yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] jova33:
Original thread got locked for "off topic" banter. Which I think was lame because it was in the General discussion forum and no one was really talking about any development going on anyways (except for the less informed thinking they could figure out a workaround)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] belovedson:
Whether you have lte in the places you use your phone doesn't stop the fact your intent was to troll. Whether you have lte in places you use it or whether the fact att lte is faster really doesn't mean squat.

When one data is capped at 5gb and two the data service from att is nowhere near reliable as verizon.

Att and it's users on the Web seem to compare the two companies as being even. In reality verizon owns att. When volte comes out verizon will take even bigger advantage of att.

Again I have both att and verizon and I can easily vouch for verizon as being the best service in America. Best in reliability as well.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] JaeKay:
On the (maybe not so) bright side, verizon blocked the HTC ONE's dev unlock procedure in less than 24 hours!

LOL. verizon -__-
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Metallice:
Yeah... That didn't last long at all... At least we got MDK for longer than 24 hours... Bad news for anyone looking to switch.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] RaptorMD:
You see that is logical, they should have locked phones for corporate, gov't, and other specific customers but leave them alone for the common user who wants to play. It should also be noted on your account and an agreement in the TOS, you brick it you buy another at full retail. This will certainly make it clear and binding.

I have certainly had my fair share of scary situations with phones, but the great XDA-Dev community has helped me learn a lot about fixing things on my own and sometimes that means you are up until 2-3am working on it and getting help :silly: but its fun.

What I would really like is a Developer Edition of the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series that has 32GB not this lame 16GB crap they are pushing. I would pay retail once a year for the phone I want and be happy.

---------- Post added at 01:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:51 PM ----------

Verizon will never move off CDMA technology, yes LTE is part of the GSM evolutionary path but Verizon strictly controls their spectrum regardless of the rules they signed off on the 700Mhz spectrum that made up the bulk of their LTE. They abuse the agreement and the FCC is toothless and could care less. If they did the last fine would not have been $1.25 million when it was found they violated the terms for blocking apps for over a year. That was anti-consumer and Obama didn't do anything.

---------- Post added at 01:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:54 PM ----------

Its funny, AT&T LTE is 5 times faster than Verizon's where I work, but their coverage at my home just SUCKED. Their map says 4G (HSDPA) but I could not get more than 1 Bar of Edge, yes 1 Bar of Edge. They told me to put in a microcell. I told them I already had a signal booster that supported their bands and it had an outdoor antenna so why should I spend more on crappy service.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] vzwnexus:
seriously?! wow, so much for wanting to jump ship. :mad:
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] RaptorMD:
Not so fast, CDMA 3G will be around for a long, long, long time. Do you think Verizon is ready to fully cut over to LTE, VoLTE anytime soon, they are not. It took them Billions of dollars and years to get LTE where it is and they have a lot of work to do still.

I asked about 3G since I have a 3G home connect box and they told me (talking to internal engineers not CSR) that 3G is not going anywhere anytime soon. They need something to fall back on just in case its a long expensive road. Don't expect Verizon phones to drop in price anytime soon no matter what they claim.

---------- Post added at 02:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:58 PM ----------

You are correct. AT&T is way behind on LTE rollout, yet their speeds are crazy fast compare to Verizon. I suspect Verizon is doing what the ISP's like Time Warner do with a neighborhood. Max it out until the speeds get so bad they HAVE to upgrade it, though the ISP's have you buy the balls and the wireless carriers have you by a contract for x amount of time.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] davehasninjas:
I know tentatively, Verizon has it's 2G and 3G CDMA networks scheduled for shutdown in 2021. But I mean, that's like 8 years from now.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
I don't agree but I don't really care either. I was on vzw for many years. Their network may be good but the way they treat their customers is not. I stand by what I have said twice now... For me att works just fine. I'm sitting on 3 bars of LTE as I type. I wasn't trolling or calling people a liar when not comprehending what was said. I was simply relaying my personal experience. I never suggested my experience would be the same for everyone. What you choose to misread into what I said is your problem not mine.

