Droid X/2 self-destruct when tampering with locked bootloaders…
Wow, things for Android + Moto lovers just took a much bigger turn for the worse. Over the last couple of days, we’ve highlighted how the Droid 2 and Droid X were going to lead the new wave of Moto’s future, locked bootloader and all. At that point in time, it simply meant a large headache for devs trying to hack their way into the device’s inner sanctums, gaining the highly sought after root access. If that was the end of the world to you, hold tight, because Moto is giving you the largest finger they ever possibly could.
New information coming from MyDroidWorld sheds a very grim light on the future of the Droid X and Droid 2 — possibly all future Motorola Android devices — rooting, with an intense debate swirling around a new implementation of an “eFuse” chip. This chip checks the bootloader, kernel, and ROM version against hard-coded resources on the eFuse chip itself. If at any point any of the three don’t match perfectly, the chip “self-destructs” (for lack of better words) and renders the phone a total brick. Talk about a dick move!
While it all seems like new fangled asshattery on Moto’s part, the technology behind the system checks and eFuse chip are several years old, supposedly dating all the way back to 2004. It’s just that Moto has gotten rather creative and is using the technology in a tweaked way to suit their purpose. Lucky us!
After all is said and done, we have to ask: Why? Why lock down the bootloader if there isn’t legitimate concern other than “it’s standard business practice” — which by the way, is a lame excuse. Sadly it appears Moto is going out of their way to make Android aficionados choose the competition, pushing them away with asinine business decisions and false restrictions. Locking down the bootloader in such an aggressive manner that even goes as far as rendering your phone useless serves absolutely no purpose except pissing off end users.
It’s all good though. We can always speak with our wallets. Lets not forget one of the reasons the original Droid set the precedent it did — it was open to experimentation and hacking. If they keep up stepping on devs, the platform that catapulted them to the forefront of smartphones, will be the same platform that sends them back to the grave. Now that we clearly see Moto is against the general progression of the platform, we can choose future devices accordingly. At this rate, I know I won’t be purchasing another Motorola device, regardless of OS, until they stop acting like assholes.
Sadness I know. If you weren’t one of the early bird 3GS adopters instead taking your sweet time to mosey on over and are looking forward to all of the jailbreaking goodness, I’m here to dash your dreams and stomp on everything happy in your mind. It’s beginning to come to light that Apple is shipping iPhone 3GSs with a new bootrom, iBoot-359.3.2 to be exact. Further adding fuel to the speculation fire is that “MuscleNerd”, a member of the infamous Dev-Team has confirmed himself that these newer iPhone’s are in fact crippled. In case you were wondering, (duh…of course you are) this new bootrom began it’s cancerous growth last week sometime. Sucks doesn’t it? Anyone buy one of these newer 3GSs only to find out that you’re SOL for the time being when jailbreaking is concerned?
