorry if it came across that way.
sent from MY BAD A$$ ET4G
-EViL-KoNCEPTz- said:
Any time I get a used device I recover and then securely wipe everything using DoD approved software. Don't want to get in trouble cuz the guy before me had kiddy pr0n or some sh*t on there and it didnt get wiped properly. And I've recovered some really messed up sh*t off of phones and laptops I buy used and clean up and flip.
I like to break stuff!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I kind of see your point. But what is the point of doing a recovery? I fully understand doing a secure wipe to prevent trouble, but there is no need to recover anything off the device if you are getting it from another person and then flipping it after the wipe.
graydiggy said:
I kind of see your point. But what is the point of doing a recovery? I fully understand doing a secure wipe to prevent trouble, but there is no need to recover anything off the device if you are getting it from another person and then flipping it after the wipe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He's basically saying while you(the end user) may not want to recovery things... there may be others who want to. A "7 wipe" of changing all bits to 0 7 times is the DoD official solution to ensure any data is wiped - prior to physical destruction. (If done right you will never see a disk drive for sale at DRMO. If you do someone screwed up royally.)
garwynn said:
He's basically saying while you(the end user) may not want to recovery things... there may be others who want to. A "7 wipe" of changing all bits to 0 7 times is the DoD official solution to ensure any data is wiped - prior to physical destruction. (If done right you will never see a disk drive for sale at DRMO. If you do someone screwed up royally.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that. But I am asking why he recovers anything off of a phone if he intends to wipe and sell said device. Why bother with the recovery? Just wipe it and call it a day. I know the DoD standard for erasing information. Hell when I was in the Army we had a microwave specifically for CD's and DVD's then put them through a shredder.
I recover the data and store it on a external drove for 90 days. I do it because I usually contact the original owner (if I can get ahold of them) and ask them of theyd like their photos and stuff back. The few times I've found really ****ed up stuff like kiddy pr0n amd **** I stored it until the police could come and collect the device and recovered data and yes I take losses on those devices because I buy them and then turn them into police. Usually I just get people's family photos and stuff back that they thought were lost forever. I usually wont go through the data in any detail except to see if its worth storing until I can contact the owner. Unless it's something of an illegal nature then I have to go thru it and make a report with the police. The only things I report tho are violent/sexual crimes, drug stuff I just laugh at hell I may need to call the original owner for a bag of trees when im dry lol
I like to break stuff!
I wouldn't even go all that far. Trust me when I say that kiddy porn is bad and so are violent crimes and whatnot. But I personally wouldn't go through the trouble. I just wipe it a ton of times, throw random data on it then wipe it some more before I sell it. A friend of mine did the same as you and found what seemed to be kiddie pron. He reported it and they came and took his computers and all of his electronics that could store any kind of data. He wasn't charged with anything but since he was in possession of it even though he reported it, they took all his sh1t and only gave him back his 3 computers. He took a huge loss costing him about 3k. So i dont even bother trying to find it. What can be done and I have done it before is leave an anonymous tip with the police. If they get reports with children involved and a name of the accused, they will investigate.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
graydiggy said:
I wouldn't even go all that far. Trust me when I say that kiddy porn is bad and so are violent crimes and whatnot. But I personally wouldn't go through the trouble. I just wipe it a ton of times, throw random data on it then wipe it some more before I sell it. A friend of mine did the same as you and found what seemed to be kiddie pron. He reported it and they came and took his computers and all of his electronics that could store any kind of data. He wasn't charged with anything but since he was in possession of it even though he reported it, they took all his sh1t and only gave him back his 3 computers. He took a huge loss costing him about 3k. So i dont even bother trying to find it. What can be done and I have done it before is leave an anonymous tip with the police. If they get reports with children involved and a name of the accused, they will investigate.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You realize its a class 3 federal felony to not report child sex crimes right? I have 2 boys if someone found out they were being abused by someone id hope theyd report it. I have a contract that tge original owner signs agreeing to data recovery even if they don't want it at the moment, which is why I hold it for 90 days in case they change their mind. Any kiddy pr0n **** I store to flash drives and turn it all over to the cops. Since Im friends with about 45% of the local sheriff's office including the sheriff himself they know I have no involvment other than reporting it. And everything I turn over isn't stuff I accidentally downloaded its all stuff tied back to the original owner thru their information and signature on the paperwork. It also covers my ass if the devices comes up stolen, basically same paperwork a pawnshop would have you fill out to pawn something. I had all my paperwork written up with the local DA and my attorneys to make sure I'm in the clear for anything I find and report. I got a laptop a couple years ago that actually had enough information still buried in the drive to help the cops solve a cold case murder of some eldery woman from the early 90s. Someone at some point who owned the laptop had saved emails and pictures and other documents on there, erased them but were still in a hidden partition that had never been touched by other data
I like to break stuff!
