P3Droid: Some Food for Thought - Bootloaders, Rooting, Manufacturers, and Carriers

[skruid]

I thought they government passed a law that stated that you could root your phone, and cell phone company couldn't end you contract, but could void your insurance warranty and that was all they could do, because the government said that if you bought a $500 device, you should be able to have it the way you wanted

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[andylulzyou]

And remember this is information that is given to P3, and we don't know if that was whispered down the lane. As plausible as it seems everybody should just take a chill pill and get their panties out of a knot.

Because the easiest way to stop this would be to just remove tethering apps out of the market. Not tracking down every single root user and trying to terminate them for tethering... not every user runs their Xbox live off of Verizon's network

I don't think anyone is freaking out. Most of us knew this was coming so this is not a shock or any kind of suprise. The writing was on the wall.

In regards to doing anything about it, its too late : ) that train has already left the station. The next step is to find us a good trumpet player to play Taps.

Sent from my Droid

Well there have been quite a few users freaking out on twitter and various forums that I have seen.

But regardless of that Verizon probably feels like the amount of money they will save by preventing tethering will be able to cancel out the amount of users that will be switching from their service if they attempt something like this.

That said if I'm an owner of an apartment building and I see a bunch of unhappy people being kicked out of their homes I am doing everything I can do accommodate them. Which is why I feel like another carrier will step up to bat for us.

There is a lot of money to be made within this community whether or not Verizon or AT&T would like to admit it or not.

 

[aristoid]

Took a little time to put my thoughts together on this, but I do have a couple that brought themselves out as I tried to digest all this.

If it is about money and tethering, why would google leave apps in the market like easytether, barnacle, and proxoid ? I was using easytether before I rooted, and was aware of the consequences. Why does the market allow apps that are for 'root only' users ? It would seem that these sort of things should not be allowed if google is involved in this.

If I use the full page option in my browser, does it use more data than if I tether it to my computer? Why is this an option in the software/firmware we are getting now? Many websites that have mobile versions often have a link for the full version, why wouldn't these companies disable the ability to visit sites in this mode?

How is legitimate use of a non-rooted phone to watch streaming video while commuting for 2 1/2 hours everyday different from someone using a couple gigs a month to check their email on a tethered computer? Is this why we are seeing movie apps not coming around as quickly as we expected? How about the new phones that have HDMI? Streaming a movie onto my phone is ok, even to hook it to my television to watch them, but not to hook it to my computer.

I understand that there are those that abuse the data usage part of this with their computers(as well as the violation of TOS), but I can see a somewhat innocent person watching streamed movies over their television using as much, if not more bandwidth than a casual tetherer.

With LTE being faster, doesn't that in effect make the bandwidth available broader? If it only takes 15 seconds to download a mp3 instead of 2 minutes, doesn't that free up the airwaves so more people can use them?

Aside from the increased security issue that we have witnessed recently, I just don't see how the rest of the logic on catching rooted phones is any more of a concern than legitimate heavy data users.

Just my $.02

 

[elcompaLalo]

And remember this is information that is given to P3, and we don't know if that was whispered down the lane. As plausible as it seems everybody should just take a chill pill and get their panties out of a knot.

Because the easiest way to stop this would be to just remove tethering apps out of the market. Not tracking down every single root user and trying to terminate them for tethering... not every user runs their Xbox live off of Verizon's network

I don't think anyone is freaking out. Most of us knew this was coming so this is not a shock or any kind of suprise. The writing was on the wall.

In regards to doing anything about it, its too late : ) that train has already left the station. The next step is to find us a good trumpet player to play Taps.

Sent from my Droid

Well there have been quite a few users freaking out on twitter and various forums that I have seen.

But regardless of that Verizon probably feels like the amount of money they will save by preventing tethering will be able to cancel out the amount of users that will be switching from their service if they attempt something like this.

That said if I'm an owner of an apartment building and I see a bunch of unhappy people being kicked out of their homes I am doing everything I can do accommodate them. Which is why I feel like another carrier will step up to bat for us.

There is a lot of money to be made within this community whether or not Verizon or AT&T would like to admit it or not.

Exactly how I feel, we just take our business elsewhere. Verizon has come a long way in service and quality but we need to remember its just a phone.

Sent from a D2 runnin GB.

 

[kptphalkon]

I love you aristoid

 

[dewayne1025]

Just food for thought. If they implement this and make people take the updates and stop the rooting. What are they going to do about company's like metro pcs and criket that allow phones from other company's to work on their network for $45 a month everthing included. These company's like criket and metro pcs are making money flashing phones from other company's and allowing them to use these phones on their network with all the features. Why wouldn't small company's like this want to benefit from this, with as large as the android community is? I would think that one of these providers would start allowing phones to do this. Ones that don't seem to be so money hungry. Especially not having to sign a contract. The simple thing would be to take the tether off the market (as someone previously stated). But if they don't I believe that some company would allow us to flash these android phones to their network without a problem even if they use the tether. They would be making their money because I'm sure a lot of people would jump ship to them.
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[SquireSCA]

And remember this is information that is given to P3, and we don't know if that was whispered down the lane. As plausible as it seems everybody should just take a chill pill and get their panties out of a knot.

