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ELI 15: How do phone manufacturers "lock" bootloaders? Is that software truly unhackable? (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/linux@lemmy.world
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I am seeing a growing discussion on the need for more Linux phones in the market given Google's problematic behaviour w.r.t the changes that will be introduced to that OS.

One very good point that some community member raised was that Android itself wasn't the problem but the locking of the bootloader in the phone. If the bootloader could be unlocked, then it significantly lowers the bar for the end user to install their OS of choice.

I have dabbled with flashing OSs in old smartphones (GrapheneOS, Post market and Lineage). I commend the developers because I could do that without truly having to "understand the code" at the lower levels. But I assume that was possible because the boot loader could be unlocked somehow*. It seems that isn't the case with many/most phone fro. Samsung / Xiomi, etc.

Are their bootloaders truly unlockable? Is it simply impossible to unlock and relock bootloaders?

  • I know that with lineage, the bootloader couldn't be relocked and that was touted as a security flaw. If someone could explain why this lock/unlock is so complex, I'd appreciate it.
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[–] 11 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

I'd be willing to (mildly) disagree here. We had lots of locked bootloaders in the early days of Android. Lots have never been hacked. Same for secure boot on computers and other cryptographic means. It's more a theoretical thing if you have 2 years to spend on coding and replace half the phone with soldered parts. I'm pretty sure that level of dedication makes almost everything hackable. But in practice, we have lots of things that make it so difficult, it's never going to happen in reality.

I guess it's okay while we still have alternatives available. I mean as long as there are some hackable phones, we can just buy those.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, I agree, I guess I just didn't specify that the scale is from running a simple command all the way to needing a dedicated team with hundreds of hours and millions of dollars.

    A locked bootloader from a company that did it well and will actively protect against unlocking it can be near impossible for a single person with reasonable budgets to bypass.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago*

    Yes. I'm always amazed how people constantly find ways to jailbreak Apple devices, and they're a massive company and not that bad at locking down their stuff... Or how we hacked most of the gaming consoles out there, while Nintendo/Sony/... are super incentivised to make it impossible. Sometimes it takes quite some time, but someone will find a way. Though that's a bit more common with widespread devices. Sometimes I'll try to find a privacy-respecting tablet and there isn't even a single aftermarket operating system at all for a recent model and then I'm a bit disappointed in what we can achieve as a community.

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