-EViL-KoNCEPTz- said:
You realize its a class 3 federal felony to not report child sex crimes right? I have 2 boys if someone found out they were being abused by someone id hope theyd report it. I have a contract that tge original owner signs agreeing to data recovery even if they don't want it at the moment, which is why I hold it for 90 days in case they change their mind. Any kiddy pr0n **** I store to flash drives and turn it all over to the cops. Since Im friends with about 45% of the local sheriff's office including the sheriff himself they know I have no involvment other than reporting it. And everything I turn over isn't stuff I accidentally downloaded its all stuff tied back to the original owner thru their information and signature on the paperwork. It also covers my ass if the devices comes up stolen, basically same paperwork a pawnshop would have you fill out to pawn something. I had all my paperwork written up with the local DA and my attorneys to make sure I'm in the clear for anything I find and report. I got a laptop a couple years ago that actually had enough information still buried in the drive to help the cops solve a cold case murder of some eldery woman from the early 90s. Someone at some point who owned the laptop had saved emails and pictures and other documents on there, erased them but were still in a hidden partition that had never been touched by other data
I like to break stuff!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I report any crimes involving children. I just do it anon style. I don't have all that extra stuff though. Like contracts and a good friendship with the police force. I haven't even bought and flipped any phones for almost a year now. Too many of them are stolen these days. Not Worth the hassle anymore.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
graydiggy said:
I report any crimes involving children. I just do it anon style. I don't have all that extra stuff though. Like contracts and a good friendship with the police force. I haven't even bought and flipped any phones for almost a year now. Too many of them are stolen these days. Not Worth the hassle anymore.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah stolen device's are why I originally had paperwork drawn up, but after talking to some of my cop buddies they suggested I add data recovery to my paperwork cuz they'd been able to solve or get leads on a lot of crimes doing data recovery on stolen or confiscated phones and other electronic devices. Id say 90% of what I recover is normal family photos and stuff like that but 10% of it is crime related mostly pot stuff or drug talk/pics but theres the rare occasion something really messed up shows up, like the pics I found a few weeks ago of some dead bodies that were all mutilated. Luckily I have a strong stomach cuz those pics made me nauseous and I've seen quite a few dead people in person over my lifetime.
I like to break stuff!
-EViL-KoNCEPTz- said:
Yeah stolen device's are why I originally had paperwork drawn up, but after talking to some of my cop buddies they suggested I add data recovery to my paperwork cuz they'd been able to solve or get leads on a lot of crimes doing data recovery on stolen or confiscated phones and other electronic devices. Id say 90% of what I recover is normal family photos and stuff like that but 10% of it is crime related mostly pot stuff or drug talk/pics but theres the rare occasion something really messed up shows up, like the pics I found a few weeks ago of some dead bodies that were all mutilated. Luckily I have a strong stomach cuz those pics made me nauseous and I've seen quite a few dead people in person over my lifetime.
I like to break stuff!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will look into doing the contract stuff. Do you happen to have a general outline of your contract that you wouldn't mind sharing so I may use it. I do plan on getting back into phone repair and reselling When I can afford it. I would like a good solid contract to cover my a$$. There is a ton of phones out there that have busted screens or messed up software begging to get fixed and sold. Plus the money isn't too bad either. Also, what program do you use for data recovery on the phones? I too have seen some pretty crazy stuff in my life as well. More than I want to see...
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
graydiggy said:
I will look into doing the contract stuff. Do you happen to have a general outline of your contract that you wouldn't mind sharing so I may use it. I do plan on getting back into phone repair and reselling When I can afford it. I would like a good solid contract to cover my a$$. There is a ton of phones out there that have busted screens or messed up software begging to get fixed and sold. Plus the money isn't too bad either. Also, what program do you use for data recovery on the phones?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We used a basic pawn paperwork pack and edited it to fit my situation adding in a sub section about data recovery. I use a few different programs but the main one is one I got thru my full time job which is expensive I think around 800-1000$ its used for data recovery by most large corporations and the government in the event of a drive dying or other data loss. It will actually pull data from a DBR drive after you pull the disk out and put it in a drive reader which looks like a record player/caseless hard drive thing it had an arm that spins over the disk to read whats left on the broken pieces, I don't have that part just the software. We do have the drive reader at the office where they use it to try and recover peoples data when we receive their damaged electonics they filed a claim on. I'll get the name of it and some of the better of the cheaper ones I've used
I like to break stuff!
