yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] :
Or you can just buy a Developer edition and spare a few paragraphs... You can't expect Verizon to pay half of a device to have it 100% your way. If you want it exactly your way, feel free to buy the Developer edition. You have to pay to play.

What would be the point of even selling developer phones if they just allow you to unlock all S4's? After all, that is the POINT of offering Developer editions (Dev friendly)

Motorola phones are easier to brick? I don't know anyone that has bricked a Motorola phone. Motorola doesn't even sell developer phones to cater to developers.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Galaxys4bean:
I had a droid x2 and you could hard brick it by rooting wrong. You had to be plugged in to be in recovery. Roms sucked because the devs had to work around porting with no kernels. Never buying moto again.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] elliwigy:
lol cool story bro.. way too much to read lol.. its quite simple
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Phatdawg:
I think that's his point.

There shouldn't be developer phones. The option to unlock should be available to all customers. And the only people who really do unlock or would bother happens to be here. There might be _SLIGHTLY_ more people unlocking their phones because it's readily available, but doubt it would be significant. Most consumers out there don't need root and subsequently don't need any recovery/bootloader unlock. A lot of customers are afraid it will hurt their phone etc etc.

And yes, I can expect verizon to pay for half of the device. They already do know if the community has a way to root/recovery.

If verizon actually supported the device adequately, there would be ways to unbrick the devices.

This community is a lot smaller than you think compared to the bigger population. I imagine the cost to support this community would be more than just absorbing the cost of bricked phones being returned - like I said the amount of time and effort it takes for verizon to fix these phones and send them to asurion is probably minimal.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] biglil1:
Is it MY phone or THIERS!!!!

If I paied in full then I don't want no OTA that's gonna lock me down but if I'm making the monthly payments the OK because to a degree its not mine yet (according to them anyways) but after that let do with as I please. Unlock it and call it a day
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Phatdawg:
Personally, no matter what happens you're responsible for the phone. You've bought it with a 2 year agreement. If you break it, you pay a penalty, but there is no repo like with a house or car. The phone is yours.

I think once you get the phone the unlock should be provided for those who want to explore that aspect of their phone.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] biglil1:
Agreed; I'm just saying it seems that's how they view it.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] got556:
That last little paragraph...ya about that. Moto does and has sold dev phones through them for Verizon. Check my sig....I have owned one.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] eskomo:
What people fail to realize is the hypocrisy of the community when talking about fraud. Returning a phone after any root or recovery or boot unlock is fraud. No matter if its returned stock or not. Using triangleaway or Odin back to factory is not changing anything. Its fraud. You voided your warranty as soon as you rooted or unlocked boot loader. I don't see the community jumping on the devs who made triangleaway. Or shunning anyone who has returned a device for any reason after its been rooted. Its all fraud. Stop the bs. Many of you are just as guilty.

Running a custom kernel can harm the hardware. Verizon has a right to not warranty the device for that reason alone. Verizon doesn't know what you did with the phone and its hardware once you unlocked the boot loader and rooted the device. All they know is the potential. They set the rules, not us. You don't have to stay with Verizon. There are other options.

If you leased a brand new corvette and then started modifying it to run faster than stock and put higher octane fuel in it than it can safely use and it then burns the seals or throws a rod, you can't take it back to the dealership and say hey... ummm its not running right. I want a new one. You voided your warranty. Enjoy your broken Vette.

All that said, I do think you should have the ability to not accept the ota update and turn off the notification. It shouldn't auto install like its doing currently.

And one more thing. When you upgrade to a new 2 year contract and get the phone for $199, you don't pay the rest of it as time goes by. Your bill stays the same no matter if you buy the phone in full or not. The reason its offered to you at the discount is because they lock you into a contract for 2 years. Nothing to do with paying it off. You own the phone full and clear as soon as you upgrade to the 2 year contract and pages the $199. Its yours. Not Verizon's. You can sell the phone or toss it into a lake or send it airborne on a home made rocket for all Verizon cares. They have your wallet for 2 years and that's all they cared about. The phones don't really cost $600. They charge you that for the luxury of not being under contract.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] icebear8:
Cool story bro
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] asharad:
Dude, the warranty model is wrong. It's like buying a DVD player with a warranty that says "void if owner owns dogs". Sure, the dog might somehow increase the risk of failure, but it's a long shot. It's just an easy out for the manufacturers to void their warranty.

If the buttons fall off, battery explodes, charging port fails, device won't turn on, etc.... it really doesn't matter what software I was running.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Phatdawg:
You seem to be extremely pro business. Business Owner? Loyal employee? Great worker bee?

I am pro consumer.

