[Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Absolon:
Wall of text and proud of it

No, I don't believe that we didn't went to the moon, nor do I think that aliens landed in Roswell. I'm not a conspiracy freak. Just following the logic here of what we know and what it MIGHT be. See it as a free flow of thought with a damn lot of text.

Off topic? Well, it's not technical if the MSHDS82-rom trips Knox or not but since this is a DISCUSSION thread I think that a broader discussion about this is in place.

Of course they look here! They need ideas and I'm quite sure that if someone studied their code they would find some of their own.

Microsoft stole a large part of BSD when they did Windows NT. Mostly because they couldn't implement a good IP-stack.

In the early versions you could still see the BSD-version strings. But BSD-license is "take what you want". Under what license do "we" produce here? I think that is a valid question since there is a lot of work done and if it's under GPL then it's not THAT easy to just reproduce.

There was this case, quite far ago, where a company stole the xvid-code and implemented it in their video-chip. After the guys reverse-engineered they found evidence and it ended up with the company being forced to reveal their VHDL-code and was never heard of again.

As you say, it's MINE. It's like I by a car. If I want to "pimp" it, I can, as long it's according to the traffic laws. There are no laws against customizing your phone!

They can argue about instability and "danger to the network" but it's also bull**** since we use their code as a base and just add things on top of it. So it something is hurting the cell-network is THEIR code, not ours.

But they can't IMPOSE things like this because I have NOT signed an agreement not touching the software. Just as I haven't signed anything by not chipping my car.

Of course, if I do and the engine blows I will pay for it, but I can still do it.

That is exactly the argument I will use. They have changed the product I bought to something that isn't what I signed up for. At least HTC KNEW that people mod and you had the option to reg to open your phone and you have a CHOICE of voiding your warranty or not.

They have made enough substantial changes on the product so it's not what I bought and I can't use it for the development as I want since it hinder me from side-loading things from the SD-card (yes, I read it in this thread, should be on the first page).

So how can I know that my nifty new super-duper kernel/program/whatever will load or not? What is the criteria for a Know-tripped phone to refuse to load a program?

This is hard facts for people that make a living by selling applications MUST have several phones for testing and many with custom things to be sure that it works.

So they are robbing developers from their income. Here is another argument for releasing the specifications for the Knox.

I'm going to call this Consumer department on Monday. We have strong laws and since it's a "state branch" it does not cost me money to try with that Consumer law we have here.

That is why I called on Swedish people, because the more people, the more pressure. And it's a state service for the people so IF they decide to bring the case to the court it's nothing that I will pay for.

I did this with the RIIA here because they where collecting IP-adresses and that goes against the "computer-directive of privacy". After some spreading they got over 5000 complaints by email.

They ruled against us, of course, but still, it was in the news and we did something.

And here is another argument. What is it to say that the Knox is not just another "NSA-thing"? That the "secret" code is for used for those purposes of spying of citizens?

Places it under quite some different light, doesn't it?

I mean, there has been so much talk about NSA and their spying so it's valid question to ask? What if Samsung has placed code that makes eavesdropping easier?

Who can say that the phone doesn't all of the sudden start to use the cam and/or the mic?

It's one thing to tap Ethernet-traffic, it's cable and we have tools for it, like Ethercap, to inspect every single package, but it's a whole other thing to do that with mobile traffic!

Who has equipment for that? Not many. I had access to it in my former life when I was consulting at Ericsson and it's not something you can buy at your local store.

Of course, you can build a Faraday's cage, buy a mobile-station and capture the traffic. Sounds not THAT expensive, eh? ;)

If we question this in that direction it's not as pretty and safe anymore, is it? Nobody has yet being able to actually see what the new boot-loader does and the whole wrapping of things is.

According to Samsung aimed at cooperation's and the American government, so why should private citizens being enforced to use it as well?

We have all heard about "security" before, but we have surpassed Orwell's imagination and are have moved way further then DDR ever could.

Now THAT is bad press is something and could be easily spread to many forums. Then Samsung would have a problem. Big problem.

"Rumors says that Samsung added code to assist NSA in eavesdropping. How will the sales look after that is spread enough?".

So they created a double-edged sword here and we can use it! How can we be sure it's not happening?

Having a phone on silent in a conference room is a classic. Now you have 2 cameras and a mic.

After thinking about it, how many want to have cam-sex after that? ;)

*****ing about it here doesn't do ****. It's time to act. I have not bought a phone with something that cripples it and I don't know what the new secret part contains?

There is NO REASON to put it in consumer electronics. Because they could easily make a Samsung Galaxy S4C as for Corporate and leave the consumer version alone.

Someone was kind enough to point me to the links of the "Knox products". Is that something that we, as private persons, need, want to buy?

I want to have a cool Weather app and maybe play a game. I didn't find a "Knoxed" Call of Duty there. ;)

So why not do this? It's a golden opportunity. It will up to Samsung to prove that they are not another company that cooperates with NSA?

Not the other way around. Let them sweat. Prove that the code is legit!

We know already that Microsoft, Google and Facebook has fed NSA with info. We know that "Bitlocker" in Windows has a master key.

There is even talks about the very hard to compile Truecrypt if the binary is the same with the code. We know that Chrome leaks stuff to Google and SRIron is the same code base with those parts removed.

Googles nice talk about changing encryption is just bull**** and it's because they where hacked themselves. Has nothing to do with their constant feeding to NSA.

And no, I don't consider this being off-topic. It's exactly ON topic because we really don't know what they have done with our phones.

Especially since we know that the spying of NSA has been so much more extensive that anyone could imagine.

And I think that we just know parts of it, but the parts we know are quite bad. Tapping the German chancellors phone??

Hacking governments?

But still, I have sifted through this thread and it really needs to be separated since we have so many different topics at once.

From not tripping it to the implications of it like not being able to downgrade.

It's all at once and I saw that someone already proposed it in the thread. So I concur!

So I propose that there would be a sticky FAQ-only thread that is closed where we can get structured hard facts.

I know too little about it to do that, but someone with more knowledge?

And has someone actually reverse-engineered some of the companies code and looked what it really contain? Are they stealing from here?

And where is the license of your code, devs? I don't see it in your posts!

/Absie

“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

- Mark Twain