this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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Why don't banks like root on Android? (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 months ago by Waffelson@lemmy.world to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] zolax@programming.dev 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

maybe it's just me, but isn't it quite hard (at least for people not confident doing technical stuff) to root a phone?

like a decade ago the bootloader may have been unlocked by default and for many phones there were exploits so that they could be rooted with an app, but nowadays you would have to:

  • unlock the bootloader by installing ADB and fastboot drivers, booting into download mode and run terminal commands that would reset your phone in the process; and for some phones, you would also need to shorten a test point and for quite a few of them nowadays, unlocking the bootloader is impossible
  • boot into download mode and flash a custom recovery with fastboot or potentially with Odin or some other proprietary software (or sometimes you can root from download mode)
    • for some newer (including Samsung) phones, you also need to disable dm-verity otherwise your phone wouldn't be able to boot into Android
  • boot into recovery mode and finally flash (probably Magisk) an image to root the system

I guess there are usually detailed instructions for this, but I doubt that most people rooting their phones now would be non-techie people who are just watching generic online tutorials. they would most likely stumble upon XDA or other forums that would have proper instructions. and even then, they are not very beginners friendly as they aren't usually supposed to be followed by people with little to no experience with using the command-line, drivers, how Android phones work internally, etc.

[–] pacoboyd@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Making my point for me. Those short form videos have very little chance of being right or accurate. They may have you going to some sketchy link and download and app that is supposed to do it for you etc etc.

My point is the people at risk don't know they are participating in a risky activity. (not if they successfully rooted their phone or not).

[–] zolax@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

ah, okay, that's fair. in terms of short-form social media that tries to engage you, I'd expect little warning and for children especially to take more risks when encountering this type of content.

Folks with rooted android phones have a high chance of having watched a 12 year old tell them how to root their phone on TicTok.

I was more focused on this, though, because this sentence implied that you could successfully root your phone with short-form, likely phone-generic tutorials when the process nowadays is much more difficult and technical