Verizon is a virtual monopoly to many people as it's service presents itself to be in many places the other carriers are not. This also goes for other carriers who have cover certain areas exclusively. i.e. I only get verizon service at my home and no other networks. Verizon is also the most expensive service in general.

Their dev editions can't be bought with a contract agreement for less and the price for service stays the same, so you end up paying more for that device. Yet, I can achieve the same things with our community here unless verizon decides to _ACTIVELY_ shut it down - which I consider to be a hostile business practice.

So as consumers, if we don't agree with verizon - we have 3 options. 1) Not take their service and go with someone else - for some, since verizon is the only one with service in their areas of need this isn't an option. 2) Take their service and understand the risks and benefits of trying to work the system. 3) Have no service at all - for business owners - might not be an option.

I am all for any of the above. If a consumer needs the service, that consumer can protest however he wants - legal or illegal. There are just more severe consequences to illegal and it is up to verizon to police and apply their policies - which generally they don't anyway. We are all adults. If someone tries to return a phone fraudulently - he or see might get caught - probably not. It's up to verizon to shore up their fraud detection.

Verizon knows man. They aren't stupid. I'm sure their market analysis says - this 2 percent enthusiast crowd is generally safe. It's the 0.1 percent of the newbs that aren't - and their willing to absorb the cost instead of fronting money to support the enthusiast crowd with unlocks and anti bricking measures.

Verizon's business practices are in my opinion hostile and counterproductive to this community as a whole - why support them? Because some of us have no choice - really - and we choose not to be manhandled by outdated and draconian policies. I don't want to be extorted and whore myself to verizon because they say it must be so. I will take their service and hardware do with it how I see fit - if I get caught or there are issues - so be it.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Au_A7:
NO

ONE

CARES
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Phatdawg:
LOL very good that is how we should be. ;)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Au_A7:
I don't care about the ethics of unlocking, I just want to unlock my phone! :P
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] myn:
Except to make the analogy closer to reality, the Corvettes don't even have hoods and are only serviceable by Chevrolet dealers even though we own the car.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] vegittoss15:
Holy crap, did this thread derail THAT fast?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] bajasur:
It's ok this is the derailment thread anyways!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] :
It depends, are we talking about the ZR1 or the Z06? :p
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] JPMontana:
ME7 for me?

I knew the bounty would do the trick. I sure appreciate everyone's hard work to make the sucky world of locked carrier phones much better for all of us.

So I'm on the MDK version, and know full well that I ~could~ root it. (And get recovery, but I'm not sure I would put another ROM on or not. Maybe.) And now that people are working for that bounty, I realize I could go ahead and take the ME7 update and then root it.

The question I have for everybody is: should I do that? I mean, I think getting the ME7 update and whatever enhancements it brings with it would be a good idea, and then just root it. But what if an unlocked bootloader never materializes?

Suggestions?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Cruiserdude:
There is literally no good reason to update if you're on MDK now. It would be such a waste. Trade phones with someone who got stuck with ME7 if you must have it.

While there is a root method, there is, as of yet, no recovery. I expect something will be found, but if the bootloader isn't unlocked, it could be a real sketchy situation using stock kernels only like the OMAP Motos. Maybe a workaround as elegant as Loki will be had, maybe the bootloader itself will get cracked. Maybe not, maybe you'll be stuck forever.

There are already ME7 roms with all the boot chain crap stripped out. So if you want ME7, pick an ME7 rom and flash it I recovery. Use Darkslide or gatesjunior if you want basically stock, or BoneStock if you want a stock feel with some really great tweaks. Set it up and odex it, and your setup is better than if you took the OTA, and you haven't lost the ability to flash whatever you want down the road.

If a new exploit or unlock is found that is superior to the Loki method at some point in the future, then go ahead and update. But if you're a member here at all, it's just such a waste to update and risk being stuck forever.

Sent from my VZW Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition :)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] bobby janow:
They need to lock that bounty thread. 5g is quite enough. Kill it and let's just wait. And the mods are on the warpath. I don't believe we will ever get an unlocked phone again. They are not stupid. They want corporate business and government contacts. Unlocked bootloaders is a sure way to say adiós to that. So give a few hundred users who hate the company anyway their wishes and give up billions in lost revenue is not a very compelling argument in our favor. The days of custom roms is rapidly coming to an end. Best we can hope for is root now.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] BigShowJoe:
How long was it from the time the phone was first released until the MEK bootloader was unlocked? And how long has it been since ME7 was first rolled out?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] bobby janow:
You mean MDK right? The bootloader was never unlocked.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] pcar1947:
Jus curious is any developer close to unlocking bootloader? Any rumors?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Cruiserdude:
A bootloader unlock isn't something you can really get status on. In the possibility of an exploit that leads to an actual unlock, anyone working on it couldn't share publicly until they actually had it, as they'd want people to have as much time as possible before the exploit was patched in a future update.

