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OnePlus update blocks downgrades and custom ROMs by blowing a fuse (consumerrights.wiki)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 149 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Wow, what happened to OnePlus? They used to be so cool. Hell, the first one ran Cyanogen.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    they saw GOOGLE was trying to lockdown thier bootloader, or restrict it.

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    • [–] 210 points 9 months ago (15 children)

    So never buy OnePlus products. Got it. Thanks OnePlus for making the advice so clear!

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  • [–] 71 points 9 months ago (13 children)

    That's what I heard. I know Samsung has been doing something like this as well.

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  • [–] 82 points 9 months ago (12 children)

    Samsung has been blowing fuses in your phone when you root since at least 2015. I know because it happened to me. Never bought one again after that.

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  • [–] 22 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    Yep, Samsung Knox is the feature name; does it actually prevent things or is it just "tamper evidence" for corporate devices?

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    It's the blanket name for their security architecture. The thing that makes sure your kernel is blessed, tries teo tell if you're rooted, then sets a fuse flag if anything is off. It also provides a secure, encrypted profile for your phone that bifurcates apps, data, blocks screenshots. The data from the flag is available to apps to tell that your phone is potentially insecure. For the most part, they only block Samsung banking/pay apps and make your secure partition inaccessible.

    My next phone will be something degoogled. hopefully something linux.

    I've already wiped an old disconnected android phone for use with my drone/cameras that require a mobile device.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    According to the linked article it prevents the use of Samsung Pay and access to the Secure Folder (an extra layer of security you can enable that requires a second PIN to be input before you can access certain apps and files). This seems pretty reasonable, the goal is clearly to prevent access to especially sensitive data if someone has stolen the phone.

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  • [–] 29 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    It's not reasonable in my opinion.

    I can maybe understand not wanting other operating systems in their attestation chain that is protecting a payment system from the standpoint of liability.

    All of the other things are entirely hardware features that any OS should be able to use. They're using the ARM Trusted Execution Environment (ARM TrustZone) and a embedded Secure Element to enable the ability to store cryptographiclly secured files without the system ever having access to the keys.

    Both TEEs and eSEs are not a Samsung invention or IP and are enabled by hardware on the device, the TEE is part of the ARM standard and is used in a huge number of other OSs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family). Secure Elements are also widely used pieces of hardware supported by innumerable OSs and also a feature of the hardware that you paid for.

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  • [–] 23 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    GrapheneOS also claims it's not defending against anything real. Which makes sense as Pixels can clearly maintain security while allowing alternate OSes. So this is just hostile vendor lock-in. Disappointing as there was some speculation that OP would be the GOS OEM, but there's no way they would do this is that was true.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Sad. Having used the OPX, OP6T, OP9, and briefly the OP10, I can honestly say their hardware is usually pretty good. I went to Graphene on a Pixel for the software. Software was always Oneplus' weak point so it's extra silly that they're doing this. So many hobbyists have bought OP hardware and used it with software of their choice. They started co-developing their Oxygen OS with Oppo a while back and that's when it really went to hell.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    They started developing Oxygen around the time of OnePlus 2. I used my OnePlus One into 2020, it was a nice phone. It’s sad to see how they’ve gone down this nasty path.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Seriously, they were the poster-child of a "good" phone manufacturer. Like the "don't be evil" version of Google, there was a time when I was comfortable recommending them. Not any more. Let's hope they find their way.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Yeah. I really liked my OPO. It was fantastic. My first hesitations about them came when they started doing multiple versions. Like OnePlus X or whatever that first one was called I kind of glossed over, felt like a marketing thing. But after a few years they just turned into a normal manufacturer.

    The whole schtick with the limited availability and stuff meant that the phone was great quality at a great price. They abandoned that too fast to become another Samsungooglewhatever.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago

    That makes sense. I figured they were worried that an alternate OS would be more likely to exploit their encryption somehow, but if it's all using industry standard hardware then it really ought to be open.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Samsung just does it to trigger Knox and not let you use some security minded things on the phone.

