

Droid X actually self-destructs if you try to mod it - evilmushroom
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/07/14/droid-x-actually-self-destructs-if-you-try-to-mod-it/
As an Android advocate/fan this _really_ rubs me the wrong way.
======
harry
I also dislike this move by Motorola. It's like using tamper proof screws and
violates the idea from Make: "If you can't open it, you don't own it."

DIY/Makers and anyone else who ends up repairing fancy devices (phones, after
market stereo head units, various lab equipment) have constantly fought with
this type of thing. It comes in forms of bios that self destruct, glue that's
only purpose is to break something internal if a panel is removed, or tamper
proof screws on replacement parts.

See the Makers "Bill of Rights" -
<http://cdn.makezine.com/make/MAKERS_RIGHTS.pdf> (pdf). I tend to judge
companies on whether or not their products are outright MADE to prevent me
from being able to fix it myself. If I can't, I won't buy products from them
again. As @meunierc said, "vote with your dollars."

~~~
slmichalk
I used to repair cameras for a living and Sony point and shoots drove me
crazy. We couldn't fix them because there is no real frame or chassis holding
it together. Once you take it apart, good luck getting it back together.

~~~
harry
One that sticks out to me are the early 00's palm devices. Driver support
dropped off after 6 MONTHS, copious glue in weird places (covering traces and
connectors) and they'd yell at you if you called their tech lines (for
unopened, warranty covered devices). Treo's weren't any better either. Ugh.

Needless, they lost a couple hundred devices sold because of that.

------
detst
What do they gain by doing this? I just don't get it. I have no problem with
them not supporting hacking their devices but to go out of the way to prevent
it (let alone bricking it) doesn't make any sense. We wouldn't accept it from
a computer manufacturer, so why with a phone?

EDIT: I know most here will get it but this drives me crazy because it stifles
progression. Did Motorola every think that their next best engineers might be
the kids that are so passionate about this stuff that they want to tinker with
their phone in these ways?

~~~
jsz0
Motorola has the OEM mindset. Verizon is their customer. Verizon wants people
to pay for tethering. Maybe GPS navigation. Maybe they don't want high
bandwidth apps allowed on their 3G network. Since there's basically no market
for unlocked phones in the US companies like Motorola and HTC can't really
stand up to the carriers. It'd be suicide. (HTC is doing the same types of
things by digitally signing the boot loader code on their handsets)

~~~
Zak
As I understand it, Motorola/Verizon did not do this with the original Droid.
It seems strange that they would start now.

Bootloader signing, though annoying and, I think inappropriate for a
manufacturer to do is non-destructive. Intentionally bricking a phone is
another thing entirely: it's vandalism.

~~~
Supermighty
The original Droid was developed in partnership with Google. Chances are this
had something to do with the openness of the original.

~~~
detst
Yes, they were quite closely involved in that one. Which begs the question of
will Google do something about this. I'm not sure this is something they are
really looking to take a stand on but bricking a device is going too far.
Maybe they should revoke license to Google apps on this phone until that
feature is fixed.

------
l0nwlf
That's Motorola's policy and it's clearly documented (
[http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-
Blog/Cust...](http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-Blog/Custom-
ROMs-and-Motorola-s-Android-Handsets/ba-p/4224) )

"Securing the software on our handsets, thereby preventing a non-Motorola ROM
image from being loaded, has been our common practice for many years."

It's really depressing :(

~~~
veemjeem
And people say Apple is evil... at least Apple has never put fuses like this
into their hardware. If Motorola had any kind of market share, they'd take
evil to a whole new level.

~~~
stcredzero
No fuses, but there was a rumor that they would be overwriting mods in the
future. (On-air updates.)

------
zzzmarcus
The efuse paranoia has, to a large degree, already been debunked. DroidLife[0]
quotes BGR[1] as saying:

"The current theory being put forth by the non-alarmists in the Android
hacking community suggests that the DROID X is locked in a similar manner to
the Milestone. Though it may be difficult to crack, and may lead to many hairs
being pulled out, mucking with the bootloader probably won’t brick your
phone."

[0][http://www.droid-life.com/2010/07/15/enough-with-the-
efuse-t...](http://www.droid-life.com/2010/07/15/enough-with-the-efuse-talk-
already/)

[1][http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/15/reality-check-
modd...](http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/15/reality-check-modding-the-
droid-x-may-not-lead-to-a-bricked-phone/)

~~~
dolinsky
It's a shame there isn't a way to place blinking tags around this comment,
arrows pointing at it. Until this efuse problem has been proven 'in the wild'
it's nothing more than a possibility, and from the BGR article (I searched
this thread first to see if someone had already posted it) it seems this efuse
has been in place in previous Droid models but has never been used.

