Verizon and rooting questions

[random190user44]

I remember a while back some talk that verizon would begin keeping track of who was illegally tethering and who was and wasn't rooted.

Has verizon implemented anything to detect if your rooted? What about tracking our tethering? these are the things preventing me from rooting

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[technogeek00]

My past devices on verizon have been rooted and they haven't had a problem with it. Now if you are tethering and not paying them the fee, then they will have a problem with the tethering, not the rooting. There are ways to tether without rooting and they hate that too so I don't think rooting is a problem to them.

 

[jesusishere]

I remember a while back some talk that verizon would begin keeping track of who was illegally tethering and who was and wasn't rooted.

Has verizon implemented anything to detect if your rooted? What about tracking our tethering? these are the things preventing me from rooting

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There are a few ways that Verizon can track your tethering.

1. People who use the My Mobile Hotspot App, Hacked: There was a couple hacked versions of the App that would allow people to wirelessly tether. Verizon monitors that app, silently updates that app and gathers information from that app. People were being redirected to pay when Verizon found out that you were using their app for free. Rightfully so, it's their app and there are other free ones out there that doesn't use their software. I also fear that this app also monitors for other wireless tether apps and lets Verizon know when you install one.

2. Data Usage: I used to tether for free off my D1 when I was without internet for a couple months. One month I made it to 20gbs. I was throttled for the the rest of the month. I now try to keep it under 10gbs. 15gbs can get you throttled as well. If you continue to have high usage they will then check a little bit harder to see if your data usage is the result of data tethering.

3. Data Flow: If you have a constant high data usage bandwith-wise then it's pretty obvious that you are tethering. Apps only do so much kps while tethering will get you to mbps. This will have them pull information off your phone or check to see what app is using this data.

My opnion: I am only using Verizon due to the fact that I have an unlimited data contract with them still. If they decided to change my contract I will be more than happy to leave. The amount of money they make off of bogus charges are ridonkelous. The fees for running it monthly like "federal regulation fee" and other nonsense just makes them money. Text messages only take a couple bytes to send out and costs nothing for them. My guess is 1,000 texts maybe cost them 10 cents but they charge more. They deserve to be ripped off via tethering due to their greed to charge us more for something we already can do for free. Every other country is far better than us in the terms of internet but we are held back by companies, like the cellphone companies, who will charge exponentially more than what it costs. Ex. 4g is just cell towers hooked up with fiber-optic cables.

 

[technogeek00]

Jesusishere makes a good point about how they detect illegal tethering. But even if they didn't have these apps, they have a log of every data request to and from your phone "for billing purposes". They can easily have programs monitor the feeds for different things such as non-android user agents and pc applications communicating with servers.

As for remote root detection, as of yet they don't have apps preinstalled to check that I know of. But they can detect it if you being the phone in for service or something.

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[Saik0Shinigami]

They can easily have programs monitor the feeds for different things such as non-android user agents and pc applications communicating with servers.

User-agents can't work, apps like skyfire and the like you can just change your user-agent... But I imagine it's blatantly obvious what's behind the phone if you actually look at the data.

 

[robstabspeople]

Verizon representatives, tech support, etc are not at all against rooting. Most of the ones i have talked to have their phones rooted and customized.

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[JSM9872]

Verizon representatives, tech support, etc are not at all against rooting. Most of the ones i have talked to have their phones rooted and customized.

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True. I have experienced this as well. I had a senior rep, or whatever his title was, ask me for rom suggestions while he was trying to fix my gfs tbolt. Unfortunately that doesn't change the fact that your warranty is voided if you do it. The reps may not mind but the "man" does.

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[technogeek00]

User-agents can't work, apps like skyfire and the like you can just change your user-agent... But I imagine it's blatantly obvious what's behind the phone if you actually look at the data.

It wouldn't be a catch all detection, of course there will be people that know to change the user-agent, but there are others that don't. I doubt Verizon relys on only one detection method, or at least I hope they are more creative than that haha.

As to the original purpose of this thread I think we can summarize it to:
Tethering: Yes Verizon has methods to track who is and who isn't using tethered data and there are ways to circumvent them, but you must do so at your own risk.
Rooting: They can detect it via failed software update installs. I.e. you delete an app that can't be uninstalled unless your rooted and when you go to update that app isn't there. That would be a red flag that you have a rooted phone. Now as to whether verizon cares, if your using your phone and its not bothering their service, they don't. But if your trying to claim the insurance on your phone for a repair, they may step in and say "no, you rooted your phone and voided your warrenty, tough luck". So again its back to do so at your own risk.

To OP what do you think? Need more info?

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