Database Users

The Hungarian Situation

This an entry from the Hungarian telecommunication
situation.
Hi! My name is Daniel Perenyi, in the internet everyone knows me as doncortio. I'm new at XDA. Thence I registrated here, because i'm a smartphone-freak and i founded here answers, helpful writes for my questions, problems. This post is not went from me, i mean just debut myself, before the substantial part of this post.
In the hungarian telecommunications forums more and more news and articles told from abroad, focusing for outlander telecommunications events. As i going to University soon, i have a look at the outlander carrier's offers. So, i lost my mood...
In Hungary exist three head carriers and few "virtual carrier", like T-Mobile, Vodafone and Telenor. Its seems good, but we have a problem. In Europa, here the most expensive the cellphones and services. I tell a easy example: in our neighbour counrty's (Austria) either carrier's one service, the "All in 20" giving 2000 min, 1000 SMS and 2GB data traffic, here Vodafone Matrix 7 can not exceed that's... Matrix 7 gives 1200 min/SMS and 2GB data traffic for 21.200HUF (~70€), but in a promotion, we can select a bonus: +1200 Vodafone minutes, or +2000 Vodafone SMS, or +1100 inland SMS. Very impressive, no? I readed a not long ago, in England can buy Galaxy SIII with a 40£ for free. Here we can't buy a iPhone 4S with Matrix 7 for free...
In 2011 was a publication onto the free frequency bands. We hoped that a new carrier will start a price competition. We hoped the Orange for the fourth, because two of our neighbour (Austria, Romania) too acts most well. Many service providers did not apply for the publication, unfortunately, but the black clouds gathered already: a hungarian state service provider consortium applied for the application. The additional candidates with ridiculous reasons, than inapposite filling in of the documents (Viettel Group) and arrear debt (Digi RCS & RDS). It is sure that the new carrier will not develop a price competition, but let me not have truth.
Extra: the telecommunicational tax was introduced already last year, now in June the telephone tax wants to be introduced though... 2Ft/minute/SMS to plus, great. The carries protest against this already at least. It would not have been necessary to grant it the 2/3-os majority for the present fraction, only wrong derived from him.
There maybe a little wasistdas in many, that this why needed i to post here now it on XDA. I would have liked calling attention to in a how good situation in the other European countries. Many of my friends said, thatabroad (England, Germany, among other things) howmany people complain about their carrier. It should be appreciated just though, that compared to the payments onto how much nothing a subscription or a new phone.
(Sorry for my english, i never learned)
Sent from my ZTE Blade with Ice Armor 2 using XDA App

doncortio said:
The Hungarian Situation
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This sound like the name of either a spy movie... or a porn movie.

U.S. carriers aren't perfect, Euro carriers aren't perfect, but sounds like most of us have it a lot better than Hungary. Talk about getting reamed.

Right, although I did not claim it, that anywhere perfect. Here even the service interesting... not the customer has truth always? I took it once into T-Mobile service my Xperia X8 inside three days with pixel mistakes, but the customer wanted to shake me down it whit "that not disturbing..."
Sent from my ZTE Blade with Ice Armor 2 using XDA App

I thought we were boycotting Motorola.

Did no one watch XDA developer TV last week. We are suppose to send Motorola a message by not buying or developing for their products so they start playing by the community way. Releasing source code, updating devices that they promised to update, etc. Just saying if we are going to work as a community we should all follow the advice of others that are recommending a complete boycott of said devices. What do you think?

INTEL INSIDE. X86. Will buy this device when devs start to release roms. And motorola is changed i think, they relased sources. INTEL, you can unlock bootloader,INTEL, and they use intel processors INSIDE! lol
Trolling mode off: Tell me, why i have to boycot motorola? Best materials, best signal strenght, best radio, best SoC. They relased sources, the opened a site wich in you can unlock the bootloader. Please explain.
(sorry for my terrible english)

vvveith said:
Did no one watch XDA developer TV last week. We are suppose to send Motorola a message by not buying or developing for their products so they start playing by the community way. Releasing source code, updating devices that they promised to update, etc. Just saying if we are going to work as a community we should all follow the advice of others that are recommending a complete boycott of said devices. What do you think?
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Motorola gave 5 free RAZR M Developer editions to US power-users (including myself and P3Droid).
Motorola has always released their source code for kernels... more timely than some but still could use some upload checkers hehe.
I got jellybean leaks for the RAZR M and RAZR HD.. and hopefully soon for RAZR i.
My bootloader is unlocked...
Boycotting this doesn't make sense. The old Motorola yes. Verizon yes. The new Motorola? Not so much. Every device released since they announced their unlock program has an option to be unlocked, and for Verizon they had to make a separate Developer Edition since they are the bad guys here. If anyone should be boycotted its Verizon for requiring locked bootloaders for retail devices and killing unlimited data.
Cheers