Because the easiest way to stop this would be to just remove tethering apps out of the market. Not tracking down every single root user and trying to terminate them for tethering... not every user runs their Xbox live off of Verizon's network

I don't think anyone is freaking out. Most of us knew this was coming so this is not a shock or any kind of suprise. The writing was on the wall.

In regards to doing anything about it, its too late : ) that train has already left the station. The next step is to find us a good trumpet player to play Taps.

Sent from my Droid

Well there have been quite a few users freaking out on twitter and various forums that I have seen.

But regardless of that Verizon probably feels like the amount of money they will save by preventing tethering will be able to cancel out the amount of users that will be switching from their service if they attempt something like this.

That said if I'm an owner of an apartment building and I see a bunch of unhappy people being kicked out of their homes I am doing everything I can do accommodate them. Which is why I feel like another carrier will step up to bat for us.

There is a lot of money to be made within this community whether or not Verizon or AT&T would like to admit it or not.

See, the warranty issue I think everyone agrees with. It's when they make it about tethering and "lost money" that I take issue with it...

They are only "losing money" if they can show that people would actually pay for the service and are not because they rooted.

How many people use a feature occasionally, just because it is free? I use tethering once in a blue moon and it has been useful when I needed it. But would I pay $20 a month for it, for that once in awhile need?

Nope.

If it is free(rooted) I will make use of it once a month or something at best. If I could not get it for free, I would simply do what I did before tethering a smart phone was an option... I would go without. Or wait till I got where I was going. Or use someone elses computer when my cable modem goes down, etc...

There are probably 5-10% of users that tether, that use it and need it for business or something that don't mind paying the $20 a month for it. And those people, are probably not rooting I would imagine.

So I don't see where people are "stealing" anything, on average, when it is not something that most of us would pay for, we just use it ocasionally because we can.

And so when you have like 1% of the Android base rooting, and only a percentage of them are really abusing tethering, I don't see where it makes sense to attack everyone who roots.

Isolate the idiots that are running their XBox or Bittorrent through their phones and using up 25gb a month, and throttle them or charge them for the extra data, and leave the rest of us that use it sparingly, or not at all, alone.

But absolutely track the rooters and have them pop up on a warranty black list and if you call into Customer Service, the first thing they do should be to run your serial number and see if it is on the list, and if so, tough luck for you.

 

[DF Smod]

Threads Merged

 

[TRIKOTRET]

You can flash phone to metropcs but you get crappy service. Delayed text messages and the internet is at 1x . My friend works for metro. They can flash htc, Motorola and others. But its pointless since the internet running at 1x

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using DroidForums

 

[UNC]

I don't think anyone is freaking out. Most of us knew this was coming so this is not a shock or any kind of suprise. The writing was on the wall.

In regards to doing anything about it, its too late : ) that train has already left the station. The next step is to find us a good trumpet player to play Taps.

Sent from my Droid

Well there have been quite a few users freaking out on twitter and various forums that I have seen.

But regardless of that Verizon probably feels like the amount of money they will save by preventing tethering will be able to cancel out the amount of users that will be switching from their service if they attempt something like this.

That said if I'm an owner of an apartment building and I see a bunch of unhappy people being kicked out of their homes I am doing everything I can do accommodate them. Which is why I feel like another carrier will step up to bat for us.

There is a lot of money to be made within this community whether or not Verizon or AT&T would like to admit it or not.

See, the warranty issue I think everyone agrees with. It's when they make it about tethering and "lost money" that I take issue with it...

They are only "losing money" if they can show that people would actually pay for the service and are not because they rooted.

How many people use a feature occasionally, just because it is free? I use tethering once in a blue moon and it has been useful when I needed it. But would I pay $20 a month for it, for that once in awhile need?

Nope.

If it is free(rooted) I will make use of it once a month or something at best. If I could not get it for free, I would simply do what I did before tethering a smart phone was an option... I would go without. Or wait till I got where I was going. Or use someone elses computer when my cable modem goes down, etc...

There are probably 5-10% of users that tether, that use it and need it for business or something that don't mind paying the $20 a month for it. And those people, are probably not rooting I would imagine.

So I don't see where people are "stealing" anything, on average, when it is not something that most of us would pay for, we just use it ocasionally because we can.

And so when you have like 1% of the Android base rooting, and only a percentage of them are really abusing tethering, I don't see where it makes sense to attack everyone who roots.

Isolate the idiots that are running their XBox or Bittorrent through their phones and using up 25gb a month, and throttle them or charge them for the extra data, and leave the rest of us that use it sparingly, or not at all, alone.

