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

[SquireSCA]

Czerdrill hits it on the head. It doesn't matter if you personally feel tethering is right or wrong - it's against your agreement with Verizon (or any other carrier for that matter). You lose.

Removing the bloatware probably goes against a contract signed somewhere too. If you're phone comes with it stock theres probably a reason for it and its probably money. X company pays verizon to preload their app on the new android phone. X company is paying for Verizon's service to promote whatever that app may be. If you rip it off your system X company wasted money and is probably yelling at Verizon for allowing you to remove it one way or another.

Does it suck? Yep. A lot actually. Is there anything I can do about it? Kiss my overclocked and themed phone good-bye.

That was my point. The guys who don't tether want to make it all about tethering because in their minds it absolves them of their part in this.

Which says that you cannot root, remove the pre-installed software that VZW was contractually obligated to put on there, modify the phone from their intended parameters, etc...

I am betting that every goober making this all about tethering, is arguing from a rooted phone, that has bloat removed in violation of the ToS they keep pointing to, etc...

That's what makes this so laughable. While they point the finger at a (gasp!) tetherer, they don't realize that there is just as big of a bullseye on their backs because they rooted and modified their phone. LOL

again...keep up. i tether occasionally, i am definitely rooted, i run custom roms, i overclock, i build my own crappy roms and flash them to my phone on my own time. not sure why you think that i don't do any of these things, or why you think that i think i am immune from some kind of consequence if vzw decides to enforce this...you're arguing for the sake of arguing, and you're doing a horrible job.

So you are as guilty as anyone, by your own admission. This ToS you keep holding up, telling us how we signed it and should abide by it, you yourself have wiped your butt with it.

Pot, meet kettle.

 

[czerdrill]

His point is that you are paying for that "food" and the ToS says that you can only eat that "food" with chop sticks. If you eat it with a fork or spoon, then you are stealing because they charge extra for you to eat that same "food" with a different utensil.

not these dumb analogies again. here's what i'm actually saying, try to keep up:

"hey here's some food, if you use a fork we'll charge you"
"oh really? that's cool no problem!!! i agree completely" (proceeds to use fork)
"ok we're gonna have to charge you"
"but but but...whaaaa whaaa"...whining ensues.

If I have tethered more than 15mb of data in the past 7 months, that's a lot.

Sue me.

I don't care about tethering because I almost never do it.

This isn't about tethering, but because tethering is probably the only part of the ToS that you have not personally violated, that's the only item you care about.

Classic.

You've really, really gotta catch up on the thread before you start commenting man. I tether. I have tethered, and if I need to tether again I most probably will. Why are you unable to comprehend that? What I won't do is cry when they catch me and try to justify violating my contract. Geez...

 

[sgtguthrie]

This article pretty much sums up my thoughts on this matter now. I think we all need to take a step back and wait to see some proof before we all decide to unroot etc... I know what these guys are doing is giving their opinion buy it sounds quite logical to me. I was already kind of thinking this way myself. I'm in no way saying I don't believe P3, but I like to go off the facts and from what I see, they're just not there at this point.

One thing is for sure...I definitely hope P3 is either wrong, or VZW realizes it's just not worth it to declare war on the root community.

One last thought, aren't most developers of our favorite apps root users? What is android without the apps? I'm trying to teach myself Java for the purpose of becoming an app developer. I would be kind of pi$$ed off if I couldn't root my phone. I think many of these developers would think the same way. I get that they are saying to get a Nexus device, but news flash...VZW has NO Nexus devices!

Why You'll Always be Able to Root an Android Phone - Tested

 

[czerdrill]

That was my point. The guys who don't tether want to make it all about tethering because in their minds it absolves them of their part in this.

Which says that you cannot root, remove the pre-installed software that VZW was contractually obligated to put on there, modify the phone from their intended parameters, etc...

I am betting that every goober making this all about tethering, is arguing from a rooted phone, that has bloat removed in violation of the ToS they keep pointing to, etc...