You can boycott them if you want, but I'll continue to buy Motorola devices. They rival HTC in build quality, and the radios can't be matched. Plus, they actually make form factors that I want. Motorola was the only one to make a portrait QWERTY with decent specs (and they were the first at all, as far as I can remember). That gave me 2 more years before I had to make the switch to a stupid slab. Now, they're the only ones making a small device with high end specs. Samsung's attempt at that, announced on Thursday, is a joke.

If all on xda boycotted Motorola I doubt they would notice? Anyway, no use cutting your nose off to spite your face. I certainly agree that their radios are by far better than their competitors. Now under the wing of Google I'm hoping they have changed. Time will tell!
Sent from my XT890 using xda premium

I watched this video.
paul89rulez said:
INTEL INSIDE. X86. Will buy this device when devs start to release roms. And motorola is changed i think, they relased sources. INTEL, you can unlock bootloader,INTEL, and they use intel processors INSIDE! lol
Trolling mode off: Tell me, why i have to boycot motorola? Best materials, best signal strenght, best radio, best SoC. They relased sources, the opened a site wich in you can unlock the bootloader. Please explain.
(sorry for my terrible english)
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I watched this video and always figured that the host was more informed of behind the scene information then I was. So now am I to believe that what he says is not based on fact? Does anyone censor these video hosts to make sure what they say is actually based in reality? I always turn to the community here to decide if I should invest in a certain product or app. I read countless user reviews and listen to XDA developer TV to make a final buying decision. I think that people that are more in the public eye as representatives of the community should be accountable for the information the are allowed to share. I guess this host just has a lot of hot air based in fantasy? That's all I was commenting about, He must be very misinformed. Sad really. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7HrYgO6uP4&feature=relmfu

vvveith said:
I watched this video and always figured that the host was more informed of behind the scene information then I was. So now am I to believe that what he says is not based on fact? Does anyone censor these video hosts to make sure what they say is actually based in reality? I always turn to the community here to decide if I should invest in a certain product or app. I read countless user reviews and listen to XDA developer TV to make a final buying decision. I think that people that are more in the public eye as representatives of the community should be accountable for the information the are allowed to share. I guess this host just has a lot of hot air based in fantasy? That's all I was commenting about, He must be very misinformed. Sad really. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7HrYgO6uP4&feature=relmfu
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All the information he gave is public, so he's not any more informed than any of the rest of us. He's only more informed than those who don't follow tech news, and those people don't care and weren't going to boycott anyway. Also, all his information is not completely accurate. The $100 rebate is not only for Verizon customers. The list includes several phones that are not Verizon phones. You can verify that for yourself here.
Ultimately, though, he's not misinformed. Motorola did lock bootloaders, they did push updates to an even later date, and they did cancel the updates for a few phones. He just has a different reaction to the information than I, and many others, do. He believes we should boycott Motorola to get them to change. As somebody who has an avenue to get their opinion out there, of course he's going to put his opinion out there. Personally, I think boycotting Verizon would be a better solution, because it's pretty clear that they are 90% of the problem. The new RAZR M/i and RAZR HD are only locked down on Verizon. In every other country they've been released in, they are unlockable. Motorola really doesn't care if you unlock your bootloader or not, because if you do, they don't have to warranty your phone. Verizon, though, for whatever reason, does seem to care.
The truth is, there will never be a widespread boycott of either Motorola or Verizon for this issue. For a boycott to be effective, you have to have a very large number of people upset about something. The number of people upset about locked bootloaders and a lack of updates is pretty low in the grand scheme of things. Most customers have no idea what a bootloader even is, and couldn't care less if they got an update or not. Then there's the fact that Verizon sells far more than just Motorola devices, so even if every Verizon customer that was pissed about the Motorola devices decided to boycott Verizon, it still wouldn't be a majority of those 100+ million customers.