    They also, however, have their phones pretty much impossible to root anymore. I don't think most ever get a custom rom, because pretty much no one can get a Samsung phone to except one. I believe my old Note 20 Ultra is still not rootable.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago

    For me I found out when I wanted them to fix something and they refused to honour the warranty because of the blown fuse.

    As far as I know, this is illegal, btw. They have to prove that the error you are reporting is caused by user action. If your battery craps out, they can't blame it on you rooting your phone.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Yeah, this was the case shortly after they release of model 5T or around thst time. That's when they stopped being the only company that would provide instructions to root your device, and guess what... Back then, if you rooted your device the warranty was still valid!

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    • [–] 71 points 9 months ago* (10 children)

    If true, this is sabotage of the customers product, and must 100% be illegal in almost any country!!
    But my guess is they are limiting this to countries that have absolute shit consumer protection.

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  • [–] 22 points 9 months ago*

    I haven't read the entire XDA thread but there are a few posts saying it's limited to ColorOS (Chinese version of android that everyone else gets as OxygenOS). Unable to verify.

    If they don't reverse course, I'm sure it'll roll out globally eventually. This has to run afoul of EU's strong warranty laws right?

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    ....oh? I thought every console used this kind of tech as well.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    So are console sold with the possibility of changing the OS, only to have that option removed later? There was some issue with PS3, but apart from that I never heard about it.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Ooooh, okay, now I understand. I was referring to the way modern consoles blow a fuse with each new patch so you can't load older patches.

    But yeah, the PS3 removed the ability to boot Linux which it was explicitly advertised to have and it was a huge thing at the time.

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  • [–] -4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    consoles blow a fuse with each new patch so you can’t load older patches.

    Admittedly I was unaware of this, but for consoles it can have a real functional purpose as part of the protection against cheating.

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    • [–] 65 points 9 months ago

    "...long enough to become the villain."

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    [–] 60 points 9 months ago

    Holy shit. I wanted to say something constructive, but just…. holy shit. Intentional hard brick of a customer owned device….

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    [–] 54 points 9 months ago

    That means they were making money by people running their os.

    If they spend the money on re-engineering their devices not to allow it, there was a cost advantage to selling your data.

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    [–] 46 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    Many users were buying OpenPlus Pro smartphones solely because of the ability to unlock the bootloader and flash custom ROMs. People value freedom and customization. OpenPlus is shooting itself in the foot.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    This is why I bought a pixel 6

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    This will never stop being funny

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    • [–] 91 points 9 months ago (15 children)

    It's not flashing a custom ROM. It is installing an OS of users choice. Enemy's language shouldn't be used if we want things to change

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  • [–] 32 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    This is why "side load" is annoying to me. It's installing. It is not special or different. They aren't "blocking side loading" they're "restricting what you can install."

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I'm 100% okay with how my Samsung Galaxy handles it: You access the Developer mode by pressing on the phone info screen in the settings for several seconds, and then there's a switch that allows execution of random .apk files.

    "Yes, do as I say."

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (1 child)

    There was talk about Google changing this, but I'm not sure if that was something that would only affect Pixel phones or all of Android as an ecosystem. Well, to be specific, the change is to not let people run unsigned APKs at all and devs can only get them signed by giving their identification to Google.

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  • [+] -14 points 9 months ago (10 children)

    Still custom as it's not the default

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  • [–] 32 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    What makes it "custom"? If you install Linux on a laptop that comes with Windows pre-installed, is Linux then a custom OS it's not being a default? Why phones are any different? Calling it custom you play to the manufacturers pockets making it sound shady and unofficial giving them right to take the control from the customers devices. Soon we won't own anything we buy.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Because for phones they kinda are custom. The smartphone hardware landscape is an absolute clusterfuck of proprietary blobs and closed source drivers and all sorts of shit that makes it so you need a lot of work to customize the base os to work on any particular device. ROMs have rather short lists of compatible phones, and each one of those had to have a build specifically developed for them. You can't take, say, grapheneos and slap it on any phone you like.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Installing linux on your Dell that came with Windows isn't "Installing a custom OS."