-EViL-KoNCEPTz- said:
I recover the data and store it on a external drove for 90 days. I do it because I usually contact the original owner (if I can get ahold of them) and ask them of theyd like their photos and stuff back. The few times I've found really ****ed up stuff like kiddy pr0n amd **** I stored it until the police could come and collect the device and recovered data and yes I take losses on those devices because I buy them and then turn them into police. Usually I just get people's family photos and stuff back that they thought were lost forever. I usually wont go through the data in any detail except to see if its worth storing until I can contact the owner. Unless it's something of an illegal nature then I have to go thru it and make a report with the police. The only things I report tho are violent/sexual crimes, drug stuff I just laugh at hell I may need to call the original owner for a bag of trees when im dry lol
I like to break stuff!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude thats awesome , helping protecting kids is always a + in my book
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy s3

Why I won't be updating to Lollipop

Assuming it even hits our device in an official capacity at some point, I will not be taking the Lollipop update. Why not? Because Google has decided to add a kill switch...
http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/15/...includes-kill-switch-factory-reset-protection
Sure, it sounds like a smart idea and a nice feature on the surface, but having spent more than my fair share of time mucking about with various means of remotely (and stealthily) accessing Android devices, the potential for abuse is too great....Not to mention the fact that the NSA and other alphabets must be absolutely thrilled about such a 'feature'. No thanks....
I see your point. There are ups and downs to.. Pretty much everything. I, myself, would be more than thrilled for a 5.0 update. Not like any of my bank info or other personal info has been stolen or used without my consent, nor have I done any really big illegal activities through my device which would give the NSA a reason to look my way.
Interesting. I think it's worth noting, the article claims that Google implemented the ability to remotely lock phones "last year." So that should automatically dispel any notion of anonymity. Besides that, i think the NSA and other "outfits" have had access to personal devices long before the announcement of lollipop. If you really desire to stay off the grid, he prepared to make substantial efforts.
Not that the NSA needs such a feature. They're already capable of going through your phone it's nothing new.
A big issue would be someone maliciously taking over the kill switch and locking you out with no way in.
Yeah that would definitely suck.
The thing that concerns me most isn't privacy or nefarious doings by the NSA. Everyone knows by now (or should) that privacy and anonymity don't exist in the digital world, and the NSA already has their grubby mitts into everything. I'm more concerned about the possibility of other random people being able to lock me out of my phone.
I'm not going to go into detail, as XDA is not the place for such things and the information can easily be gleaned elsewhere, but as I mentioned, there are already fairly simple ways to get full, remote access of somebody's phone. All it takes is 20 seconds or so of physical access to a device, or a little bit of social engineering to get somebody to install a seemingly benign apk (infected Play Store updates were my favorite), and you can do whatever you want, undetected.
Now imagine you install something, and unbeknownst to you it gives someone complete remote access to your device, starts sniffing passwords, and running keyloggers. Before long, they've got your complete Google account (for example). Next, they change your password, associated phone number, and recovery email addresses to their own, and activate your device's 'kill switch'. You would be left holding a paper weight, without ever knowing what happened, and there would be nothing you could do about it...
I tend to be very careful about what I install, but even I have installed the odd apk I've gotten here at XDA, or compiled and installed something from Github without checking through the source. It's almost impossible to be 100% certain everything you install is clean.
Fortunately, such malicious 'attacks' (for lack of a better word) aren't all that common, relatively speaking. The odds of you randomly becoming a victim of such a thing are marginal. Also, I'm sure once Lollipop is out in the wild, people will start finding flaws with the 'kill switch' implementation, and ultimately, ways of circumventing it. Maybe then I'll consider updating. Until then, however, knowing what nefarious things are possible with it, however unlikely, far outweighs any potential reasons to want to update.
Maybe I'm a little over-paranoid, but that's my take on it, for what it's worth....
Morningstar said:
The thing that concerns me most isn't privacy or nefarious doings by the NSA. Everyone knows by now (or should) that privacy and anonymity don't exist in the digital world, and the NSA already has their grubby mitts into everything. I'm more concerned about the possibility of other random people being able to lock me out of my phone.