Thank you, Very WELL said!!
freak4dell said:
All the information he gave is public, so he's not any more informed than any of the rest of us. He's only more informed than those who don't follow tech news, and those people don't care and weren't going to boycott anyway. Also, all his information is not completely accurate. The $100 rebate is not only for Verizon customers. The list includes several phones that are not Verizon phones. You can verify that for yourself here.
Ultimately, though, he's not misinformed. Motorola did lock bootloaders, they did push updates to an even later date, and they did cancel the updates for a few phones. He just has a different reaction to the information than I, and many others, do. He believes we should boycott Motorola to get them to change. As somebody who has an avenue to get their opinion out there, of course he's going to put his opinion out there. Personally, I think boycotting Verizon would be a better solution, because it's pretty clear that they are 90% of the problem. The new RAZR M/i and RAZR HD are only locked down on Verizon. In every other country they've been released in, they are unlockable. Motorola really doesn't care if you unlock your bootloader or not, because if you do, they don't have to warranty your phone. Verizon, though, for whatever reason, does seem to care.
The truth is, there will never be a widespread boycott of either Motorola or Verizon for this issue. For a boycott to be effective, you have to have a very large number of people upset about something. The number of people upset about locked bootloaders and a lack of updates is pretty low in the grand scheme of things. Most customers have no idea what a bootloader even is, and couldn't care less if they got an update or not. Then there's the fact that Verizon sells far more than just Motorola devices, so even if every Verizon customer that was pissed about the Motorola devices decided to boycott Verizon, it still wouldn't be a majority of those 100+ million customers.
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Now that's some information I can rap my head around. However, let me add one thing that Verizon does seem to care about besides money: They are one of the only service providers I have found that blocks text scam premium service providers. I recently received a text from some supposed event notifications service that I did not solicit. I of course paid no attention to it and deleted the text off my phone. When I was about to pay my bill I noticed an irregularity in the amount. $9.99 charged for a monthly membership fee. After notifying T Mobile of the fraud, they credited my account and told me if I wanted to block such services that I had to pay them $9.99 a month to have that feature. Or I could accept a block on all messages that come through their premium text services for free. I opted for the second and all of my important financial institutions were than blocked as well. After doing research on the web I found millions of cases of this same thing and the only provider not to have any complaints about it was Verizon! I was thinking of switching over to them when my term with T Mobile ends. But now that you have informed me of something else, I guess I'll stay away from them as well. Any other information that you can share would be very much appreciated. I know that we actually vote with our cash so even though it seems like one person is a small amount of revenue that won't be missed, when millions of us make the same decision I believe it does have an impact. Who knows? I guess I'll renew with T Mobile because it seems like no matter which service provider you choose, there always will be some shady business practices going on. Guess you have to choice the least of two evils, kind of like voting for a president. To bad XDA does not have a mobile provider of it's own with it's own devices as well. LOL

vvveith said:
Now that's some information I can rap my head around. However, let me add one thing that Verizon does seem to care about besides money: They are one of the only service providers I have found that blocks text scam premium service providers. I recently received a text from some supposed event notifications service that I did not solicit. I of course paid no attention to it and deleted the text off my phone. When I was about to pay my bill I noticed an irregularity in the amount. $9.99 charged for a monthly membership fee. After notifying T Mobile of the fraud, they credited my account and told me if I wanted to block such services that I had to pay them $9.99 a month to have that feature. Or I could accept a block on all messages that come through their premium text services for free. I opted for the second and all of my important financial institutions were than blocked as well. After doing research on the web I found millions of cases of this same thing and the only provider not to have any complaints about it was Verizon! I was thinking of switching over to them when my term with T Mobile ends. But now that you have informed me of something else, I guess I'll stay away from them as well. Any other information that you can share would be very much appreciated. I know that we actually vote with our cash so even though it seems like one person is a small amount of revenue that won't be missed, when millions of us make the same decision I believe it does have an impact. Who knows? I guess I'll renew with T Mobile because it seems like no matter which service provider you choose, there always will be some shady business practices going on. Guess you have to choice the least of two evils, kind of like voting for a president. To bad XDA does not have a mobile provider of it's own with it's own devices as well. LOL
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Hmm...I didn't know that about T-Mobile's service. I have that block on my account, too, since I got a fraudulent $9.99 charge a couple months ago. I don't really subscribe to texts from many places, but it sucks if I don't have the ability to.

