Motorola responds to Droid X bootloader controversy, says eFuse isn't there to break the phone
By Chris Ziegler 
posted July 16th 2010 11:45AM
posted July 16th 2010 11:45AM
Considering IBM's historically non-nefarious usage of the term "eFuse," we suspected something was amiss here, so we reached out to Motorola for an explanation. Read on to see what we got back.
So in other words, yes, eFuse will shut down a phone with an unapproved bootloader -- but it won't brick the phone, it just needs "approved software" to be dropped back on there. Knowing the wealth of talent in the Android development community, we're still really hopeful this nonsense is going to get circumvented either way, but at least we can breathe a little easier knowing that Moto isn't out to destroy your multi-hundred-dollar investment."Motorola's primary focus is the security of our end users and protection of their data, while also meeting carrier, partner and legal requirements. The Droid X and a majority of Android consumer devices on the market today have a secured bootloader. In reference specifically to eFuse, the technology is not loaded with the purpose of preventing a consumer device from functioning, but rather ensuring for the user that the device only runs on updated and tested versions of software. If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can re-boot once approved software is re-installed. Checking for a valid software configuration is a common practice within the industry to protect the user against potential malicious software threats. Motorola has been a long time advocate of open platforms and provides a number of resources to developers to foster the ecosystem including tools and access to devices via MOTODEV at http://developer.motorola.com."
Suuuuuuuure....
Don't piss off us hackers.
@SolidSnake
You'd think that just saying 'if you use non standard roms your phone will not be covered by warranty' would be enough rather than going to these lengths.
I know that the hacker community don't represent the general public but it's all bad press which they won't want.
@SolidSnake
if there's so many people that want ultra-customizable software, why don't they make their own? Why hack somebody else's hard work?
@SolidSnake At least Motorola's heart is in the right place. They couldn't reply in another way. I'm sure the talanted hackers will find a way to pass through eFuse
@TomSawyer they can do that, but the hardware to run it? And using Android as a base is a good start, as it already supports the phone functions and the such...
@racoq I'm not so sure they will. The Milestone featured the same (if not a little more lenient) locked bootloader, and it still hasn't been cracked. Its been on the market ~9 months I think.
Sure the US community didn't get a crack at it (we have the open Droid), but if a device hasn't been hacked in 9 months, it likely won't be, since by then it will have already been eclipsed by the latest and greatest.
Especially in the Android world.
@SolidSnake F/Y Moto! You ruined me experience by locking the milestone. Now I am never gonna buy your crap ever again. Go HTC!
@SolidSnake Sounds like the Star-Force of android bootloaders o.O
@SolidSnake
While I'm a tinkerer too and would find it ideal to be able to easily install custom ROMs, I can see why companies have to cover their asses and make it at least a bit difficult. We are talking about system software here, if someone wrote yet another Win virus that searched for connected Droids and updated them with malware Motorola would have a pretty big problem on their hands. Plus you know they must have agreements with carriers that tie their hands somewhat.
I have no doubt someone will find a way around it anyway so in the end it'll probably be moot for anyone who would be interested in a custom ROM.
@SolidSnake Exactly. I won't be buying Motorola anytime soon and I was really considering the Motorola X until this...
@TomSawyer Seriously? The devs at Moto may be working hard but I dont give a shit unless the factory ROM is the best thing i have ever used. I buy the phone and I want to have the choice of what I think the best ROM is. Because you know, I think the devs working on ROMS from Cyanogen or MoDaCo are working pretty hard themselves and just maybe they are putting out better stuff.
@lookseehear Disagree, simply because in practice they still cover these things under warranty. If you make it undeniably hard and much more risky you'll get your costs to cover warranties down.
In related news, coming to an Apple iPhone 5 near (or far away from) you.
@SolidSnake
I would imagine the majority of people 'hacking' into their Android phones are simply trying to bypass the pre-installed nonsense and just run the latest standard Android OS without the overhead of Sense, Blur, TouchWiz, Stage etc..