That's what makes this so laughable. While they point the finger at a (gasp!) tetherer, they don't realize that there is just as big of a bullseye on their backs because they rooted and modified their phone. LOL

again...keep up. i tether occasionally, i am definitely rooted, i run custom roms, i overclock, i build my own crappy roms and flash them to my phone on my own time. not sure why you think that i don't do any of these things, or why you think that i think i am immune from some kind of consequence if vzw decides to enforce this...you're arguing for the sake of arguing, and you're doing a horrible job.

So you are as guilty as anyone, by your own admission. This ToS you keep holding up, telling us how we signed it and should abide by it, you yourself have wiped your butt with it.

Pot, meet kettle.

seriously can you stop for a moment and read the thread? your posts are just nonsensical rants now. I've said so many times that i think what they're doing is wrong, that we shouldnt have to pay for tethering, and that data is data. I also said (and this is the point you keep missing in your ranting) that if they tell me i'm wrong i'm not going to cry about it like you would. I didn't suddenly become the pot or kettle because you suddenly decided to read that I tether. I've been rooted since the first month I've had my phone. The difference is I'm not trying to make up buffet analogies about why I have a right to root or tether. You are. And you're doing a horrible job at it.

 

[SquireSCA]

not these dumb analogies again. here's what i'm actually saying, try to keep up:

"hey here's some food, if you use a fork we'll charge you"
"oh really? that's cool no problem!!! i agree completely" (proceeds to use fork)
"ok we're gonna have to charge you"
"but but but...whaaaa whaaa"...whining ensues.

If I have tethered more than 15mb of data in the past 7 months, that's a lot.

Sue me.

I don't care about tethering because I almost never do it.

This isn't about tethering, but because tethering is probably the only part of the ToS that you have not personally violated, that's the only item you care about.

Classic.

You've really, really gotta catch up on the thread before you start commenting man. You're irrelevance is reaching new heights. I tether. I have tethered, and if I need to tether again I most probably will. Why are you unable to comprehend that? What I won't do is cry when they catch me and try to justify violating my contract. Geez...

I won't cry either, I would go to Sprint and get a true unlimited plan for less money and call it a day.

But I will say for the 14th time(try to keep up), this isn't about tethering. If tethering was the real problem, because it was soaking up so much bandwidth and slowing down the network, then they would simply throttle or cut off those users that were using so much data on a monthly basis.

As has also been pointed out, people were tethering with unrooted phones, with apps readily available(still are today) from the Market.

If this was really about tethering, they could pull the apps from the Market and flip a switch to block or throttle the people using up all the bandwidth. No major campaign need be launched, no investments in hardware, no new strategies, no alliances with manufacturers, etc...

They could easily address this problem today, with the existing systems in place, with ease.

And they would do that, if tethering was actually the issue.

What is clear is that it is not. It's bigger than that, and will effect everyone that is rooted, whether they ever tethered or not.

I think that tethering is one of the excuses being given for what they want to do, I don't think it is really the problem, else they would have already addressed it with a cap or throttling or simply kicking anyone using mad amounts of data off of the network. You don't need a bootloader encrypted, or a new CPU, or OTA practices, etc...

They know how much data every single phone uses on their network. If you go over a limit, say 10GB, you get a notice in the mail that if it happens again you will be cut off. You do it again, your phone gets kicked off the data service and you get to call in and plead your case and see if your usage was legit or not.

Problem solved, without any more investment in hardware or systems or any of that crap, and it leaves those of us that do not abuse the system, and may not even tether at all, free to enjoy our phones and happily pay our monthly bill. They make money, we stay happy, everyone wins.

 

[www3]

Sorry for the double. I think this has very little to do with tethering, if it did vz would have done what att did and just send people a letter warning them. This is about the mods they think are threatening them. Imho.

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using DroidForums App

 

[2mnydgs]

If it's just money, it seems like an awfully small percent.
Not many root; and of those who do, even less abuse tethering and/or warranty replacements.

Whenever a small percent of any population is vilified to justify monitoring, laws or general over reaching, my American Pit Bull Terrier owner alarm goes off.

The:"It's okay to raise taxes/pass laws against/ban: dogs, smoking, sugary drinks, chips, salt...*fill in the blank* because it's bad" type of thinking leads to a slippery slope.

Just because I'm a responsible dog owner does not make me ok with sweeping laws that infringe on the rights of the innocent.