I had them unblock me again!
freak4dell said:
Hmm...I didn't know that about T-Mobile's service. I have that block on my account, too, since I got a fraudulent $9.99 charge a couple months ago. I don't really subscribe to texts from many places, but it sucks if I don't have the ability to.
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I now receive text from my financial institutions and was given these procedures to follow if I receive anymore unwanted texts. Forward a copy of the offending text to 7726 immediately followed by a blank text to 4647. That will permanently block the text sender and also get them investigated for legitimacy. So I guess it's a slight pain in the ass but I need to receive important information from my bank or credit institutions anytime there is activity so I can verify that it is me making the activity happen and is approved.

The Ultimate reason to Why N3 Bootloader is locked

Read the article below.
Some might argue why T-Mobile and Sprint version N3 is unlocked that's because of their network coverage. If you do little research you will find that most of the giant firms use either Verizon or At&t for their employees. This now confirms how Saamy is forgetting about us and mostly putting their focus on giant firms. Give me your point and lets see where this goes.
TechnoBuffalo said:
Samsung already has a firm grip on the consumer smartphone market, but the enterprise sector is a completely different ballgame. So in an effort to put businesses at ease and gain a larger corporate following, the Korean company this year officially unveiled a new mobile security system called Knox. With so many Samsung devices available, the company certainly has the potential to make inroads at some big firms around the world—only, a new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests Knox has been full of bugs and delays, annoying some big clients.
One of Samsung’s clients, the U.S. Defense Department, has allegedly become frustrated by Samsung’s Knox system, leading to some internal strife among the Samsung brass; the company is supposedly hard at work bringing Knox back into 100 percent shape. With BlackBerry ailing—enterprise market share has reportedly fallen from 68 percent in 2010 to 5.4 percent today—Samsung certainly has an opportunity to fill that void. There’s still the stigma of Android to contend with, however, making Apple’s iOS a more appealing option.
According to WSJ, “many corporate tech administrators widely perceive its smartphones, which run on Google Inc.’s open-source Android operating system, as being more prone to viruses and easier to hack than Apple Inc.’s iOS and BlackBerry proprietary software.” Fixing that perception has become one of Samsung’s top priorities, WSJ added.
Knox essentially gives corporate tech admins complete control over their employees’ Samsung device or devices. Handsets can remotely be shut down, company data cordoned off, and alerts can be set if a device’s code has been tampered with—all excellent features for sensitive corporate data. But if those promised features aren’t working as advertised, especially for a customer such as the U.S. Defense Department, Samsung could lose its small portion of the enterprise market pretty quick.
One source admitted that Samsung isn’t a service business, which is why it’s experiencing so many issues. “Creating this new organization that specializes in selling software and services, that took us longer than expected,” the source said. Over the course of 2013, Samsung repeatedly assured potential clients Knox would be ready, and even come preloaded on the Galaxy S4. It didn’t wind up coming preloaded on a Samsung devices until the Note 3 hit a few months back.
Deployment thus far has been slow while Samsung works through the issues. But if those issues don’t get patched up, the company’s big enterprise push could fall flat. One BlackBerry exec said of Knox, “[It] can potentially pose threats to enterprises.” With the consumer market locked up, definitely not the start to enterprise life that Samsung would have wanted.
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http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/1...rogram-running-into-major-issues-says-report/

I would agree. Sounds right and does make sense!
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Does make sense until you wonder why other carriers have the bootloader unlocked. Unless those people saying the bootloader is unlocked they mean it has been unlocked by a hack.

Delakit said:
Does make sense until you wonder why other carriers have the bootloader unlocked.
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85% of the Fortune 1K in the U.S. are on VZW and AT&T.

Im nkt sure this really explains why AT&T's bootloader is locked. This article discusses the issues with Knox, something that is present in the VZW Note 3 but missing from the ATT version. If the bootloader is locked due to trying to attract enterprise business then why would Knox (the container application) be missing from our version of the phone? Even if Knox is being wonky it still should have been included if they were going after the enterprise market.
AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note 3 stock rooted with changes by Wanam
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 GT-N8013 rooted w/Hyperdrive RLS6

This…..
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 05:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:44 PM ----------
BarryH_GEG said:
85% of the Fortune 1K in the U.S. are on VZW and AT&T.
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HappyPessimist said:
Im nkt sure this really explains why AT&T's bootloader is locked. This article discusses the issues with Knox, something that is present in the VZW Note 3 but missing from the ATT version. If the bootloader is locked due to trying to attract enterprise business then why would Knox (the container application) be missing from our version of the phone? Even if Knox is being wonky it still should have been included if they were going after the enterprise market.
AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note 3 stock rooted with changes by Wanam
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 GT-N8013 rooted w/Hyperdrive RLS6
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This and this....
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