Is it so crazy to simply want the latest phone that's advertised as "With Google" to simply run the latest version of the Google OS?
@Graham J From a company's prospective, I can agree with the logic behind making it either very easy, or very hard. You either want it to be safe (possibly easy) and recoverable, or to prevent it completely.
As far as carriers go, there is no doubt that you are at least partially right. I think it partially depends on the level of control they try to exert also. I think you could get away with more on either Tmo (why the N1 started there) and some EU carriers. Just speculation on my part there.
@TomSawyer You're aware that Android is open source right? So whose work are you talking about. I'm pretty sure a good amount of those hackers are probably Android contributers.
"Approved software?"
My brain just exploded. The whole reason I was going to switch from BB to Android was so that I had more options.
No one should be "approving" what software I run other than myself. This is like Steve Jobs' "freedoms" that take away the freedom from thinking differently than Apple.
Arg. Sorry, Moto, I can't get behind this. You're my hardware provider, not my babysitter. It infuriates me that you'd say "approved software."
Done. I'd been waiting for the Droid 2. Looks like I'm waiting for the Galaxy S or whatever HTC is cooking up instead. Of course, Verizon probably pushes this crap, so I wouldn't be surprised to see others get similar "features" so that we can't get free tethering (something I don't even have a use for.)
Motorola - Android saved your bacon, now you're freaking out because you don't control the IP? Weak.
@nothingreal AMEN i dont want to hack it so it can run free apps or whatever i just want the best OS on it and sense is NOT it.
@TomSawyer They are preventing people from using the standard Android 2.1 and 2.2 builds directly available from Google. They in fact "hacked" Android by your definition and aren't allowing people to use Googles official version which all Android phones OS systems are based off of.
So how do you explain that?
@InnocentEd
We refuse the efuze!
I understand Moto's point perfectly. Say, you download a "official firmware" image from a shady third party site that claims to be a mirror but the firmware binary is tempered with a back door that sends all your private and financial information like credit card numbers back to their server.
Moto is right; this is standard security practice. Remember how Apple's keyboard firmware got hacked with a key logger?
With this fiasco though, I think Moto should just put up a big warning that the user is installing unknown firmware and that Moto will not be liable if you install it.
@juanvaldez back in my sony ericsson days, most carriers branded the roms and in turn lock the mp3 as ringtones features and other cool things. flash an unbranded firmware via davinci server and features all back :)
as for tmobile, Tmo is very lax these days!
i still get full 3G data on my nexus one with my old $5.99 Tzones data plan, tethering included. :)
@SolidSnake I hope the Android users stick to their guns and don't support this move by Motorola, so they wont even consider being so ridiculous in the future. We don't want to set a dangerous precedent here for Android phones.
People just don't get it.. nothing altruistic going on. Warranties forbid things like installing "unapproved" software, so they are protected. They are doing it to prevent software like wireless tether for root users.the carriers probably bitched about people circumventing their add on plans, so they were forced to do something.
@SolidSnake Hey Motorola if you want to go into the "protection" business then start making condoms, until then you need to realize that we don't need "protection" we need freedom to do what want with the expensive products we spend our hard earned money on.
@nothingreal No kidding, Motorola doesn't want anyone to "skin" their precious Moto Blur (or what ever it is), but Google let's them "skin" Android. There is a problem with that.
@TomSawyer
If you feel like that then maybe Motorola should build their own OS instead of using the work of others who's main intent runs contrary to bricking customers devices and preventing OS customization. Motorola may have covered themselves legally, but they are the ones misusing other people's work.
@racoq Hahaha, I'd love to see your reply if this was Apple...
@SolidSnake Yes, pissing off hackers has totally hampered other device adoption.
@mmafighter077
same here.... had it in my possession for 2hrs went on some android forums and saw all the bootloader comments and how motorola basically says to buy an HTC phone if you don't like it(ugh) and they wonder why people don't want their phones!!! So after finding this out I returned it 2hrs later!! HTC FTW!!!