I just think it's short sighted to be of the thinking that "it's ok to be excessively monitored/treated as guilty, in order to punish a very small percentage of people"

 

[czerdrill]

If I have tethered more than 15mb of data in the past 7 months, that's a lot.

Sue me.

I don't care about tethering because I almost never do it.

This isn't about tethering, but because tethering is probably the only part of the ToS that you have not personally violated, that's the only item you care about.

Classic.

You've really, really gotta catch up on the thread before you start commenting man. You're irrelevance is reaching new heights. I tether. I have tethered, and if I need to tether again I most probably will. Why are you unable to comprehend that? What I won't do is cry when they catch me and try to justify violating my contract. Geez...

I won't cry either, I would go to Sprint and get a true unlimited plan for less money and call it a day.

But I will say for the 14th time(try to keep up), this isn't about tethering. If tethering was the real problem, because it was soaking up so much bandwidth and slowing down the network, then they would simply throttle or cut off those users that were using so much data on a monthly basis.

As has also been pointed out, people were tethering with unrooted phones, with apps readily available(still are today) from the Market.

If this was really about tethering, they could pull the apps from the Market and flip a switch to block or throttle the people using up all the bandwidth. No major campaign need be launched, no investments in hardware, no new strategies, no alliances with manufacturers, etc...

They could easily address this problem today, with the existing systems in place, with ease.

And they would do that, if tethering was actually the issue.

What is clear is that it is not. It's bigger than that, and will effect everyone that is rooted, whether they ever tethered or not.

I think that tethering is one of the excuses being given for what they want to do, I don't think it is really the problem, else they would have already addressed it with a cap or throttling or simply kicking anyone using mad amounts of data off of the network. You don't need a bootloader encrypted, or a new CPU, or OTA practices, etc...

They know how much data every single phone uses on their network. If you go over a limit, say 10GB, you get a notice in the mail that if it happens again you will be cut off. You do it again, your phone gets kicked off the data service and you get to call in and plead your case and see if your usage was legit or not.

Problem solved, without any more investment in hardware or systems or any of that crap, and it leaves those of us that do not abuse the system, and may not even tether at all, free to enjoy our phones and happily pay our monthly bill. They make money, we stay happy, everyone wins.

like i told the other guy, if you actually would leave verizon and go to sprint if something like this happens, i can do nothing but respect you. and that's my point. it's your right to leave the contract, and it's their right to enforce it. neither side can argue that the other is wrong on points like that. the thing is people are arguing that, and that's where you're wrong (whether you're admitting it or not). no one is holding a gun to your head to stay with verizon, but if you sign an agreement, you have to agree. simple as that. doesn't mean i work for them, doesn't mean i'm holier than thou, doesn't mean i have done no wrong. it simply means you cant argue when they enforce a violation that you agreed to. Well...i guess you could argue but it makes you look strange.

about tethering/rooting, yes, people can tether without root, but like i said earlier, i cant imagine that the people who are abusing the network through tethering are unrooted. if they're saavy enough to tether, chances are they are saavy enough to root, and are most probably rooted. i simply dont believe that the majority of tether-ers are unrooted.

 

[SquireSCA]

Tethering is becoming the banner for VZW because technically, they can call it theft and that will give whatever their real agenda is some credibility when it comes to the legal aspect.

This isn't about tethering and I think that everyone knows that by now. If it was, they would have already addressed it and killed it.

They want more control over the phones. This will go further than what we are seeing today. Today it is tethering.

Tomorrow it will be removing bloat, and they will claim that, "We are losing subsidy revenue because these business partners are pulling their money out because they feel that so many people are rooting that they are not getting their money's worth..." It is the exact same argument that companies tried to sue TIVO over, trying to make it so that users could not fast-forward through the recorded commercials. They cited that if a certain percentage of people did that, that their ads were not being seen and so they didn't want to spend as money advertizing knowing that people wouldn't have to sit through the ads.

They lost.

Then it will be an attempt to block SKYPE type apps. And they will claim that "many people are picking the lowest voice plans and then using our data plan to make 2000 minutes of phone calls per month. That is stealing from us because if they want to make calls they should have the appropriate voice plan, not use one of these free apps and the data channel on our phones"...

