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Local goodwill has a Pixel 3a for cheap but it has Factory Reset Protection on when booted. (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/linuxphones@lemmy.ca
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I want to grab the phone to try out Ubuntu Touch but I don't want to contribute to e-waste if I can't get past the FRP.

Any advise?

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[–] 26 points 5 months ago (11 children)

Its already ewaste.

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  • [–] [S] 9 points 5 months ago (10 children)

    That's very helpful, thank you.

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  • [–] 27 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    If the FRP is on, you shouldn't be able to reset or flash it. Therefore, ewaste. Sorry for the overly terse initial message.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago* (6 children)

    Its an end-of-life product regardless, so it should be recycled. Its not worth carrying around a forever-compromised device, at least not for me. Google offers a recycle program here:

    https://store.google.com/us/magazine/recycling?hl=en-US

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    I've ported Mobian to the Pixel 3a, it can therefore still be used and is a perfectly fine phone. Also, there aren't many other small phones one could use with Linux.

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

    You can port a lot of things to a Pixel 3a, but the firmware has been end of life for years now. At the hardware level, its always vulnerable. The OS alone can not protect you, even if its up to date.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    The smartphone is far from ewaste, great jack, with good camera, makes the perfect device for an mp3 player to take along hikes.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago

    As long as it never touches any network ever again and there is never anything personal installed on it ever again then it should be OK. Be sure to rip out the GSM and/or CDMA chipset, wifi, bluetooth, and NFC. When connecting it to another device through USB, make sure that device is offline and ADB mode is disabled. Remove all sim cards as well.

    There are much better devices for your purpose than some old ass phone tho

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Whatever. Still not a reason to constantly throw hardware away unless you have a specific threat model.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago*

    My threat model is anything vulnerable that can access a network should be gutted and smelted down if it has been abandoned from the manufacturer.

    Don't throw it in the trash. Recycle the materials instead to rebuild newer better hardware.

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    • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Now, I can only help part of the way but maybe this will get you started…

    If you can plug it into a computer, and the computer sees it…theoretically you should be able to flash it.

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