I'm not going to go into detail, as XDA is not the place for such things and the information can easily be gleaned elsewhere, but as I mentioned, there are already fairly simple ways to get full, remote access of somebody's phone. All it takes is 20 seconds or so of physical access to a device, or a little bit of social engineering to get somebody to install a seemingly benign apk (infected Play Store updates were my favorite), and you can do whatever you want, undetected.
Now imagine you install something, and unbeknownst to you it gives someone complete remote access to your device, starts sniffing passwords, and running keyloggers. Before long, they've got your complete Google account (for example). Next, they change your password, associated phone number, and recovery email addresses to their own, and activate your device's 'kill switch'. You would be left holding a paper weight, without ever knowing what happened, and there would be nothing you could do about it...
I tend to be very careful about what I install, but even I have installed the odd apk I've gotten here at XDA, or compiled and installed something from Github without checking through the source. It's almost impossible to be 100% certain everything you install is clean.
Fortunately, such malicious 'attacks' (for lack of a better word) aren't all that common, relatively speaking. The odds of you randomly becoming a victim of such a thing are marginal. Also, I'm sure once Lollipop is out in the wild, people will start finding flaws with the 'kill switch' implementation, and ultimately, ways of circumventing it. Maybe then I'll consider updating. Until then, however, knowing what nefarious things are possible with it, however unlikely, far outweighs any potential reasons to want to update.
Maybe I'm a little over-paranoid, but that's my take on it, for what it's worth....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wouldn't doubt it if people are already considering to do that to a greater extent.
First of all the name itself "kill switch" is totally misleading. "Killing" something or somebody in full meaning of the word means ending it's life permanently. The way I read the article, this thing simply disables the phone remotely until proper password is entered? How is this different from SIM card lock password protection, or log on password most phones have for ages, that now it will be mandated by another useless law? Or maybe that this new method can not be bypassed? It's still not a kill switch, if it can be reversed and it should be called disable switch or something, but it doesn't have the same ring to it.
There has to be way to unlock the phone without password, otherwise there will be a lot of angry people who forgot/lost password especially if set once and forgotten until let's say 6 months later the switch is activated.
For example couple years ago I think I set password for program purchases on my cable box, so kids can't purchase something by accident, I have no idea what that password is. At least I have no intentions of buying anything.
Also what stops the thief from breaking phone apart and selling parts? My wife broke the screen on her GS3, replacement screen is more expensive than brand new GS3.
And who activates the switch? if user, a lot of people won't have a clue, if company, imagine some prankster breaks into Apple servers, steals the codes and kills 3,000,000 iphones, actually come to think of it, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
I may not update to L either, but for more practical reasons, like are there any benefits for me, is there root method without tripping knox, or will it kill my battery, like update to KK did.
pete4k said:
First of all the name itself "kill switch" is totally misleading. "Killing" something or somebody in full meaning of the word means ending it's life permanently. The way I read the article, this thing simply disables the phone remotely until proper password is entered? How is this different from SIM card lock password protection, or log on password most phones have for ages, that now it will be mandated by another useless law? Or maybe that this new method can not be bypassed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that 'kill switch' probably isn't the best term for it. My understanding, from the few articles I've read about it, is that it will lock the phone down until the Google account is verified. I'm not sure if that verification will be done via password entry, email verification, two-factor authentication, or some other means.
For an attacker using the methods I've previously mentioned, a SIM lock would pose a problem, but lockscreen passwords, patterns and pins are trivial to get around.
Like I said, it's not clear yet (from what I've found) how verification will be done to deactivate the 'kill switch', but if it does in fact require verifying the associated Google account in some way, a phone's legitimate owner would be out of luck, as somebody with the means and desire to activate the 'kill switch' in the first place would have no problem in also gaining complete and total control of the associated Google account.
I want to be clear that this is speculation based on my current understanding of a 'feature' that has not yet been released to the public. There may well be safeguards in place to prevent such things, and Google may still make changes before Lollipop is available to the public. I am not suggesting that people refrain from updating to Lollipop when and if an update becomes available. I also want to emphasize that even if the 'feature' is released with such inherent vulnerabilities, that it is not something the average user should every worry about. The odds of anyone randomly being a victim of such an attack are practically non-existant.