The other possibility is something leaked from Samsung or Qualcomm themselves. That of course is something that there's nothing on at all, then suddenly it's there. So no real progress report there either.

As far as another exploit like Loki that gives us a recovery method, there's a few things being worked on, but each method either works or it doesn't, or it needs more time. Nothing working there yet, or we'd have heard about it. Rest assured though there are people working on that. As far as whether such an exploit would be as elegant as Loki to use, and allow custom kernels, that's not something we could possibly know until a method was found to be working first.

Sent from my VZW Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition :)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] pcar1947:
Thanks for the response. I m happy with root on me7 for now but as a recovering flashaholic i miss my custom roms!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] BigShowJoe:
Oops, yes, I meant MDK. So this "loki" that I hear about, that was just a way around the locked bootloader?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] jova33:
I fear this is going to hinder ROM development. If something else comes out on VZW that is more developer friendly, then that's where they'll flock to.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
I don't think you have much to worry about. :D
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] bobby janow:
Yes, that is correct.

---------- Post added at 09:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:54 AM ----------

Re: developer friendly.. Not much to worry about at all. They must have some pretty big guns working on squelching the dev community the way they locked this baby down. Without some guy named "monkey" or something like that the S3 would have been locked the same way. Not a great trend.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
Sadly I agree. It's why I left VZW for greener pastures. I'm enjoying my S4 the way Google intended. And quite honestly loving the experience so far. I feel for those who are stuck with VZW for one reason or another. Start saving those pennies and get a dev edition. It's the only way to stay sane.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] bobby janow:
Which provider? I bought the S4 outright and they still have the darn thing locked. Dev edition wasn't available AFAIK at the time, although had I know I would have waited.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] eskomo:
The warranty policy is borked. I agree. But its there. So you have to abide or lose warranty.

I understand your car analogy. But its not correct either. Only things you can really modify is software. So its the same as modifying the computer in the car. Doing that voids all warranty. iirc. I don't know many people adding buttons or upgrading screens and charging ports on their phones. No one is complaining about a voided warranty because they added more ram or newer antennas. Its all software.

All I'm saying is there are so many hippocrates about returning a phone and committing fraud when they themselves do the same thing but don't see the fraud.

And to the comment about consumers should do whatever legal or illegal to protest is wrong. Do what you can legally but doing so illegally just makes you in the same camp as those you are protesting. Your protest is null and void. Shut up and go home basically. Its not just up to Verizon to police. That's like you robbing a bank and then saying its up to the bank to police the matter. But the people that seen you do it are not allowed to say anything. And the law can't get involved. If society was how you want then it would lead to anarchy very fast.

I am pro business. I am also pro consumer. I want business to thrive and then consumers can benefit.

Also, there are people who don't care about ethics. That is a big reason why the rest have the warranty policies we do. So to the guy who doesn't care... That's fine but there is a reason for ethics. And its needed.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
I got the Google Play Edition and threw it on AT&T 6 gig a month data share plan month to month. No contract.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] jova33:
Once I can get a competitive rate and great coverage on an unlimited data plan I'll move. Also I have the problem that my wife works underground and VZW is the only company to put their underground thingies down there, so if you don't have VZW down there, you don't have a cell phone at work.

She'll get transferred in about two years.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] S4NDM4NN:
At the risk of sounding ignorant, what exactly prevents us from rolling back to a previous ota? Is there no way we could edit the host file on rooted phones to have it connect to a local ota update server that pretends to be official? At that point download an old ota update and flash that? I know the bootloader wouldn't be unlocked, but if we could just go backwards to make Loki work that's better than nothing right? I'm just trying to understand what prevents said theory from working?

Thank you for any information provided...
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
LOTS. First they blacklisted previous updates. It will fail to install. Second, spoofing the update server is not as simple as changing a host file. lol. It's quite well authenticated.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] S4NDM4NN:
I completely understand there would be more work to spoofing the ota server. Mainly was just a concept. I know said methods have been used in the past to authenticate pirated software. The blacklisting of old updates is what I wasn't sure about. I'm guessing the ota packages are probably signed in some way so it wouldn't be as simple as packaging our own ota "update."
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
Correct. They are signed with a private key that the bootloader verifies before it can be flashed. We do not have the private key. Loki worked by finding a hole in the trusted zone so that insecure code could be flashed and run. That hole was closed. In the Motorola world we expected to not be able to downgrade. I guess this is new for the Samsung people. Welcome to hell. :(
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] mlin:
I'm new to Verizon, about a month into my contract with a loki'd S4. If this trend continues, I'll be leaving at the end of my contract. Unfortunately it seems AT&T is on the same mission and coverage for the more developer friendly companies is abysmal in comparison to VZW & AT&T. If Sprint's better coverage/speed promises come to fruition then I will gladly switch back.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] BigShowJoe:
"Leak" would mean he was on the inside right? What is to say that he still isn't?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] SamuriHL:
It's irrelevant either way. The "leak" was an engineering version of the bootloader that was unlocked. Even if you could get such a thing for the S4, which you can't, you couldn't flash it anyway.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Rebel908:
"A version of the bootloader that was unlocked" isn't the right way to put it. An UNSIGNED/INSECURE bootloader is the accurate way to put it, and it's kind of important to make that distinction.