HappyPessimist said:
Im nkt sure this really explains why AT&T's bootloader is locked. This article discusses the issues with Knox, something that is present in the VZW Note 3 but missing from the ATT version. If the bootloader is locked due to trying to attract enterprise business then why would Knox (the container application) be missing from our version of the phone? Even if Knox is being wonky it still should have been included if they were going after the enterprise market.
AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note 3 stock rooted with changes by Wanam
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 GT-N8013 rooted w/Hyperdrive RLS6
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Not sure where you got your ATT N3 from, but mine has KNOX and it is a 900A like the others here. You can even look at running apps and see KNOX listed. you can also go into the upload menu and see the KNOX status.

It depends on Sammy's customer base spread. If the majority are suits, Sammy loses very little by losing the nerd market. But if the majority are teen-agers texting their BFF, Sammy is going to see that a little bad press in the Blogosphere goes a LONG way. The under-21 set will believe a blog stating that the Martians have landed faster than they'll believe the WSJ that the big yellow ball in the sky is the sun.
We'll just have to wait and see, but if Sammy keeps welding these things shut, a lot of ROM builders are going to be building non-Sammy ROMs. And a lot of people will put up with the Sprint dead spots rather than be treated like numbers by Big Red.
Since my crystal ball battery is dead, all I can do is make wild guesses.

Solarenemy68 said:
Not sure where you got your ATT N3 from, but mine has KNOX and it is a 900A like the others here. You can even look at running apps and see KNOX listed. you can also go into the upload menu and see the KNOX status.
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I'm talking abiut the Knox container. The other variants of the Note 3 had a Knox app of sorts that acts as a container for more sensitive information. See this thread-
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2470278&page=8
AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note 3 stock rooted with changes by Wanam
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 GT-N8013 rooted w/Hyperdrive RLS6

Can't quote the guy above for some reason but I don't see KNOX running anywhere on my phone.

HappyPessimist said:
I'm talking abiut the Knox container. The other variants of the Note 3 had a Knox app of sorts that acts as a container for more sensitive information. See this thread-
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2470278&page=8
AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note 3 stock rooted with changes by Wanam
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 GT-N8013 rooted w/Hyperdrive RLS6
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KNOX container most certainly works on 900A.

Quick question for everyone here...
Do you think that filing complaints with government agencies over the locked bootloader issue might be an effective route for seeking change? Consider that when complaints were filed against them for blocking FaceTime on their network, the groups that filed those complaints did achieve a limited measure of success.
I would envision that the complaint could look as follows:
1. Denying users root access to their own phones and locking the phone's bootloader prevents access to all features of some software packages. (e.g. Titanium Backup)
2. Some of the packages that AT&T effectively blocks through these policies (i.e. Titanium Backup) compete with software they offer. (e.g. AT&T Locker)
3. Ergo, AT&T seeks to obtain an unfair competitive advantage over other applications through its behavior.
I also wonder if it would be possible to argue that AT&T is knowingly selling defective phones through its policy of locking the bootloader. I'm sure we can all point out many bugs in the stock firmware which have been addressed by custom ROMs. An argument could be made that AT&T's action of preventing custom ROMs from being installed is forcing its customers to use materially defective equipment - it's just a question of whether or not an agency could be convinced of this amidst AT&T's "greasing of the palms" to quiet complaints against them.

now i'm clearly understand

Unless the private key slips, or if people don't care about warranty (in about 10 months ) the bootloader won't be unlocked.
Personally, I think this allows for more inventive solutions to processes which have become so routine we expect them to work on every phone. RDLV for example. The Kn0x0ut script. My MJ5 Recovery methods -- all include unique techniques to catch up to the level of security ATT/Samsung has surprised us with.
This process, of course, is cyclical. Both sides have an opportunity to gain here and I welcome it!