Etched in blood by a katana
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] eskomo:
I'm not sure why that guy was saying Verizon will not use cdma radios once LTE roll out is complete. It will be many years until they have every site on LTE. And still yet are you going to roam on LTE? Nope. As davehasninjas said 2021 is the schedule for 2g 3g to be turned off. Let's say for sake of argument its sooner. That's still at least 5-6 years away. Verizon doesn't have the available cash on hand to roll out VOLTE and LTE-AWS any time soon. Still 4-6 years away.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Mightycaptain:
Wow... So you've called the man a liar and a troll.

Both are bold accusations.

I respect your opinion.

I think for the most part he did to based on his responses.

I Personally disagree with those observations.

The guy had some options and he chose one. For him he was able too and he is happy with the result and he's sharing his experiences with that choice. I'm glad he could. Options are always great.

Me... I've got no options. It's Verizon where I'm 1% without signal versus 67% or more with any other carrier for any given day where I follow my normal routine. Go the next town over from mine and it is the opposite. Att is a better option. Verizon 4g throws a beat down on att in my town in terms of speed, and again next town over the script is flipped. And it'll be a different story for the next guy.

No question looking at a coverage map who has the best nationwide coverage. I'm not sure that was being challenged.

It is very easy to misinterpret the written word. Maybe that's what has happened here. I say let bygones be bygones throw each other some thanks for their experiences and opinions and all is good again.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Cruiserdude:
I wasn't saying that Verizon will be shutting down CDMA anytime soon, I was merely suggesting that if they get LTE up to snuff by this time next year, and have enabled VoLTE, CDMA may not be a required feature of future handsets. Last thing I read rumored at LTE-AWS coming by the end of this year, and our S4's would be the first phones to support it after a software update enables the feature (here's to hoping those radios will still work with MDK bootloaders if the rumor is true). They've had VoLTE working internally since the LG Revolution, they themselves said that hardware supports it. So that will literally be just a matter of flipping a switch once they think it's ready. Presumably, they'd limit this only to strong LTE areas, as one would imagine handing off a VOIP call on LTE to a basic CDMA connection would not go over too smoothly, aka not at all.

So both of these could be coming soon. Granted, both have been "coming soon" for quite some time. But if these features start to see a phased rollout sometime in the next year, truly open handsets may indeed be a possibility for Verizon's future.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
The time frame I've read for lte-aws is sometime in the next few months and indeed your s4 is the first to support it. You should be able to safely update the radios on an mdk device without having to take the full update. I created a signed radio flash for the gpe when our 4.3 update came out for people who were stuck on the leaked version. I suspect it could be done for you guys with the me7 radios. As for VoLTE I've heard they'll switch it on early next year. The handsets that support it for the first half of 2014 will have cdma as well. They're trying to figure out how to hand off from a VoLTE call to cdma because there is no fall back. Basically they have to drop the call and reconnect it on cdma. But by the second half of 2014 they should have VoLTE only phones. The battery life will be much improved. And with no cdma, it's possible you may be able to buy a gpe version that's unlocked, slap a sim in it, and be good to go. Wouldn't that be nice.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] datsteve:
Quick question: How does the ME7 update prevent users from flashing back to MDK?

I'm just curious.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] th3drow:
yes apparently it isn't possible to revert back.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
They asked why and how they prevent it. I know on the Motorola phones there's a partition that contains information on what the lowest version of each partition can be. Even on the snapdragon phones, there's a partition like this. My guess would be that something like that exists on the S4 but I haven't looked into it myself. If they have a similar mechanism, it gives them complete control over each partition on the phone. All it would take is disallowing the boot partition and it'd prevent you from downgrading.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Cruiserdude:
This phone uses signature verification at every step of the bootchain from hardware to zimage. Samsung simply blacklisted the signatures of each MDK bootloader, going at least as far back as sbl2 if not even earlier in the chain. There's a possibility of finding the lowest level where a change was made, and forcing a revert back to the MDK component, allowing the rest of the MDK bootchain to continue from there.