It should also be mentioned that the reason why an unsigned bootloader would be useless for VRUAME7 folk is because the bootloader has a blacklist of what is not allowed to be flashed on that hardware. As such, the only way to get passed it would be to have the signed keys from the bootloader or to find another exploit.

It should also be noted that leaking an insecure development bootloader and leaking signed keys are two totally different situations, the ladder could lead to serious legal ramifications. Where an unsecured bootloader is customizer beware, leaking signed keys could very well jeopardize the integrity of the device and actually give real credence to an android malware threat.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] wtfdroidlol:
This is exactly why anytime I use a ladder and go above the third step, i ask someone to stand at the bottom and hold it steady, to avoid the serious legal ramifications.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] elliwigy:
you should have had it rooted with custom recovery and froze update before even posting here lol
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Cruiserdude:
What Rebel908 said is right on the money. This hardware only allows bootloaders signed by Samsung, just like the S3. But this new bootloader blacklists the unique signature of the MDK version and any other older version, meaning an engineering bootloader used in development would likely be blacklisted as well.

A leak of Samsung's private keys is simply not gonna happen. This would be a VERY serious breach that would affect their business all over the world, make all of our phones open to attack, and as he said, have serious legal ramifications for anyone involved. I would not want someone to leak the keys even if they had them, as the damage done would not be worth it. And you could forget any chance of Samsung being friendly to the development community again once they found out that's where the motivation for the leak originated.

IMHO, the best we can hope for is some type of engineering bootloader that has a signature that the phone will pass even after ME7. This would either be one with a new signature that's made with their keys, but simply isn't blacklisted, which is the same way they'll sign the bootloader for the next official OTA, or it would be one with some sort of "master key" signature, that has a valid signature that won't be blacklisted in any update, so Samsung could always use it for engineering purposes without having to sign a new engineering bootloader after each update. The latter may not exist, however, as its not difficult in the least to sign an unsecured bootloader with a new valid signature each time there's an update, provided you have the keys.

Even so, this may only unlock us until the next update. I don't believe the exact method that they use to prevent downgrading has been made clear. If it's through changes in the hardware itself via qFuses, then there's a limited number of signatures they could blacklist, and/or a limited number of times they could add to the blacklist (as each qFuse may be able to lock-in a blacklist of multiple signatures). There's also no telling how many times the hardware would allow them to do this. They could have just a few, or there may be enough "slots" that they can blacklist old signatures indefinitely for the life of the phone. If it's a software implementation rather than hardware, the number of slots for blacklisting signatures is basically infinite, but there would be a greater possibility of exploitation.

I guess we'll have a bit more insight into this with the next update. If we don't have any more progress on a recovery exploit or an unlock by then, and they don't block a downgrade to ME7, then that may tell us that they only use that blacklist when there's a new version of Android, or an existing build has been compromised.

Sent from my VZW Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition :)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Alowbman:
Ha ha. I know. I plan on rooting and stopping update. It wont update without my consent. I just delay it for 24 hours at a time until I csn get it done!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] cramblda:
Be careful, that's what I was doing for several days. One day when clearing some notifications I accidentally accepted the update and then in a matter of seconds it was to late. Should have froze the update APK right from the beginning. Loosing recovery is so frustrating - more so than if I had bought the phone and recovery was never achieved.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] gadget!:
Lucky you, I got a replacement directly from vzw and it was a refurbished and had the new update already installed.

I have never had issues with refurbished phones but the new update killed it for me.

I sold it on eBay and burned another upgrade I had for an MDK device.

Sent from a Galaxy S4... Far far away.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] fenguepay:
What are the chances that verizon will let me trade my 2 month old gs4 for a dev edition. I paid for it in full because I was on contract with my rezound.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] hexitnow:
Verizon doesnt sell them you have to get them from samsung
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] jova33:
No chance. Dev edition isn't sold by VZW. You can eBay it. You might get more if you froze the update app. Then spend that money on something else.