evilpotatoman said:
Unless the private key slips
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If I only worked for Samsung in a capacity to help...
evilpotatoman said:
or if people don't care about warranty (in about 10 months )
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Hopefully we don't have to wait that long for it... I'm almost ready to purchase a Note 3 from TMO just to have an unlocked bootloader. If I could get a new one locally for around $500 this weekend I probably would. (Just got the Note 3 this week so I'm still within my 14 day return period with ATT.)
evilpotatoman said:
Personally, I think this allows for more inventive solutions to processes which have become so routine we expect them to work on every phone. RDLV for example. The Kn0x0ut script. My MJ5 Recovery methods -- all include unique techniques to catch up to the level of security ATT/Samsung has surprised us with.
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Click to collapse
I'm glad you and others enjoy the challenge presented by AT&T's greed, and am thankful for each of you and the hours you spend trying to figure out how to remove or bypass the artificially created limitations and restrictions on our devices.
In my opinion, limitations like locked bootloaders are material defects, and should be treated as such by government. Once one enters into a contract with the wireless provider, the phone is yours as long as you continue to abide by the terms of the contract (on time payments, staying within acceptable use policies). As such, one should be free and clear to modify the phone in any way - as long as expectations of service and support are diminished appropriately for "non standard configurations". No carrier should be allowed to lock bootloaders or otherwise take measures to prevent users from rooting their devices.

rooted_1 said:
Quick question for everyone here...
Do you think that filing complaints with government agencies over the locked bootloader issue might be an effective route for seeking change? Consider that when complaints were filed against them for blocking FaceTime on their network, the groups that filed those complaints did achieve a limited measure of success.
I would envision that the complaint could look as follows:
1. Denying users root access to their own phones and locking the phone's bootloader prevents access to all features of some software packages. (e.g. Titanium Backup)
2. Some of the packages that AT&T effectively blocks through these policies (i.e. Titanium Backup) compete with software they offer. (e.g. AT&T Locker)
3. Ergo, AT&T seeks to obtain an unfair competitive advantage over other applications through its behavior.
I also wonder if it would be possible to argue that AT&T is knowingly selling defective phones through its policy of locking the bootloader. I'm sure we can all point out many bugs in the stock firmware which have been addressed by custom ROMs. An argument could be made that AT&T's action of preventing custom ROMs from being installed is forcing its customers to use materially defective equipment - it's just a question of whether or not an agency could be convinced of this amidst AT&T's "greasing of the palms" to quiet complaints against them.
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Click to collapse
Hmmm...
That actualy sounds like legit reasons!
Does AT&T sell the developer edition like Verizon?
I so want to come back to AT&T but had to jump ship to VZE because they had SafeStrap. How much I hate Verizon! They used to have best signal in town. Now its no better than Sprint.
Anyways back on topic. That seems like reasonable pitch. Where do we / you file that complaint? FCC? FTC?

Why not offer a corporate version? If you want to use it at work, you never have the corporate locked bootloader.
They could even make it a ROM update accessible by corporate accounts.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using xda app-developers app

designgears said:
KNOX container most certainly works on 900A.
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I'm sure it works on the 900A, but I think he meant it's not on there by default for the 900A AT&T variant. Do you have an apk for it?

scrosler said:
Hmmm...
That actualy sounds like legit reasons!
Anyways back on topic. That seems like reasonable pitch. Where do we / you file that complaint? FCC? FTC?
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Click to collapse
I filed a complaint with the FCC the other week using the precise argument I suggested above. Of course, I've yet to hear anything from them. If it's anything like the net neutrality complaints I filed against AT&T years ago, the FCC will forward the comment along to AT&T and the company will provide a written response back to both me and the agency in a couple months.
I'm also wondering if there would be any sort of way to get the FTC involved in this as well, by making an argument that AT&T is knowingly selling defective devices, refusing to fix the defects in a timely manner (by releasing new versions of Android, quicker), and preventing users from fixing the defects on their own (by locking the bootloader). I'm sure that there's a plethora of issues with 4.3 and TouchWiz and Knox that could be pointed out... the least of which would be the constantly-nagging security error notification that shows up every time one uses WiFi on a stock phone.
I'm generally not a big fan of big government, but this is one exception. The more government agencies we can legitimately engage with valid points, the more effort that AT&T has to put into defending its decision to only market phones with locked bootloaders. If enough agencies get involved from enough angles with reasonable and logical arguments, there *may* come a time at which AT&T decides that it's not worth the effort. They obviously feel that some economic benefit come from their decision. The trick is to create the perception that the economic benefit they gain from locked bootloaders is outweighed by the ill will and cost of participation in government inquiries they bear. There's only a slim chance that this will work, but I'm willing to take a few minutes to file complaints and let the wheels of our government agencies churn. After all, isn't that what they're there for?