~~~
GrandMasterBirt
That is a dangerous statement dolinsky my man. That means that we should buy
the phone only to realize we got a gimped device for the purposes of verizon
deciding which software features to lock so they can charge us 10 bucks a
month for each.

------
Supermighty
I was planning on getting the Droid X until I learned of this. It's a slap in
the face and unfortunately most people won't even realize it. Slowly
innovation and growth in smart phones will slow and no one will realize why.
They won't realize they were cutting of their own noses. How popular was
Moto's Linux phone before android? Not as popular as they are, that's for
sure. They need the hackers and tinkers to push the platform forward. Moto and
Verizion sure has heck won't do it.

------
dododo
this is the source of the article: [http://www.mydroidworld.com/forums/droid-
x-discussion/3330-h...](http://www.mydroidworld.com/forums/droid-x-
discussion/3330-how-droid-x-locked-down-let-me-tell-you-what-i-know.html)

from the source, the things checked before blowing the fuse are: "the firmware
information (what we call ROMS), the kernel information, and the bootloader
version"

it seems like if you get any kind of corruption, in any part of the above
components, for any amount of time, your phone becomes a brick.

corruption happens: my previous phone was a motorola. i stopped using it
because it would randomly redirect phone calls to other numbers in the phone
book (but it was usable for a long period despite this).

motorola phones' get corruption (which keep essential functions working), but
now any temporary, minor problem results in permanent, intentional bricking.

~~~
slmichalk
The article mentions that it must be fixed at the hardware level by Motorola.
I wonder if there is something that can be done to disable this, such as
jumping two pins on the main PCB. A steady hand and a small soldering iron can
work wonders.

------
rufugee
Damn it. Just cancelled my order (placed yesterday). Funny thing is I was
switching from AT&T to Verizon to get it, so now Verizon has not only lost my
$200 but my future monthly fees as well.

Now I'm considering the Nexus One, but then I wonder when the Nexus Two might
come out? From a hardware standpoint (aside from the 8GB internal storage,
HDMI out and bigger screen) the DroidX doesn't look _that_ much better.

Thoughts?

~~~
elblanco
The HTC incredible is basically the same hardware as the Nexus One. I'm pretty
happy with mine so far.

~~~
Kadin
Can you get FroYo on the Incredible without any jailbreaking or other messing
around?

I've been thinking of getting a Nexus One specifically because of FroYo (and
its wireless tethering -- which finally puts it on feature parity with my old
Nokia E61i), but it's fairly expensive and I'm loath to drop $500+ on
something if there's something better on the market or about to come on the
market.

~~~
elblanco
"Jailbreaking" doesn't exist on Android phones (for the most part _cough_
Motorola). Installing firmwares does.

According to HTC, Froyo is set for auto-update on the Incredible in Q3
sometime. Or you can just install one of the firmwares that's out on the web
and get it today.

~~~
fragmede
On Android, you have to 'root' the phone in some fashion in order to install
firmware. On a couple Android phones, the rooting process is 'supported', but
on most models, rooting relies on exploiting the phone in the same way a
jailbreak would.

------
philwelch
The article blames Motorola, which is fair, but I'd cast a look at Verizon,
too. Their history of crippling phones is long and sordid.

~~~
ROFISH
It's probably not too far from the truth. Free tethering is probably causing a
hamper on their system.

~~~
nailer
So just bill customers for what they use.

~~~
pragmatic
We have an unlimited plan. Verizon really can't decide to start metering it
now without a re-write to contract which would allow consumers to break their
contracts (presumably).

Unlimited data on Verizon is awesome btw.

~~~
sp332
How do you get unlimited data on Verizon? The largest plan I've heard of is 5
GB/mo.

------
mandeepdhami
Sadly, this is not new. See "Tivoization" at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization>

------
maqr
Are the comments on mobile crunch for real or just a pack of trolls? I wonder
what the actual public perception will be.

Is this "Motorola stops would-be cell phone hackers!" or "Motorola puts self-
destruct sequence in your phone!"?

------
tetha
I really like how companies don't understand that the possibility to modify
and fiddle with a device makes this device much more attractive for the right
customers lke us hackers.

~~~
brk
True, but you represent probably .1% of their total customer base.

The bigger issue at hand is that the common hardware hacker is such a rare
beast these days...

~~~
Setsuna
True, but also consider the people who go to their friendly neighborhood
hacker to get their device "unlocked".

------
lenni
Not quite as evil, but T-Mobile Germany is preventing me from flashing my HTC
Hero and at the same time delay official updates by months. Suffice to say, I
won't ever buy a phone from a mobile phone company again - they suck at
software!