This would require a significant vulnerability, however, and they may indeed have changed everything, going as far as to trip a qFuse or something else at the hardware level. Whatever the case, this is assuredly a direction that has been or is being pursued, but obviously nothing has come to fruition yet.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] jova33:
Man.... Why is no one posting "bootloader unlocked!!"..... I check this site daily.

But I'm sure some able devs have passed on this device due to it being super locked.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] eskomo:
No I get how the manufacturer plays a role. But Samsung isn't the one pushing the lock down so hard. Its att and Verizon. I'm on a sprint phone and it's fine. Mf9 didn't kill anything. Samsung wants a certain level of security sure. But Verizon is the nine pushing this new level of lock down and Samsung has to abide because of contracts.

As for the LTE thing goes there are spots al through that route that have no LTE at all. I know that route very well. Your in Clarkston I just moved from Lake Orion and I have a house on Torch Lake so we spend a lot of time in Traverse. I wish there was LTE in some of those areas. Would make Netflix much nicer for my girl on the ride.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] jboogie555:
Don't forget this phone is a flagship. Selling 2 million in two months. Thats alot of heels clicking. "we could see Samsung well on its way to selling half of 100 million in less than 6 months at this pace" I don't think devs will give up that easy. I'm still optimistic.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] bajasur:
You are right that this is a flagship device. But there is still a problem that has been pointed out now several times.

If your not on mdk at this point then you can't loki unlock, which means yes more people are buying the S4 but they are not members of the root/unlock community. This means the root/unlock pool for this device is pretty much going to be what it is right now.

We really haven't seen any devs jump ship from this device besides scrosler.. But we also haven't seen that many new ones come over to this device either.

I hate to say it.. But I don't think there are nearly as many devs working on an unlock for this device as some think. I know personally that several have gotten over it and moved on.

All we can really hope for moving forward is that these oems continue to make dev edition devices.

Thank God [MENTION=4229979]djrbliss[/MENTION] gave us loki for those of us who bought this device right out the gates.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] jova33:
It sucks though. What happens when I crack my screen or something? I'd be more devastated that I'd have to get an S4 with ME7 than the fact I cracked my screen.

And if you buy the dev edition, you're paying double because you're still paying subsidized pricing even though you paid full price for your phone.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] th3drow:
It really only had a short period of time that it ran with the loki exploit working. So most anyone who bought it slightly after it came out are stuck, or anyone who decided to take the update. So with the entire verizon community, and At&t community both with bounties I would imagine something would come about.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Cruiserdude:
I'm not giving up hope, but things aren't looking good for the pure exploit method. Maybe we'll get lucky and get a leak like the S3. But I'm not too hopeful on that front either, if what people are saying is true about this phone in regards to security and enterprise/government sales. I don't see why having an unlocked bootloader that can be locked and encrypted on request (or just an "enterprise" edition instead of a dev edition) is a problem, but I do see that exploits or leaks that allow us to unlock/bypass it are a definite issue to such customers.

Still, hopefully something will come along soon. This is too great a phone to not be able to enjoy it as you wish. But for those of us on MDK, we just have to do our best to be careful enough and lucky enough to never need a replacement, or make a costly mistake when fixing a softbrick. Thanks to Dan, we basically have dev editions if we can just keep them that way. And we shouldn't worry too much about development or lack thereof, considering the majority of the Western world uses essentially the same hardware.