rooted_1 said:
I filed a complaint with the FCC the other week using the precise argument I suggested above. Of course, I've yet to hear anything from them. If it's anything like the net neutrality complaints I filed against AT&T years ago, the FCC will forward the comment along to AT&T and the company will provide a written response back to both me and the agency in a couple months.
I'm also wondering if there would be any sort of way to get the FTC involved in this as well, by making an argument that AT&T is knowingly selling defective devices, refusing to fix the defects in a timely manner (by releasing new versions of Android, quicker), and preventing users from fixing the defects on their own (by locking the bootloader). I'm sure that there's a plethora of issues with 4.3 and TouchWiz and Knox that could be pointed out... the least of which would be the constantly-nagging security error notification that shows up every time one uses WiFi on a stock phone.
I'm generally not a big fan of big government, but this is one exception. The more government agencies we can legitimately engage with valid points, the more effort that AT&T has to put into defending its decision to only market phones with locked bootloaders. If enough agencies get involved from enough angles with reasonable and logical arguments, there *may* come a time at which AT&T decides that it's not worth the effort. They obviously feel that some economic benefit come from their decision. The trick is to create the perception that the economic benefit they gain from locked bootloaders is outweighed by the ill will and cost of participation in government inquiries they bear. There's only a slim chance that this will work, but I'm willing to take a few minutes to file complaints and let the wheels of our government agencies churn. After all, isn't that what they're there for?
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Thank you for doing this..
I feel the only way we will ever be heard is to start a Samsung boycott petition. Even if those who sign the petition has no plans to truly boycott Samsung, the negative publicity and the potential for consumers to boycott them would be a huge risk in Samsung eyes. Imagine if we had 10k users signed the boycott petition because of the bloatware & locked bootloader. Samsung could care less about the 10k consumers but the word of mouth from those consumer could equal millions. Samsung might not officially release an unlock bootloader but might allow leaks to occur to keep us quiet. If one website picked up the story about Samsung boycott petition, Samsung would do everything in their power to correct or fix the problem. Due to carrier restrictions and request they would have to come up with clever ways or do what htc does and allow you to unlock your phone on their site with a code.

UK investigatory powers bill - Google security updates/patches

In light of the new Investigatory powers act 2016 that has come into effect in UK, the new legislation stipulates that any telecommunications operator or electronic communication device manufacturer/software programme, has to include a backdoor access to allow decryption for probing and ''equipment inteference' by the relevant governing bodies.
This applies to all communication/device manufacturers/software that is currently sold in the UK.
The legislation also requires that any further software updates or new communication equipment be made available to certain governing bodies before the sale of software/devices, to allow a review and insertion of backdoor access, whether physically or via software programming.
Is anybody familiar with how this will apply to Google/android and the regular security updates that are provided to these devices? Will google promptly follow the requirements for this legislation, which would mean, the next security update will include this backdoor access?
This raises major concerns for the security and privacy for all google/android based handsets that are sold within the UK, as over 50 government organisations will be allowed to request probing and bypass of any encryption. What concerns me more so, is the misuse of this backdoor access by rogue hackers that unfortunately, may now be able to hack devices more easily with this backdoor access enforced by this new legislation.
As far as I am aware, other manufacturer software updates for their handsets are never as rapid as googles own devices to receive these updates, and I am thinking, does this mean the implementation of this backdoor access will be likely to be included in either December 2016 or January 2017?
Will google issue this backdoor access for only handsets connected in the UK or will it be a worldwide update?
If anybody has any relevant information to elucidate me on this, it would be greatly appreciated, as unfortunately, the new legislation also includes a gagging clause, which prohibits any manufacturer or software programme/oS, from revealing if/when a backdoor access has been initialized.

Wow. If this is true, and I were Google, Apple etc. I would not adhere to this local legislation. How hard is it for the local authorities to prove they need the info on a device in order to get a court order to get access to said device? Sounds to me like they just want an excuse to probe any and all devices regardless of their need for the info on them.
Edit: I just looked it up, it doesn't seem to state anything about manufacturers having to allow a back door. It states that the government has the authority to hack, look for and retain personal information. So in short, no. Google will not allow this. The UK will have to learn to hack their way in just like anyone else.
Also, Canada has basically been doing this for quite some time.. maybe not to the extent the UK wants to..