That and more, will come down the pipe, trust me. And all of this has nothing to do with stealing. It is an established company that would rather support a perhaps outdated business model than have to adapt to a changing world that we live in. It's about profits and making the stock holders happy, and screw the customers. So long as we don't leave, they don't care how miserable we are or how unfair they are.

 

[axlx]

in summary the idea people have defending the trurh of this claim is the fact

bad people are bricking their phone and sending to verizion
[combined with]
A great many not paying for tethering

Correct? keep it short the walls of text aree bugging me now



Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[SquireSCA]

If it's just money, it seems like an awfully small percent.
Not many root; and of those who do, even less abuse tethering and/or warranty replacements.

Whenever a small percent of any population is vilified to justify monitoring, laws or general over reaching, my American Pit Bull Terrier owner alarm goes off.

The:"It's okay to raise taxes/pass laws against/ban: dogs, smoking, sugary drinks, chips, salt...*fill in the blank* because it's bad" type of thinking leads to a slippery slope.

Just because I'm a responsible dog owner does not make me ok with sweeping laws that infringe on the rights of the innocent.

I just think it's short sighted to be of the thinking that "it's ok to be excessively monitored/treated as guilty, in order to punish a very small percentage of people"

Bingo. They take something small, and use it to pass policies, or laws or anything that they can think of.

Look at tobacco. Listening to the government, you would think that tobacco is the scourge of humanity. It kills over 250 million people a year. So why is it legal, while Ephedra products, that have only been linked to 81 deaths over a 10 year period(mostly due to abuse and pre-existing heart conditions and HBP) were banned?

Because the government makes more money from tobacco sales than RJ Reynolds makes. Fact. A study several years ago showed that when you look at the overhead that it costs to make a pack of smokes(land, farming, labor, harvest, processing, transportation, manufacturing, transportation, marketing and distribution, etc), that the tobacco companies made about $0.29 profit per pack sold.

At that time, the government made over $2 profit per pack sold, all in taxes, no overhead. And the taxes have gone up since then. So the government, who claims to despise smoking and rails against it and demonizes it on a daily basis, makes roughly 7 times the profit per pack than the tobacco companies themselves make.

So no matter how much they demonize it, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of people die per year in this country alone from it, not only politician will ever stand up and try to ban tobacco. They are simply making too much money killing people with it, to let it become illegal. Fact.

So how does that apply here? Because a corporation works like the government in a lot of ways. They may say it is about one thing in order to get a law or policy passed, but more often than not, it isn't the real reason or even the intended goal.

It's just the justification for something else that they are not really being honest about. In the government's case, they demonize tobacco so that people will not balk at the taxes they keep adding to it. They do it so that the other politicians will sign on the the bill to get it passed, to "save lives". If they wanted to save lives, they could ban it tomorrow. But they won't, because saving lives was never the real goal. Increasing tax revenue and controlling a multi-billion dollar industry is and always was the goal. The rest is just excuses to reach that end.

So I don't think that tethering is the real issue here. I think it's just the easiest excuse that they have to crack down and control not only the phones, but the content on those phones.

Ignore what they say, just follow the $$$ trail...

 

[TheSwaggeR]

A bit off topic here but I'm glad TiVo won. Today's comercials, infomercials and such infiltrate so much that I don't even watch TV much anymore. We can't even sit through a show or movie without 2 to 3 advertisement/show/movie reminders popping up on the bottom left, right or center of the screen. Then there's the commercials on breaks that seem to be longer and longer each year.

I know of a couple movies, that were shown, that were edited to cut off time on it one year, and then edited even more to allow more commercial time the next year or so.

There is enough commercials/infomercials around us, what TiVo is doing isn't really hurting much at all.

Ok, back to the thread topic!

 

[UltraDroid]

Regardless, I will not reward any company that keeps me from using my own property as I see fit. I don't tether, or use bootleg apps for free, or do anything illegal with my phones. I understand the need to protect content and the network but not when it tramples my rights. Just because I root doesn't mean I'm a criminal...

Their Network, Their Rules....

When you sign the contract you agree to the rights you have when access and using their Network.

