[Galaxy S 4 Developer Discussion [Developers-Only]] Absolon:
I think it's high time that I present myself. I'm not as noob as I can be in the forums. Yes, I don't know Android, since electronics isn't my field of working anymore. I have studied electronics and went for a master in Engineering Physics so I'm not a newbie when it comes to hardware.

Just that I got this (stupid?) 30-year crisis and went for an MD instead.

My foremost field of working has been Unix, but I'm schooled in lower levels and had done both VHDL/Erlang projects and have been really fluent in asm. But that was a LONG time ago when Motorola 68xxx was the ruler (oh, the ****ing best cpu ever made code-wise).

The aversion and stop for asm-coding came with Inter and that was around the 486-time when you had to fiddle with the memory and stuff.

I have kept parts on my knowledge. Did a SOC for a big company with a linux that I pressed in on 128 kb of Rom but I'm not up to date with arm-asm and I can say that the last time I ever coded something was around 1996 since I started with design/capacity planning of hardware and management.

So the time has flown by. I'm a C-coder. Never coded a line of Java in my line. I'm also from Sweden and I don't know where you are from but if you are from USA we have quite some different rules here, especially when it comes to consumer law that can be used for us.

Ok. Enough **** about me.

I called Samsung today and this is a summary of the conversation I had.

I asked them about why the consumers had to use the Knox and how to pass it as a developer.

He could not answer it.

I asked if I trip the flag, why does it forbid me to sideload my own developed applications?

He could not answer it.

I asked how to remove it since as a consumer I had no use for it and this is something that I have not signed up for.

He said that I could send in my phone and have it reflashed to a lower version of the firmware.

I asked for specifications about it and said that knew it's a SE-linux containter (because it is).

That he could confirm.

I asked him what for specifications for the boot loader since it hinders me in my work.

He said that the only thing he could provide was a downgraded one (see above)

I said that I don't want a downgraded one since all use 4.3 and that is the future.

He could not provide that.

I said that maybe this is a deal that Samsung has done with NSA to provide them with information since I don't know what the phone sends out since I'm locked out of the kernel.

He said that he understood that he would feel the same sentiment.

I asked him if consider us who are developing on a low lever as valuable people the brings the phone forward.

He agreed.

I told him that I don't consider tripping the Know-flag to invalidate my warranty since it could be tripped in Kies (as reported here).

He agreed on that and told me that I could then contact the service for a reflash.

I told him that the option left then would be to crack the boot-loader as with the rooting.

He said yes.

Note that this is in Sweden. But the info in any case is interesting since he very well knew about this.

So the info I got. Yes. It's a Se-linux container and it is reflashable. Since it's reflashable we now know that it's not an e-Fuse and can leave that question. Since it's software it's crackable.

Seems high time for me to start to update myself on arm-asm. I got lazy with VHDL/Erlang :P

Also, this has not been the field of my quite messy life. Going from electronics to computers and Unix towards medicine.

I don't have a J-TAG. What do you guys use? What have you found so far?

Do we have access to the very beginning of the boot strapping?

With that I mean the first asm-lines that the phone do as a start. Is that hardware or is that software?

In this case. Could someone please provide me with that. As I said. I don't know Arm-asm yet, but I'll try to freshen myself. Asm is asm and the last thing I did with Arm was working with a Xlinix that had 2 cores in the die and then a VHDL-part. Really nifty. But that was 10 years ago.

My other problem is time, like you all, since I'm guessing you work full time.

But can someone update me or give me links to white-papers etc on how the phone starts? I guess there is quite little about it. It's not the glorious days where you could get papers on the clock-penalties and how revolutionary it was when you could do an instruction on both the edges of the clock-wave.

Sorry. I type a lot, but I really hate this and yes, people can say what they want. When Ericsson still made phones I had a special firmware that showed a LOT more then what a normal user would get and how chatty the phones are without us knowing. So the option of spreading the "Samsung has made a deal with NSA" WILL scare people whatever you think. I have done "activist" things before and you just have to present it as a theory and get to the point where the rumor will get viral.

I was truly amazed when my complaint against RIIA went viral and the "Govermental institution for internet privacy" got over 5000 complaints in one day. Don't know how that works in other countries but every document that you send here is official and need to be filed. We also have the reverse policy that seems to be a bit unique. Everything is open until it's classified as not public. Not otherwise as it seems in most countries.

Ok, off topic. You have to live with that if you want my help that I'm offering here.

Where are you know in the dissaembly of the boot-loader? SE-linux CAN be cracked but if t's scrabled with hardware it makes it a bit harder.

Ok, enough from me. Want me to start to dig with the Cortex-chip? I know that Qualcom are more then happy to provide white-papers on their chip. Just a matter of cost.

/Paul