k.s.deviate said:
Wow. If this is true, and I were Google, Apple etc. I would not adhere to this local legislation. How hard is it for the local authorities to prove they need the info on a device in order to get a court order to get access to said device? Sounds to me like they just want an excuse to probe any and all devices regardless of their need for the info on them.
Edit: I just looked it up, it doesn't seem to state anything about manufacturers having to allow a back door. It states that the government has the authority to hack, look for and retain personal information. So in short, no. Google will not allow this. The UK will have to learn to hack their way in just like anyone else.
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For reference, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/30/investigatory_powers_act_backdoors/
I have a copy of the new leglislation, but it is a 300+ page document. It is quite frightening.
You can view it online, it specifically states about ''backdoor access''.
If anyone has ANY information on how this will effect android security and when google will implement this, please share

newsbtc.com/2016/12/11/investigatory-powers-act-decentralized-internet/
:/
So I'm assuming this will either effect the pixel/nexus updates, or the next pixel successor, or even both

This legislation has come into effect from today.
Google, as well as practically all telecoms manufacturers and telecoms service providers are affected.
Cannot really trust the security offered from updates from now on unfortunately.

Good luck enforcing something like this when there is no way to ensure a encryption system with a back door is actually secure.
What is the UK going to do when Google and other software companies say no. Have them stop providing their goods to the UK? Maybe there will be no pixel updates or new phones for the UK market?
How are banks and other financial institutions which risk substantial loss because of an insecure encryption system going to react? No more online banking or financial transactions?

krelvinaz said:
Good luck enforcing something like this when there is no way to ensure a encryption system with a back door is actually secure.
What is the UK going to do when Google and other software companies say no. Have them stop providing their goods to the UK? Maybe there will be no pixel updates or new phones for the UK market?
How are banks and other financial institutions which risk substantial loss because of an insecure encryption system going to react? No more online banking or financial transactions?
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It seems like the legislation stipulates and enforces any telecommunications provider/manufacturer to provide a accessible route into devices for something classified as "equipment interference", which in layman terms, is basically legalised hacking.
If a notice is served to the provider/manufacturer, they must comply otherwise it is unlawful. The legislation also stipulates that it is unlawful to declare that a notice has been served, which in essence means that we will never know or have any knowledge of this occurring.
Quite a sinister draconian piece of legislation if you ask me.

I have a hard time believing Google or Apple will just hand them the keys . Apple wouldn't even let American government access. Amazon won't give cops access to a murder they think was recorded on a Amazon echo

FYI the US government is on the same path. We should all be concerned and demand that elected officials work to reverse these trends.

Besides the privacy issue I personally don't have anything I'm worried about. Don't get me wrong, the privacy part of it is major as I value it more than 90% of life so I'm not saying "who cares". I'm also not in Europe so I'm really not worried. That is until the US goes public with it. That being said, unless there is a hardware backdoor implemented, it won't last long. If it's coded in software it'll be found and removed. So unless it's software based and you stay stock unrooted, there's nothing to worry about.
It does kinda seem funny that after this comes around, updates have been pushed with a second European carrier fix update though.

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ackdoor-allows-snooping-on-encrypted-messages
"In the UK, the recently passed Investigatory Powers Act allows the government to intercept bulk data of users held by private companies, without suspicion of criminal activity, similar to the activity of the US National Security Agency uncovered by the Snowden revelations. The government also has the power to force companies to “maintain technical capabilities” that allow data collection through hacking and interception, and requires companies to remove “electronic protection” from data. Intentional or not, WhatsApp’s backdoor to the end-to-end encryption could be used in such a way to facilitate government interception.
Jim Killock, executive director of Open Rights Group, said: “If companies claim to offer end-to-end encryption, they should come clean if it is found to be compromised – whether through deliberately installed backdoors or security flaws. In the UK, the Investigatory Powers Act means that technical capability notices could be used to compel companies to introduce flaws – which could leave people’s data vulnerable.”

US Congress reportedly lobbied AT&T to dump Huawei smartphones

To back that up, Congress has proposed a bill that would bar any government agency from working with Huawei over spying concerns. It claims that, according to the CIA, NSA, FBI and other agencies, Huawei has shared sensitive information with China, and that Chinese security agencies can access private US business communications via Huawei tech.
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https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/16/us-congress-pressure-att/

I'm glad AT&T would be carrying them. Huawei is a **** company.

peneoark said:
I'm glad AT&T would be carrying them. Huawei is a **** company.
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Same here, I have one and have been happy with it but I don't care for the POS Chinese company one bit.