[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] PhukarownFynout:
OK... sorry i've been running ideas back and forth by a buddy of mine who is a Qualcomm Package Engineer. Bear with me because even HE has little knowledge regarding exactly what Samsung has done to beef up their security in Knox, and how many different hurdles they have placed blocking a straight path to a simple Bootloader Unlock method.

My question is this.... and i promise not to post any links or dwell on this subject because it has trigger words that mods seem to not like.

But, does anyone know EXACTLY what Samsung altered inside their Android builds, that

1. Removes the Oem_Unlock Toggle (i know this is not of much importance)

2. Changes the enforcement bit of the Oem_Unlock to require a special E-token.

3. Disables Fastboot, thus removing it from the recovery menu. <<--- Yes this is simply a 1 to 0 flip somewhere that disables it, because MANY mfg, developers AND carriers utilize it... not just Sammy. TracFone does it in almost all of their devices... Oneplus started doing it when they implemented "Deep Testing" app, and others too. All this does is force an ALTERNATE boot action to be loaded, redirecting from all hardware/software functions that attempt to trigger it. But make no mistake, FASTBOOT IS A PART OF EVERY ANDROID DEVICE! (this comes from the qualcomm engineering team!) No Android pre-loader is built without having both an Emergency Download Access, AND Fastboot. Removal of either of these would render the chip makers incapable of building the system to begin with. Think of Emergency Download and Fastboot, as the BIOS of any computer. There is ALWAYS a Hardware level recovery/repair access point for mfg, and for android THAT is FASTBOOT! <<--- this is also the reason why so many strange posts in some samsung forums mention FASTBOOT when discussing samsung devices. I know first hand that every samsung DOES have it, because of every Sammy i have either unlocked myself. or paid for unlock, THE FUNCTION WHERE THE BOOTLOADER UNLOCK SCREEN APPEARS ALWAYS SAYS FASTBOOT MODE!

4. Disables "Boot from SD card"

My point in all of those questions is to say, if any of you guys who are the "Dig Deep" version of tinker techs, why not attempt some Diff comparisons or whatever in builds that HAVE any of these options, and then comparing the code against THE SAME MODEL FW that has these options removed??

Once any of these are located, add back in the missing or altered code, and then use *AHEM* ... "Alternative methods"... *cough* to sign the rom with official Samsung keys?

Not talking about these methods, but exactly HOW MANY articles are plastered across the web stating, "Malware developers have been using ________ Keys, to build malicious apps, and infected system updates to vulnerable devices."

Now i know that peeps who are on the most updated devices are pretty much SOL, cuz they locked up that leaked problem pretty quick. BUT for many of us who are die hard, "I aint updating a damn thing, til God himself comes down here and MAKES ME DO IT!" , we should have devices that are still on patches that will happily a fw that was signed Official - Unofficially.

In theory wouldnt this work? I am asking because the knowledge required to locate and edit the code in a FW is WAY BEYOND my paygrade! But if someone.... or a group of someones were to figure this out, you could in all reality, recompile a STOCK samsung fw for just about any defvice up to the s22, with a patch around maybe mid 2022, and Odin flash the newly SIGNED fw for free, which brings back all the missing elements, INCLUDING removing that E-Token requirement.

AFAIK , when a developer sets up the "Platform Signing Keys", those give free domain to completely rewrite the system from t he ground up! Turn Fastboot access back on, re-enable the OEM UNLOCK option in the fw, disable the HARDEN SECURITY option, as well as remove the E-Token requirement! And technically, once you locate where and what has been changed on one device fw, you will probably have a pretty good idea of where it is in the next!

please correct me if i am wrong about any of that. My last development cred goes back to Android Oreo.. so i know ALOT has changed, but I still thought OEM PLATFORM SIGNING KEYS, still were "God Mode" for your device!?!?

**** and mods i apologize if i mentioned anything specific, as i tried to stray away from direct links in my wording. Since android is OPEN SOURCE, and even the NSA advocates Reverse Engineering, by supplying such software as GHIDRA and others, then i figured a general question about doing so in android wouldnt be a violation of anything *** thanks

oh and i should also point out, that if anyone takes a short bit of time, and disassembles ANY Sammy fw, you will find many different references to Fastboot in the manifests, and gradle/kotlin .... not to mention that I have been hacking samsung TV's for YEARS (14) and every one of them has FASTBOOT in the service menu! Tizen models included!

but you should be aware... enabling/disabling fastboot has no effect on ODIN / DOWNLOAD Mode. This is still a requirement to flash the stock firmware so i am not implying in any way to mitigate the mfg fw loading platform. Fastboot works side by side with any recovery, and also is a process independent of the mfg fw loading platforms!