We have some really great devs here already, and hopefully they'll stick around. I know of a few who seem to be particularly adept at porting software made for other carriers, or the GT-I9505 itself, to our Verizon variant. As long as a few such devs exist, or someone is able to make a porting toolkit, we should always have a good selection. But still we'd benefit greatly from a true unlock of our own. I feel terrible for those that honestly didn't know that this was locked down before they purchased, or preferred this hardware and didn't expect that an unlock would take this long. Not to mention I hate the constant worry that I'll break my device or need a warranty replacement, and be up **** creek myself.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] jova33:
Now that..... is brilliant. Except for the otter box part. I used to be infantry, so when I bought my GNex, it went straight into an otter box, and it stayed in there for months. Then one day, I took it out, and I was like, whoa, I never knew this thing had a nice screen. I don't do screen protectors anymore either. I like the way the screen looks, and scratches will only hurt the resale value. I always keep my last phone in case my current phone breaks down, so I'm not really worried about resale.

But yeah, if I ever need a warranty replacement, I could sell the replacement and buy a dev edition. Just wish it came in white with 32GB.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Obsidian...:
Yup anytime you want a dev ed just sell the non dev. You kind of have to do it early on in the release or the price difference will be huge

Lol I can't deal with an otterbox either. I am using an Urban Armor Gear case though, after shattering the screen on my Note 2, and it's extremely protective without covering the screen. I'm sure they made one for the S4.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] joshm.1219:
Just saying it's very easy to pop-out that crap plastic screen-protector Otterbox builds into the Defender.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] th3drow:
Another way you can go that I've taken the liberty to try is looking on ebay and asking people to check their build numbers for mdk. If anyone is interested I found a few listing on ebay that are MDK, save 150+ over buying a dev edition, I might end up just doing that.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] jova33:
The way the otter box is shaped, if you have no screen protector, the otter box will scratch the phone. At least on my GNex.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] joshm.1219:
I never experienced that on my Gnex (I hated using a screen protector with that phone) but now I just put a tempered glass protector on.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] sppatel:
Has hashcode provided his initial assessment yet on whether he thinks this is impossible or possible? Or are we still waiting for him to investigate?

I've been following the thread for a while, but thought I may have missed something given peoples grim outlook and discussions on selling phones. I'm about to increase my bounty contribution.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Obsidian...:
I'll check in with him soon

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[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] sound-mind:
SELinux & integrity checks on kernel modules

SELinux is present but isn't in enforcing mode, it is in permissive mode. Security decisions are made but are not enforced. They may ship an update that puts it into enforcing mode and then it *may* become an issue but that depends on the quality of the SELinux policy. If the policy is solid it will make things more difficult.

I'm not intimately familiar with SS but it sounds like it requires custom modules, i.e. kexec. This seems to indicate that the kernels on those devices are not performing signature verification on kernel modules or are being exploited to remove the verification check.

The S4s are performing integrity checks on modules prior to load. Here are the kernel messages showing TIMA, in TrustZone, being consulted when I attempt to load a custom module:

<4>[ 430.050506] TIMA: lkmauth--launch the tzapp to check kernel module; module len is 91184
<4>[ 430.050537] TIMA: lkmauth -- hdr before kreq is : e3b01000
<4>[ 430.050567] TIMA: lkmauth--send cmd (lkmauth) cmdlen(304:320), rsplen(264:320) id 0x00050000, req (0xE358C000), rsp(0xE358C140), module_start_addr(0xE3B01000) module_len 91184
<3>[ 430.085357] TIMA: lkmauth--verification failed -1
<4>[ 430.085754] TIMA: MSG=lkm_modified; result (TIMA_RESULT=MSG=lkm_modified;)

Here are the kernel messages when I manually insmod a Samsung module:

<4>[ 1874.527130] TIMA: lkmauth--launch the tzapp to check kernel module; module len is 8640
<4>[ 1874.527160] TIMA: lkmauth -- hdr before kreq is : e3003000
<4>[ 1874.527221] TIMA: lkmauth--send cmd (lkmauth) cmdlen(304:320), rsplen(264:320) id 0x00050000, req (0xE358C000), rsp(0xE358C140), module_start_addr(0xE3003000) module_len 8640
<4>[ 1874.533142] TIMA: lkmauth--verification succeeded.

