Other than allowing you to implement custom ROMs…. what is the main purpose of this? What does it gain you?

@Hackineer: I agree. I’m still using a Motorola SLVR(same crappy OS as Razr), but have no plans in switching to a “smartphone”(I want to punch whoever keeps making these awful buzzwords) because simply put, there’s no way I’ll ever pay the $100 a month that it cost for a data plan. $1200 a year, you’re serious? As if that wasn’t bad enough, it seems the standard is shifting towards charging an additional fee for each individual added functionality.

Also, I don’t think the phone manufacturers have any grounds to say what users can and can’t do with their phones, so long as their copyrights are not being infringed, and the phones are not being used for malicious purposes.

Skitchin :
Here in france, a 2hrs + unlimited internet/mails plan costs 26 euros.

the “unlimited” trick is, when you get over 500 MB (a month) you get capped to 128kbs for the rest of the month.

And P2P/NG/Tethering/VoIP are forbidden.

@BlinkyBill: Like governments care if you willingly enter into contracts that strip those rights from you. Nobody is forcing you to have a cellphone, and it’s certainly not their problem if you’re behind the 8-ball if you don’t have one. Heck, you can effectively enter slavery by living a lifestyle that requires you to work a job you hate but makes good money. Maybe they should regulate that while they’re at it…

I’ve been waiting on this. Now I might be enticed to swap from my current carrier with oh-so-lacking 3G capability…there’s a map for that. Not that I don’t love my G1 Dev phone, but if the ‘Droid’ is rooted, its essentially the same to me. Yeah, I know technically, it isn’t the same, but I’d rather be able to load the current Android image as opposed to the bloated Verizon image…

Just to reinforce / generalize, getting root on a smartphone (Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile, you name it) allows you to remove blocks that carriers put in place that prevent a phone from doing things. Generally, these blocks are put in place so that the carrier can sell you something. For example, they can prevent you from running an open source mapping application (or writing your own…) so that they can sell you one they wrote (which is probably worse than the free one). Likewise, most carriers try to block tethering applications, because they’d like to be able to charge extra for that feature (if they make it available at all).

@Skitchin and @Blinky:

A few observations:

You can get 5 years and $50,000 fine for *owning* a cracked card for a satellite receiver– I didn’t say *use* it. What this means, is that you don’t have to actually commit a crime to be “guilty,” you only have to have the wherewithal to commit the crime. In other words, you can be jailed simply for potential or perceived ability.

You can buy a house, pay mortgage and tax payments through the nose, and then have some HOA douche tell you that you can’t fly an American flag out front, or that your Christmas lights must be off by 11:00 pm.

You can buy copies of a certain-brand of operating system, and then be told you don’t own it, and that you can be denied it’s use at the maker’s discretion… without a refund, of course.

You can put a locked fence around a pool, then have some punk trespass, climb the fence, and swim in your pool while you aren’t there, then get sued and LOSE the case because said punk hurt himself on your diving board.

On the other hand, you can get drunk, crash your car into another car carrying a pregnant women, and if the baby dies, you’ll face murder charges. Yet, if she decides that a baby might put a damper on her party lifestyle, she can pay a doctor to kill it for her.

I could go on and on.

The law is supposed to be the formal expression of a society’s values. Unfortunately, in this society, what is right and what is legal diverged a long time ago. What is legal is now defined primarily by lobbyists and the rich– and it has *nothing* to do with what is right.

…and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. If you have been paying attention, you will have already heard that His Lord My Grand Poo-bah Barry Obama has empowered the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide as it would a toxic gas. Guess what produces CO2 besides cars, planes, and factories…YOU DO. So, if you didn’t think that you were sufficiently tooled by elected bureaucrats, wait until you see what the newly empowered unelected ones have in store for you.

This is all part of the (many) reasons why the people as a whole no longer respect the law, and it will have much to do with our eventual decline and collapse.

So, as much as I agree with your comments, they are irrelevant, because they aren’t rooted in reality.

Now get back to work, comrades.

=================================================
Skitchin said:

Also, I don’t think the phone manufacturers have any grounds to say what users can and can’t do with their phones, so long as their copyrights are not being infringed, and the phones are not being used for malicious purposes.
=================================================
Blinky Bill said: How can it even be legal to prevent the LEGAL owner of the device (phone in this case) gaining full control over their property….they paid for….and paid a large amount.
==================================================

@cliff:

Well, not me, (I have a very basic phone on Verizon), but the price I quoted of $100/month was AT&T. Unlimited texts and data, and it looks like 900 minutes from what I can find on their site.

Who do _you_ have service from??? AT&T charges $30/month just for unlimited data, with 0 minutes, on one phone.

Going to open up a HEMROID.com site for hacking the roid – I will make lots of paypal donations…haha

@Hacksaw:

You do raise a good point – if the phone is one of those deals where you get the phone cheap in exchange for paying for service, it could possibly be argued that you don’t really own the phone until the contract has ended.

