About the "Locked" bootloader...

[PunMaster]

Hello wonderful people of Droid Forums! This is my first post, so I apologize in advance if I am asking obvious questions.

So everyone is talking about the “locked” bootloaders present on several of the new Droid phones, including my beloved new D2G. This has been cited as the reason that the bootloader, recovery menu, and android kernel on these phones cannot be replaced with unofficial code. I was wondering if anyone here knew the exact technical details of the security systems that actually make up this so called “lock”.

One thread I read vaguely mentioned RSA keys, so I can only assume that something somewhere is signed. Is it the typical setup, with a bootloader that is signed with a key that is burned into the CPU, and a kernel that is signed with a key in the bootloader? Clearly the code on the /system partition is not signed, since I was able flash a custom ROM over it (not to mention install the bootstrap recovery).

Also, how much control does a root process really have? If it is possible to inject root code into the boot process just by modifying some things in init.rc (as the bootstrap recovery does), then shouldn’t it be possible to manually load whatever we want into memory after that point, including a new kernel? If so, then couldn’t we leave the (presumably) signed stock kernel in place, put our kernel in /system, and write some root code that copies it into memory and executes it (without checking any sigs)?

Forgive me if I have no idea what I am talking about. Like I said, I am new to the forum, and I just got my first Android phone less than a week ago.


Thanks!

[PunMaster]

Bump...

Not exactly the warm welcome I was expecting. :P

Does anyone know anything about this stuff? I am sorry if there was something wrong with my question or I posted this in the wrong place.

Thanks!

[Tanknspank]

95% of the people on this forum had no idea what you were talking about, and I'm to tired to care right now XD

Maybe another day if no one answers.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

[tp7six]

I don't know a lot of the details you are asking about the locked bootloaders (my Original Droid has no locked bootloader) I do know they are digitally encrypted and as of yet, impossible to crack


BTW - to Droid Forums

[BlackHoleSlam]

Sorry bro everyone is with family

Sent from my Sourcery using Tapatalk

[DropC]

One of our pros will be glad to answer you when they see this =) I was wondering the same thing, with the kernel thing.

Sent from my ADR6300 using DroidForums App

[BasilofBakerStreet]

bump


10char

[rlfitz]

although I cant answer your question because I barely have a grasp on it myself, I wanted to say welcome aboard the forum..