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OnePlus update blocks downgrades and custom ROMs by blowing a fuse (consumerrights.wiki)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 72 points 6 months ago (1 child)

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

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  • [–] 86 points 6 months ago (2 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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  • [–] 23 points 6 months ago (2 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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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    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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  • [–] 30 points 6 months ago (2 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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  • [–] 24 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    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 6 months ago (1 child)

    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 6 months ago (1 child)

    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 6 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 6 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 6 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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  • [–] 4 points 6 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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  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    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 6 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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