Let me ask you this, would a toll road have the right to ban, say, Ford or Lincoln automobiles, because the road is partially owned by GM? The fact that you own a toll road (or are a service provider) doesn't bestow sweeping and (to some of us anyway) nonsensical *power* over those who use your road (physical or cyber) as a means to go from point A to Point B. If the service providers can produce a shred of evidence that the mere act of rooting a phone and installing a custom rom somehow damages their toll road/network, I've yet to see it.

Yes, tethering can be a form of ripping them off, but I'm not one who tethers, and so are a lot of the others on the forums. Besides, it is a separate action that doesn't necessarily follow the act of rooting. How does the existence of my rooted and themed rom cause them injury or loss?

-Mike

 

[dfuser312553]

bad people are bricking their phone and sending to verizion
[combined with]
A great many not paying for tethering

Correct? keep it short the walls of text aree bugging me now

Nothing is that black & white. Take a DX/2/2G for example. What bricks those devices? The efuse that Motorola enabled on the OMAP processor to do just that. As far as tethering goes the non-root tethering apps are more popular on the market.

Finally others are posting! Page after page read like a 1 man harangue to the forum. I don't know what P3's game is. This turd he blessed us with doesn't make sense & I don't see how it helped his current situation.

 

[Diab210]

If it's just money, it seems like an awfully small percent.
Not many root; and of those who do, even less abuse tethering and/or warranty replacements.

Whenever a small percent of any population is vilified to justify monitoring, laws or general over reaching, my American Pit Bull Terrier owner alarm goes off.

The:"It's okay to raise taxes/pass laws against/ban: dogs, smoking, sugary drinks, chips, salt...*fill in the blank* because it's bad" type of thinking leads to a slippery slope.

Just because I'm a responsible dog owner does not make me ok with sweeping laws that infringe on the rights of the innocent.

I just think it's short sighted to be of the thinking that "it's ok to be excessively monitored/treated as guilty, in order to punish a very small percentage of people"

Bingo. They take something small, and use it to pass policies, or laws or anything that they can think of.

Look at tobacco. Listening to the government, you would think that tobacco is the scourge of humanity. It kills over 250 million people a year. So why is it legal, while Ephedra products, that have only been linked to 81 deaths over a 10 year period(mostly due to abuse and pre-existing heart conditions and HBP) were banned?

Because the government makes more money from tobacco sales than RJ Reynolds makes. Fact. A study several years ago showed that when you look at the overhead that it costs to make a pack of smokes(land, farming, labor, harvest, processing, transportation, manufacturing, transportation, marketing and distribution, etc), that the tobacco companies made about $0.29 profit per pack sold.

At that time, the government made over $2 profit per pack sold, all in taxes, no overhead. And the taxes have gone up since then. So the government, who claims to despise smoking and rails against it and demonizes it on a daily basis, makes roughly 7 times the profit per pack than the tobacco companies themselves make.

So no matter how much they demonize it, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of people die per year in this country alone from it, not only politician will ever stand up and try to ban tobacco. They are simply making too much money killing people with it, to let it become illegal. Fact.

So how does that apply here? Because a corporation works like the government in a lot of ways. They may say it is about one thing in order to get a law or policy passed, but more often than not, it isn't the real reason or even the intended goal.

It's just the justification for something else that they are not really being honest about. In the government's case, they demonize tobacco so that people will not balk at the taxes they keep adding to it. They do it so that the other politicians will sign on the the bill to get it passed, to "save lives". If they wanted to save lives, they could ban it tomorrow. But they won't, because saving lives was never the real goal. Increasing tax revenue and controlling a multi-billion dollar industry is and always was the goal. The rest is just excuses to reach that end.

So I don't think that tethering is the real issue here. I think it's just the easiest excuse that they have to crack down and control not only the phones, but the content on those phones.

Ignore what they say, just follow the $$$ trail...

I agree - tethering isn't whats pushing this but they have an easier time pointing at it and yelling loudly.

What I still don't get is if this is all about money (it probably is) how much could they possibly be gaining by stopping root users? What is the percentage of users that actually root their phones? It seems like they are expending far more money into the research, development, implementation, and legal aspects of this all then they are going to make back from their investors.