~~~
nailer
The only phone you actually have control over is a Nexus One. People still
have to root HTC's other phones, Motorola phones, iPhones, and just about
every other usable consumer phone device.

~~~
dandrews
There's also Nokia's N900, which runs Maemo - a Debian derivative.

~~~
nailer
Indeed it does, but I don't count the N900 or OpenMoko, having used both, as
usable general purpose phones.

------
ant5
I don't really care, and I certainly wouldn't change my recommendation of a
phone to a consumer based on this. But read to the end before you downvote :)

As a vendor, dealing with hacks, jailbreaks, and other such things is
remarkably expensive. Consumers (not developers) wind up installing these
things without understanding the implications of what they're doing. The OS
breaks, the applications break, things go haywire, things go bad. The hardware
vendor, the OS vendor, and the application vendor all take the blame and have
to deal with the support costs. We get support e-mails all the time that can
be traced to iOS jailbreak-induced issues.

It's a massive pain in the neck that, understandably, a vendor just doesn't
want to deal with.

Moreover, as a consumer, it's incredibly wasteful to be spending so much time
on trying to break into undocumented systems that the vendors just aren't
interested in supporting.

Instead, I want to support vendors that provide more open platforms for a more
premium price. It _costs_ more to produce an open, supported platform, and I
don't mind paying a little bit for an Android development phone that allows me
to experiment with OS-level work, or something like the Ubiquity RouterStation
Pro[0] as an alternative to consumer wireless routers. The advantage to me is
that hacking the device is _supported_ and I don't have to fight with a
consumer manufacturer -- a company with very different priorities to my own --
to do it.

[0] <http://www.ubnt.com/rspro>

~~~
dinedal
That's ridiculous. To make the over used car analogy, this is if you were to
replace the engine on a brand new car you bought with a different one, only to
have the car destroy itself, and the new engine you just put in it.

It's one thing to not support the new engine when it has problems. It's
another thing to destroy property that someone bought from you after the sale
if they use it in a way you don't approve.

I understand it costs more to support an open platform. But it's a choice to
support that open platform, and Motorola doesn't have to do that, they can
hang up on Joe Average who did installs the mod just like a dealership would
do so on anyone who screwed up putting a completely different engine in their
brand new car.

~~~
ant5
_Motorola doesn't have to do that, they can hang up on Joe Average who did
installs the mod ..._

Cars aren't phones. The cost of installing a new engine is very different than
the cost of installing a phone hack, the set of people likely to do so (and
the associated cost to the manufacturer and other vendors) isn't the same, and
there's going to be a lot more consumer awareness about what they're doing by
replacing the engine. And really -- modern cars _are_ locked down.

~~~
Zak
Modern cars are fairly proprietary, but they're not intentionally locked down.
They certainly don't attempt to self-destruct upon detecting tampering. Cars
actually do the opposite: they attempt to keep going even in the event of
improper modification or malfunction (limp-home mode, etc...).

I find locked-down devices annoying, but not unethical. Self-destructs are
simply vandalism, and should result in legal action.

------
borisk
Cool, so now a virus can potentially destroy phones on hardware level.

------
meunierc
When are you kids going to learn? If you have to root it, hack it, jailbreak
it or otherwise mod it against the terms of purchase which you signed
voluntarily when purchasing, why are you surprised when your candy is removed
from you? If it doesn't do the job and the maker doesn't want it to do the
job, it's his problem. Don't act like a spoiled brat and give in to the cat-
and-mouse game of hacking and counterhacking.

Vote with your dollars.

------
elblanco
Good, don't buy one and send a message via lack of dollars.

------
gamble
I can just imagine the reaction if it had been _Apple_ releasing a phone that
self-destructed when you modded it. Since this is Android - and Android is
'open' - expect the story to fall into news-cycle oblivion by next week.

Where's the outrage now?

~~~
nooneelse
There are posts on various Android related forums speaking against this,
numerous blog posts, and some people have canceled their orders... so your
implicit charge of hypocrisy falls entirely flat in the face of reality. Care
to retract it?

~~~
gamble
There are always at least a half-dozen anti-Apple posts on HN at any given
time. I see one post about this, which is already falling off the radar. If
this had been about an Apple product, people would be working themselves into
a frothy geek-rage.

------
atiw
Wow, Google is giving away their OS for free, and Motorola is locking it up.
It's not even theirs to lock up. We PAID for it....do they not get the concept
of money or what?