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    • [–] 81 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Wasn't OnePlus like worshipped because of how much support for custom ROMs wth

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    • [–] 39 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

    I bought a OP 9Pro just before Oppo decimated the company. They moved from Oxygen OS to a poorly camouflaged version of Oppo Color OS and stripped out some of the features that made Oneplus what it was. Oppo also almost completely stopped fixing bugs, even some really serious ones that had been long documented. I recently bought a new phone and didn't even consider Oneplus Oppo.

    It seems to me that the only reason Oppo would do this is to preserve the revenue they get from selling customer data that should remain private. Otherwise why would Oppo care what OS people run on their hardware?

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Hi, could you share what phone you bought? I'm looking for a replacement in the near future and I want to get a headstart on the research.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

    Bought a Pixel 10. After the last few days I'd only give it a C- review. Google uses their customers as beta testers and leaves all kinds of ridiculous bugs for their customers to deal with. The hardware is nice overall, but Android 16 needs lots of work. This is probably the reason so many Google employees refuse to use Android and buy Iphones.

    The bugs Google has knowingly released include a broken volume control that requires the screen to be unlocked and the application be open for some applications, sleep schedules not working reliably, "helpful" nags ignoring the sleep schedule and waking me up in the middle of the night. Last night it was their "Find Hub" (renamed from "Find my Device" for some reason) waking me at 1:30AM to let me know I should set it up. A week ago it was my phone warning me at 3AM that Location was turned off and Accident Detection would not work. There have been more and right now I'm wishing I bought an Iphone. Google doesn't deserve our business.

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    • [–] 38 points 9 months ago

    "OnePlus shoots own foot. Likely to blame consumers for it"

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    [–] 32 points 9 months ago

    In better times, this would at least get a class action.

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    [–] 28 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    One plus joined my short list of "I can't be bothered" companies like Samsung and Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo and some other sub par companies.

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    • [–] 23 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Seriously are there any Android brands that do not suck and ship everywhere (not limited to the US/EU markets)??

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  • [–] 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

    I believe thay all have shitty operating systems. But some of them have an aftermarket OS available. Pick your OS first, then look for a phone that can run it. Here are the ones I know of:

    GrapheneOS

    CalyxOS (on hiatus)

    Crdriod

    LineageOS

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    • [–] 31 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    so it basically permanently "damages" the phone when you try to root it, seems like they are asking for a lawsuit at some point.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Wanna try suing Samsung before that?

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I thought the difference there is that they were upfront about the feature in Knox and you can still install another OS, it just disables Pay and the Secure Notes part. Also it was something there from the start.

    This feels markedly different as it’s retroactive and a full brick, which is much more severe and a bait and switch.

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    • [+] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    OnePlus was never a consumer friendly company. People only liked it because their phones were cheaper than the standard market prices, however, most people understood that this price comes with the caveat that their device is designed, manufactured, and controlled by a Chinese company. Everybody knew that the CCP had their tentacles in these devices, and so it was only a matter of time before things like this start happening.

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    • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    And yet my LinkedIn is still full of people complaining about how much the EU over-regulates

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    • [–] 33 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    I get why they do this, because downgrade attacks are a thing that are used to exploit devices remotely, but there are other ways to implement this, like what GrapheneOS does. Downgrading can also just be restricted to unlocked bootloaders as well via a software revocation list that gets deleted/bypassed upon unlocking.

    There is no good reason for devices to use efuses to block downgrades unless they are trying to restrict user freedom a la consoles.

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  • [–] 63 points 9 months ago
    • Reasonable: prevent downgrades when the bootloader is locked
    • Sketchy: prevent downgrades when the bootloader is unlocked
    • Unhinged: hard-brick the device when a downgrade is attempted
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    • [–] 24 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Another company to add to the list.

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    • [–] 8 points 9 months ago

    I don't know why this thread is complaining specifically about Chinese OEMs when Samsung has been doing this for years.

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    [–] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

    Well...So did Samsung with Samsung Knox

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Knox just displays a message when you boot the device. You can still install a custom ROM. I'm typing this on a Samsung tablet running LineageOS.

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