[Verizon Droid Charge] imnuts:
I've been busy and haven't had time to do much of anything, let alone stay up on Twitter/XDA and countless other things. If anyone doesn't know, I just moved the last weekend of June and worked 12 hour days most of the week after moving, so I got all my stuff moved, but had little time for unpacking, and then got stuck at work and then went to visit friends and family for the 4th of July. It's the reason I've been gone and doing next to nothing anywhere and have been MIA. My life revolves around more than XDA and my phone, despite the amount of time I spend here. That being said, here is my side of the story since everyone seems to be on a "blame imnuts" kick today. Just remember that when you read this, any time I spend on this whole problem and talking to people is time I'm not spending getting unpacked or working on something for our phones. So you can thank P3Droid, his followers, and everyone playing the blame game for delaying me by several hours today and over the last week as I tried to deal with all of this.

A user (to be unamed) shared the initial 2.3.3 Charge leak with me. I had talked to P3Droid on Twitter prior to getting this link and attempted to help with getting things working, such as recovery, but the offer to help was never taken. Also, no where in any of my conversations with P3Droid was I ever asked if my recovery file could be used in any release. Wanting to see what it was, I tear it apart and start looking at the files. I notice that the date/time stamps are different for nearly everything, but don't think much of it at first. As I start looking at the files, I notice that the recovery.bin (recovery file) is not anywhere near the proper size given the size of the zImage that is included. I started to look into it more.

For anyone that doesn't know how Samsung phones (at least the generation that the Charge comes from) handle recovery, it is much different than other devices from what I've seen of the other devices. Samsung phones build recovery into the kernel. If you take recovery.bin, you can flash it to the kernel partition, and it will function properly as the kernel. So, when the recovery.bin is copied from someone, you are not only taking recovery, but also the kernel that the recovery was built off of as well.

Now after seeing that the recovery.bin file was way out of wack based on the kernel that was included with the leak, I started playing with the files, and came back to the recovery later. I looked at the date, and realized that the time stamp on the recovery.bin file was about the same time that I released what was the "final" recovery for the Charge on XDA. Thinking this, I re-downloaded the file that I linked to on XDA, and sure enough, the time stamp matched, so I decided to check the file sizes, and the file size was the same down to the very last byte. This seemed to coincedental to me, so I then downloaded the other leak (I only had the full bloated one until now) and the recovery was the same there.

So, the next step was to take the recovery files from both "leaks" that P3Droid released ("stock" and debloated) and see if the MD5 checksum for the recovery.bin file matched the recovery that I released. So, I downloaded all 3 (two from P3Droid and my CWM recovery file) files again and extracted them. I didn't have to, but I wanted to start fresh and make sure it wasn't just a fluke. After extracting, I got the MD5 checksum and SHA1 checksum for the recovery.bin file from each download and compared them, and they were all the same. This just confirmed that the recovery.bin in the "leaks" was not the stock recovery and it was indeed mine. If you'll remember, I was never asked if my recovery file could be used, nor was I ever offered early access to the leak from P3Droid as I had to get it from someone else. Here are the checksums for anyone that wants to see them:

SHA1 Checksum

# MD5 checksums generated by MD5summer (http://www.md5summer.org)
# Generated 6/30/2011 9:04:38 PM

d3b3e00ffb0f7f0d60b8ee7e0743553573e0bce2 *CI510_VZW_EG2_ALL_ONE-LTE-CP_REV03_user_CL199635-Debloated.tar/CI510_VZW_EG2_ALL_ONE-LTE-CP_REV03_user_CL199635.tar/recovery.bin
d3b3e00ffb0f7f0d60b8ee7e0743553573e0bce2 *CI510_VZW_EG2_ALL_ONE-LTE-CP_REV03_user_CL199635.tar.md5/CI510_VZW_EG2_ALL_ONE-LTE-CP_REV03_user_CL199635.tar/recovery.bin
d3b3e00ffb0f7f0d60b8ee7e0743553573e0bce2 *New_CWM_Recovery.tar/recovery.bin
MD5 Checksum

# MD5 checksums generated by MD5summer (http://www.md5summer.org)
# Generated 6/30/2011 9:04:38 PM

440e7b296fad2850c9f7dc88d93a67a7 *CI510_VZW_EG2_ALL_ONE-LTE-CP_REV03_user_CL199635-Debloated.tar/CI510_VZW_EG2_ALL_ONE-LTE-CP_REV03_user_CL199635.tar/recovery.bin
440e7b296fad2850c9f7dc88d93a67a7 *CI510_VZW_EG2_ALL_ONE-LTE-CP_REV03_user_CL199635.tar.md5/CI510_VZW_EG2_ALL_ONE-LTE-CP_REV03_user_CL199635.tar/recovery.bin
440e7b296fad2850c9f7dc88d93a67a7 *New_CWM_Recovery.tar/recovery.bin

