[Captivate General] ytt3r:
This is VERY important information, please read all of it.

LOL I can see I made a mistake by posting this. There's just a bunch of arguing going on and most of you have seemed to disprove s lot of this. I was just relaying the information, maybe I'm too gullible to be here :p Either way, the information is relevant, but not confirmed by me or anyone, really besides P3droid. I see no reason why he would claim to have this information but just be making stuff up, but who knows. *shrug*

I'm assuming that most of you have seen it by now, but either way, I just felt there was a need to try to get the word out to everyone who might use a custom ROM. Some very disturbing information was brought to light recently by a respected member of the Verizon Droid and Droid X hacking community, known as P3droid. He is a member of Team Black Hat, similar to any development team here. He has made a lot of very important connections as a developer, some within the respective carriers. The information I'm going to share with you mostly pertains to Verizon, but P3droid *specifically* mentions that the implementation is cross-carrier.

My understanding of what's up:

The carriers have been working on an application that runs behind the scenes. The idea behind it is to track what happens on the phone and report back. It can detect unauthorized tethering, root, and custom ROMs. It works by periodically scanning your system partition for modifications, checking to see if your phone's MEID refuses OTA updates, and other unknown methods.

Can't we just remove it?

Sure, but your phone will be flagged by AT&T because the application isn't reporting back. They literally take your phone off of the network and force you to pay the ETF (early termination fee). [brought in to question by the people here, sounds implausible]

What can we do?

Stop tethering for now, I would officially consider it unsafe if you don't want to pay the ETF (maybe) or possibly have your phone flagged by AT&T.

If you want to be on the safe side, revert stock. However, as stated later, this will be very difficult to implement on a GSM network. As of right now, we should be OK, but as I said, better safe than sorry.

If any of your friends have unmodified Captivates, preferably with 2.2 (reverting stock doesn't count), get me a system dump, so I can see if the application in question is there. Directions: Make sure you have the android SDK installed on your computer, you can find it at developer.android.com. Once you have it set up and working, type (for Mac and Linux)

$ mkdir -p ~/Desktop/app
$ adb pull /system/app ~/Desktop/app

and for Windows,

cd Desktop
mkdir app
adb pull /system/app "C:\Documents and Settings\[yourusername]\Desktop\app"

Just remember, the Android root community is much bigger than we think. We have some real power. We just need to pull ourselves together and exert it.

What this means for us:

No more root

No more tethering

No more warranty-AT&T will flag your device as bad

Possibly no more connectivity

No more... anything

It is unknown which phones currently have the application preloaded, however it is known that several phones on Verizon have it installed.

Kaik541, a trusted acquaintance of mine pointed out that this would be difficult, if not impossible to implement on a GSM network. It is a very valid point, however I still think that the best plan of action is to proceed with caution.

A quick dialog between P3droid and me:

And finally, hit up the source link for more infos.

http://androidheadlines.com/2011/04/will-rooting-your-android-phone-come-to-an-end.html

and

http://www.mydroidworld.com/forums/...otloaders-rooting-manufacturers-carriers.html

For up to date info, follow P3droid on twitter: http://twitter.com/P3droid and me (but mostly P3droid) http://twitter.com/ytt3r.