But absolutely track the rooters and have them pop up on a warranty black list and if you call into Customer Service, the first thing they do should be to run your serial number and see if it is on the list, and if so, tough luck for you.

It isn't ok to steal something just because you wouldn't have bought it in the first place...

Verizon PAYS for their bandwidth so using it in any way without their consent is stealing. Period.

So funny that I posted over a month ago that Apple would end up more open than Android.....

 

[cereal killer]

Easiest way to solve a problem is to take an axe to it.

This should come as no surprise. People are obviously abusing it otherwise this would have slid right under the radar. They are not oblivious to what's going on with their network.

Blame the people stealing not Verizon.



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[SquireSCA]

It isn't ok to steal something just because you wouldn't have bought it in the first place...

Verizon PAYS for their bandwidth so using it in any way without their consent is stealing. Period.

So funny that I posted over a month ago that Apple would end up more open than Android.....

I am paying for an unlimited data plan. If I download 2gb in a month, it shouldn't matter if it is on my DX, my laptop or a vibrator. LOL

Charge people for going over a certain limit. But if I am within the confines of an acceptable amount of data, it shouldn't matter what device I am on, it is going through the phone, that a I pay for, on the unlimited data plan that I pay for.

So it isn't that "VZW is paying for that bandwidth"... So are we! And unless I am using more than my allotted share of it, I don't want to be harassed.

What if I only use 500mb a month? What if I am 50% under the national average for data usage, but half of it is from my laptop? Why should I pay more when I am using less than the person that uses 3GB a month for just their phone?

That's why their argument is BS.

Charge for people who use TOO MUCH BANDWIDTH, that is the answer.

 

[9wire]

I just talked to my Guy at vzw, he says they can't differentiate how you're using data, and according to him, the manufacturers warranty the phones rooted or not. I'm of the opinion I'm paying for unlimited data. Put something in the fine print for those that abuse the system. But, how many pay for unlimited but don't use much? Sorta like the Chinese buffet, you get the occasional big fat Guy, but most people are average.

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[Vulcan1600]

If this was posted earlier, I apologize and will delete.

Part 2 of P3Droid's comments today:

There is one final piece to the story that P3 just posted today.

The Rubber Meets the Road​

So, I wish I had more time to have added this to the original post, but writing something like this takes a lot of time and effort to put all the information into context and provide some form of linear progression.

Lets get on with the story. March of this year was a monumental month for me. The information was unsettling and I felt as if we had a gigantic bulls-eye on our backs.

This is what I have heard:

1. The way that they were able to track rooted users is based on pushing updates to phones, and then tracking which meid's did not take the update. There is more to it than this but that is the simple version.
2. More than one major carrier besides Verizon has implemented this program and that all carriers involved had begun tracking rooted phones. All carriers involved were more than pleased with the accuracy of the program.

1. What I was not told is what the carriers intended to do with this information.​

3. In new builds the tracking would be built into the firmware and that if a person removed the tracking from the firmware then the phone would not be verified on the network (i.e. your phone could not make phone calls or access data).
4. Google is working with carriers and manufacturers to secure phones, and although Google is not working to end hacking, it is working to secure the kernel so that no future applications can maliciously use exploits to steal end-user information. But in order to gain this level of security this may mean limited chances to root the device. (This item I've been told but not yet able to verify through multiple sources – so take it for what you want)
5. Verizon has successfully used its new programs to throttle data on test devices in accordance with the guidelines of the program.
6. The push is to lock down the devices as tight as can be, but also offer un-lockable devices (Think Nexus S).​

The question I've asked is why? Why do all this; why go through so much trouble. The answer I get is a very logical one and one I understand even if I don't like it. It is about the money. With LTE arriving and the higher charges for data and tethering, carriers feel they must bottle up the ability of users to root their device and access this data, circumventing the expensive tethering charges.

What I would like to leave you with is that this is not an initiative unique to Verizon or Motorola, this is industry wide and encompassing many manufacturers.

So what does all this mean? You will need to make your own conjectures about what to think of all of this. But, I think that the rooting, hacking, and modding community - as we know it - is living on borrowed time.

In the final analysis of all this I guess I'll leave you with my feelings:

I will take what comes and turn it into a better brighter day, that is all I can do because I do not control the world.

 

[Vulcan1600]

I just posted this on our sister thunderbolt forum:

If tethering will have adverse effects on people who mostly are using tethering, then these programs need to be removed from the Market. If I have to go stock, I will do so rather than be kicked off the VZW network. Hopefully programs that allow things like OC, Titanium Backup, the ability to take screenshots of my device, or install a custom ROM without root, I won't mind at all. Until I hear that they are going after these people I don't think I will worry too much about it. I'm not one that uses wifi tether or wired tethering. I have DSL in my house for internet. It almost appears that they are concerned about this first and foremost and also to protect people from malware and security purposes. I can't imagine what I like about rooting my TB is what they're looking to go after.