Where the issue comes in is what happens next. Seeing as it was my work that was being used, I attempted to contact P3Droid via XDA to find that he doesn't have an account there (who isn't a member of XDA?), so I had to contact him via Twitter. I tried to do so, but after a few hours, I got no response and saw that P3Droid had responded to other users. I then find that I'm no longer following P3Droid (I was before) and I couldn't re-follow him, so I guess I'm now blocked and there goes my one means of communication. I decided to join MyDroidWorld forums and post in his thread there, which now had the leak as public since r2doesinc released it publicly. I posted in the thread requesting that my recovery.bin file be removed from his leak only to have my post removed within the next 10-15 minutes and get a harassing PM from a moderator there.

After two attempts to contact P3Droid, I was left with one option, contact any hosting providers for his files that he had and get them removed until my work was removed. I looked up where the files where being hosted and contacted the providers of each domain that had leak on it. Needless to say, they apparently care about stealing other people's work more than P3Droid seems to, as I received responses almost immediately from all requests, and the people I talked to were all friendly. As far as I know, all files that P3Droid was hosting were now removed as of yesterday or this morning.

Where I have issues with what occured. First, I was never asked permission for my file to be used. This bothers me to no end. A simple message of "Can I use x in y?" takes 20 seconds to type and send, and odds are, it will get a quick response of "yes" from most people. Until now, I have never said that anyone can't use my work in something they are doing, but until now, people had always asked before using it and linked back to my work when using my work when they release it. Next problem is that for any user to download the leak, they had to pay $2 for an application so they had access to it. I have not received anything from this $2 that was required to be paid for early access, nor did I receive the app or a pre-release download from P3Droid or anyone at TeamBlackHat, despite him/them using my work. Now you're going to say "but that $2 gets you more than just leaks, and it's only pre-release access, you could have downloaded it later for free", and my response is this. How many people went and bought the app just so they could get the leak? My guess is that several users went and bought the app just for this leak, so in essense, they paid $2 for the leak as they had no other method to download it initially. The third problem here is that I attempted to contact P3Droid and was ignored. Not only was I ignored, but I was blocked as well. Needless to say, that tells me that the person knows they are doing something wrong and don't care. In my attempt to contact him via MyDroidWorld, I wasn't even given a chance to get a response as my post was up for less than an hour. All of this is compounded by the fact that P3Droid made a huge deal out of r2doesinc taking the leak and releasing it publicly before the 48 hour "pre-release window" was past. Steal someone's work, and then go complain when someone steals it right back? Pot, meet kettle; kettle, meet pot.

Now everyone's next argument is going to be, but this is all opensource and people can do what they want with it. Yes it is, but I have provided all of my source that I used on Github (https://github.com/imnuts) and I encourage anyone to download it and build it for themselves. I'll even help you if you have questions and I have time. I have helped quite a few users download my kernel source and build it, as well as teaching some people git so they could do more than just clone and compile. The thing is, that is the source. Had P3Droid taken my source and compiled his own recovery, I would have never known, nor would I have cared. At least he was taking the source and doing at least some of the work himself. My issue is that he took my compiled binary file. I feel safe in saying that I am well within my rights to "protect" any of my compiled binary files, and can request they be removed from anywhere they are hosted without my permission. If not, I'll request it anyway as you're being very rude if you can't take the 2 minutes to send me a message, which I usually respond to within an hour or two. Not only that, but the file that is being distributed is both a kernel and recovery together, and I was not given much of any credit in the leak post, just a passing mention of "this is where the source is". Then there is the $2 fee if you will for the download. While it's for the app, the app was the only method to access the file when my initial complaints were filed, so it is a $2 fee for the file, and I saw none of that profit or income.

Maybe this has given you my side of the story. I have seen several people complaining to me, but if this happened to anyone else, I'd expect them to take the same actions as I have to protect their work. Usually though, the person that is copying is more responsive than what I had though, and things can be worked out in a civil fashion. I was more than willing to work it out, but was ignored and blocked from working it out. Maybe you still have issue with what I did, maybe you don't. I never submitted any formal paperwork or filed any lawsuits to have anything removed, nor did I request that an entire site be taken offline. I only ever wanted the files containing my work taken down, and the actions taken by the hosting providers I contacted are outside of my control. I'd be willing to talk with anyone wanting more information, but I'm honestly tired of this right now. I have much more important things to worry about and work on. If you do want clarification, you need to post it here. If you ask for clarification via PM or any non-public form, I'm just going to delete it and ignore you. Sorry, but all of this needs to be public and I'm not going to keep editing this post as new stuff comes up. Hope you enjoyed the book.