Well you can probably hack new OSes onto it so long as you can prevent the Motorola firmwares from blowing the eFuse when it detects something amiss. But when it does blow the eFuse it'll pretty much become impossible to run anything except official Motorola roms. You may be able to make physical alterations to try and prevent the eFuse from blowing but these things are essentially impossible to get around once blown. The xbox 360 has eFuses and once they're blown no matter how hard you try you won't be able to JTAG the systems.
@VisitorQ
what are you talking about? motorola has an agreement with google to license android and the google apps (you do know that not all of android is free, right?) so they're within their rights to whatever modifications that license allows.
if you haven't noticed, it's not exactly like this lockdown is something new - all phones everywhere are locked to their own software, but hackers just have been able to get access more easily in the past. you've never had the "right" do swap rom's, so don't go inventing one now. if you feel the need to buy another vendor's phones, go for it, but you better believe the other vendors will be implementing this kind of tighter lock soon too so get to it while you can.
@SolidSnake
F-yous more like...
If I give Motorola MY money for the phone, it becomes MY property and it is NOT THEIR damn business what I do with the phone.
I was thinking about buying Droid X, but now I'll pass. Even Steve Jobs doesn't do thing like that.
@seamonkey420
Did you buy Nexus unlocked & unsubsidized?
Because if it's on a contract wouldn't they force you into buying a smartphone data plan?
What plan are you using?
I like Tmo would love to try Nexus One.
@Cats troll alert
@nothingreal Droid X isn't running Motoblur! ....they've already said that. All it is now is Widgets and you can simply deactivate those. 90% users then will be happy with Android. Yeah you can't root it. So what? Nobody rooted a PS3 yet either and people are still buying them!
In fact that's IBM developed eFuse technology to do on the fly dynamic clocking of the Cell BE. The eFuses (100's if not 1000's sense temperature, current flow and can open or close according to the needs of the system or do to over heating shut the system down. They can also sense data flow and unauthenticated data shuts the system down! Just Life in the City... oh what a pity! :P
...don't like it? buy something else. Even iPhones have the ability to do even more. Remember Apple was actually full bricking jail broken phones before. Now they have a similar system, but it hasn't been implemented.... YET! xD (btw they use eFuse Tech too)
Motorola gives no evidence that there is a legal reason for this lock-down. Given that other phone makers don't do it, it seems dubious that there are an requirements other than contractual ones with their partners/carriers that "force" them into this. I've written a blog post about this whole situation of lock down of Android/Linux: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/07/15/motorola-admits.html
@TomSawyer Why not is the better question...
@SolidSnake
Hey I have a few secretive questions to ask, would you be willing to hear my questions and possibly answer them?
@cfishy why would some idiot even have credit card info on a phone? I don't have it on mine, because if I lost it, as it would be in the hands of whoever found it.
wow~~
@(Unverified) How long till somebody figures out how to "blow" the eFuse with a malicious download?
Too bad for Moto, I was really liking the MOTO/TI trend. I was set to ditch my EVO and head back to Verizon (within 30 days) until I heard about this bootloader last week.
@MeanSpyvie The eFuse can only be affected during the boot process. And since Android isn't yet running during the boot process (it's linux), no application can cause the eFuse to "blow".
Yayyyyyy! Still gonna take forever for the hacking community to root it though based on the last Droid, if ever. Sad face :-(
@VAVA Mk 2
Ooops I thought the title meant eFuse wasn't there so phones won't break. Goddammit locking down an Android phone defeats the purpose of it! If only the Incredible had a slightly better camera and HD video capture out of the box :( And if they actually had them in stock.
@VAVA Mk 2
befoer anyone corrects him
the Milestone (euro droid) still is not rooted
@DefPoet
I know it still isn't. That is why I said it would be a long time at least before any chance of me getting Sense or Froyo Stock on here since it hasn't been done yet on Droid 1. Makes me sad.
@DefPoet
Oh really?
http://androidforums.com/all-things-root-milestone/
Been rooted.
@DefPoet
Uhhh...
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/19/motorola-milestone-reaches-milestone-gets-rooted/