That being said, this is XDA. Most members here are fairly technical-minded (at least compared to the general public), and are interested in knowing and realizing the full potential of their devices. As such, I think it should at least be known that such vulnerabilities as I've mentioned do exist, and attacks may be made that much worse, depending on how Google implements the 'kill switch' feature. However remote it may be, it's a possibility, and something that people may or may not want to take into consideration.
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. G.I. Joe....
Not really a sound reason to avoid lollipop in my opinion. If you're concerned about the remote tracking (that already exists) and the upcoming kill switch; after root, find the associated files and freeze or delete them. The mobile tracker came off my phone right after Knox, not for any reason other than the fact it eats battery like crazy. There's always work arounds to their technology, but as far as the nsa, or any other group or morons listening to you; the chances of you as an individual being targeted are 1 in 136,149,000 (in the US). I don't care if you have 50,000 stolen mp3's on your device and like to try and steal old ladies bank account numbers with your tablet, it's chump change to them and having the mindset that they're listening is as bad as these people who prepare for dooms day, zombie apocalypse, and everything else... it's just crazy. If your concerns are a kill switch, then you might as well stay in your house because there's cameras everywhere out there, your ps3 and Xbox cameras can be accessed if you're on the Web, there's hundreds of satellites circling the globe gathering information, and every thought, search or anything you've done on the Web is accessible whether you delete your history or not. If your computer has been there, there's a footprint, if you used a vpn or tried playing shadow games to hide your identity, it can be traced if they want to. Life is too short top worry about such silly things. Live it up and have fun!
Just my 2 cents for the night.
Do you wear a tin foil hat too?? Whether you like it or not, you're on the grid already. There is no getting off. The NSA wants you, they're gonna get you. Good luck running
That is very true. But as more people protest, the companies are actually fighting back against the government. Like Yahoo against the NSA and Facebook against the DEA, people just need to keep letting know that we won't tolerate getting stripped buttass naked of our personal privacy.
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nighthawk626 said:
That is very true. But as more people protest, the companies are actually fighting back against the government. Like Yahoo against the NSA and Facebook against the DEA, people just need to keep letting know that we won't tolerate getting stripped buttass naked of our personal privacy.
Sent from my hlte using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just look at Apple. They're getting a lot of heat for the filevault encryption software.
Apple has had their legs spread open and panties dropped for the government since day one.
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nighthawk626 said:
Apple has had their legs spread open and panties dropped for the government since day one.
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Click to collapse
The same and to a greater extent can be said about facebook.
here, http://www.xda-developers.com/android/android-l-lockdown/, right on topic of this thread.
nighthawk626 said:
That is very true. But as more people protest, the companies are actually fighting back against the government. Like Yahoo against the NSA and Facebook against the DEA, people just need to keep letting know that we won't tolerate getting stripped buttass naked of our personal privacy.
Sent from my hlte using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dog and pony show to give a false sense of privacy from these companies to their customers... See the yahoo gag order and the by-the-day increasing fines that the government was imposing to them unless they allowed them to access their data. If the government wants it, they will get it, no matter how 'safe' these clowns make you believe otherwise
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I think a lot of you are missing my point. I'm not worried about the NSA, big brother, or anonymity (or rather the lack thereof). Those are concerns, of course, but I think everyone here knows that if you have any sort of cell phone, they can track and monitor you, and probably are.
What I'm worried about is the potential for random people gaining access to your phone and its' associated accounts and activating this 'kill switch', essentially leaving you with a paper weight. As I've already stated, I am not entirely sure that such a thing will be possible, as I have not seen the source code or all the minute details about how Google is implementing this. However, if it is implemented as described in the articles I've found about it, without any further security measures, there could be a problem.
If it is as described, I would have no problem remotely accessing a device, seizing control of the associated Google account, and activating the 'kill switch', without the device's owner ever having a clue it was happening. Of course I wouldn't do such a thing, especially to random people just for the 'lulz', but we all know there are people that would.
Hopefully that made some sense....I've been awake for too long lol
Not like hackers can't do that already...
Come on man.
Welcome to the 21st century.
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I don't know about you guys but I did have an LG L9 that I completely bricked. Now the thing would not turn on, no lights, nothing. But with some research, .exe file on my computer, and directions from some very savvy people I was able to plug in my phone to the computer while pressing three buttons that got me onto fast boot mode. This is where I was able to delete the system and install each partition bit by bit. Took helluva long time with multiple tries to finally get it working but it did. My two cents.
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