It goes further, if any of the integrity checks performed as part of secure boot fail, even stock modules won't be loaded. I've gotten an ME7 S4 into a state where I couldn't even root it because it refused to load Samsung's own exfat modules. I think I caused Knox to trip an efuse when I was poking it with a pointy stick ;) Knox told TIMA the phone was no longer stock and TIMA rejected everything as a result. Even Odin couldn't fix it. Not a good place to be in.

Based on this, if the SS/kexec approach is going to be taken I think the place one would start is with the lkmauth kernel symbol. That function is responsible for verifying the kernel module prior to load and will return 0 if verification succeeds. So one would modify the existing ME7 perf_swevent exploit, and instead of mucking with the credentials via commit_creds, muck with lkmauth instead.

Again, I'm not familiar with SS, and someone might have already headed down this path, but the approach above seems to address the first hurdle in getting kexec in-place.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
I'm not intimate with how SS works internally. AFAIK, the kexec stuff is used to load a new kernel in memory...rather than trying to flash a kernel, they simply replace it in memory. Strictly speaking, if you're going to create a rom with the stock kernel (at least initially) then kexec shouldn't be necessary. Of course, I don't know how SS itself gets loaded into memory. That's a question for more knowledgeable people than myself. I like your ideas, though. Hopefully that can help Hashcode if he decides it's possible to attempt SS for the VZW S4.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] sbollero:
My family has a place on Lake Charlevoix in Boyne City. There are definitely places the service drops to 3g or 1x on the way up. But in the past year the area finally got 4g coverage which was desperately needed.

Torch is beautiful but I'd take Charlevoix for an overall lake experience any day. Plus, it's always fun to cruise on Lake Michigan for an hour.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Obsidian...:
I've got Hashcode coming over here and he's going to work on it tonight.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2

---------- Post added at 09:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:54 PM ----------

Just so you know it's not bs. I know there are a lot of trolls and "shrills" lol out there

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[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] sokrboot:
LOL! [MENTION=430073]Obsidian[/MENTION] you are hilarious! Hey how do we know thats a legit pic? You could have photoshopped that. :mrgreen:

««I used to be a Serial Flasher...now I'm just a Cereal Flasher.»»
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Obsidian...:
You'll never know.... can't believe that guy called me a shill. It's ridiculous that people are dishonest to the point that I have to post a screen shot of a conversation with a friend. Obviously I'd never post one that breaks someone's privacy but still...Ridiculous non the less.

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[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] meowenf:
Thanks Obsidian! Don't worry about all the trolls thanks for your help!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] RaptorMD:
I would suspect that when VoLTE comes along a new update will have to be pushed out, of course the devs can take the necessary parts and put it into their ROM's but it may or may not be perfect.

I had the Revolution for like a day or two, returned it. Just didn't like the overall device and VoLTE was not coming anytime soon so why get something that future proof when it won't be a relevant device by the time it hits.

As for VoLTE taking over for CDMA, I don't see it happening in total. They do need a fall back plan while they build out the LTE-AWS, LTE and VoLTE to full ability. That takes time, cash, and more time.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] th3drow:
Hey really awesome to see progress of some sort being made, hope to hear good news and hope you collect your well deserved bounty.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] killajoe:
Thank you Obsidian!!:D
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] michaelg117:
Been gone, read through this and kinda confused. What's the progress?

Sent from Navi
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Obsidian...:
Funny you ask because I haven't seen or heard from any hardware guys this whole time. I'm getting Hashcode to get into it but only because he's that great of a guy. Myself and Hash both don't have S4s so hopefully some of the Sammy devs are looking into it. Do any of you know any of the hardware guys for your device?

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[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] bajasur:
I know jcase was looking into it for a while..but I'm not sure where he is at now.