If you bought the phone outright – sure you can do whatever you want to it. But they can also deny you service because of it.

Or, you could just buy a nokia N900, which ships with a full linux distro and root shell out of the box.

Looks like I have a great deal with Sprint, 20$ for unlimited data, I didn’t know that others charge a way more

@Moreau
Yes, humans emit carbon dioxide when they exhale. However, carbon dioxide is produced in massively bigger quantities by cars, factories, cargo ships, etc. Your stomach contains hydrochloric acid. Should we not treat it like a hazardous substance simply because it exists in your body? You drive an immensely stupid argument. The fact is that climate change is real and needs to be dealt with. Curtailing unregulated mass CO2 emissions is one of the steps toward bettering the environment.

I see your other points, but I really don’t like how you present abortion as a choice about a “party lifestyle”. There are lots of reasons to have abortions, and the fact that you can be tried for murder for the killing of an unborn child is actually fair. A woman has the right to make choices about her body, you don’t. That’s why abortion is legal but killing a pregnant woman gets you double homicide charges.

This discussion is about rooting phones. Don’t taint it with your trollish offtopic rants about climate change, abortion, or Obama.

@D-Rock
“Anyone know if this can be used to root the CLIQ?”

That was my first thought too. While a GSM version of the Droid is already available, it’s too pricey for me (buying an EU version aka Motorola Milestone)

@Octel

You also make some fine points but remember this:
An unborn child is NOT her property just because it grew from her egg cell and she is carrying it does not make it hers (as in ownership, im not denying it is her child)

So while i agree that a person who kills an unborn baby should be punished, the killing of unborn babies (abortion) should be morally and ethically questioned.

Ok after all that this is a post about rooting phones and this is all irrelevant.

Rooting phones is awesome, and so long as you are not using this as a method to run unpaid for apps (im looking at you iPhone jailbreakers :)) it should not be illegal, and if it is in your country/state then there is a very good chance that the relevant authority who *should* be prosecuting you, probably doesn’t care about one guy with a jailbroken iPhone or a rooted Andriod phone.

I speak about the iPhone mroe because it is closed source, where as the Android is opensource, and we should be able to mod the opensource parts freely (as in not gmail and stuff, but the rest).

This post is too long, and this is what happens when I sit at home with jack-all to do. To quote Reikaze up there, “I need a job” lol

I’m sorry… was that a guardians of the galaxy reference?

@Zelka, Moreau – Since this is a hacker site, try to think out of the box. from a logical standpoint, I would say that what should be changed to fit society values is the fact that you can be charged with (double?) murder for running over a pregnant woman.

@Octel

My first instinct is not to respond to your comments. I don’t waste my time with people who are either too stupid to understand the facts, or are smart enough to understand them, but for political reasons choose not to.

Unfortunately, the are too many well-intended people in the world who hear claptrap, and then, thinking they are doing something “good for the earth,” perpetuate it. Thus, some people are likely to see your comments, and incorrectly assume that you “care” about the earth, and that I must be an android that has no use for clean air, clean water, and unadulterated food. No, I am in fact a human being… it’s just that I’m a RATIONAL one.

I defy you to produce *ANY* evidence of man-made global warming. *ANY* Please don’t rehash the lame “hockey stick” (disproven), the temperature metrics (multiple errors and multiple embarassed apologies by the likes of NASA and others)and even problems with the issue of temperature measurement itself (gross failure to follow standards for weather boxes– yeah read about it.)

Whatever you do manage to conjure up, I can show you the money trail… why the carbon brokers who convince fools that they “care” stand to reap BILLIONS from carbon trading. I can show you other money trails… researchers whose entire existence hinges on grants… grants that won’t come if they don’t tow the company line.

(Just WHAT do you think would happen to funding for a “global warming” researcher if he was to objectively determine, and then report, that there was no such thing? Are you aware that people have lost jobs and entire careers for daring to say that the global warming “emperor” has no clothes? Apparently not.)

Even if you think you CAN show “global warming,” so what? “Global wrming” does not equal “man-made global warming.” The earth has heated and cooled, sometimes rapidly and without apparent reason, many hundreds of thousands or millions of times over the 40 billion year history of the planet. That’s what the earth does— it CHANGES— constantly.

Who the hell is Al Gore, or YOU for that matter, to decide for the entire planet what the “correct” temperature should be? By what objective measurement did you rule out the possibility that the last 2000 years has been “too cold” and that any “warming,” is not part of the earth’s mechanism to return to the “correct” temperature?

Sure, I understand why Obama thinks he’s qualified to set to the earth’s thermostat, because after all, he thinks he’s God— but you?

Oh! CO2 levels are up? Well, I’ve got news for you. I get up every morning, and the sun comes up every morning. Thus, I have a large data set depicting an irrefutable link between me and the sun. The discussion is over! The sun rises each morning because I DO. (Yes, I’m joking. My point is that correlation does not equal cause-and-effect.)

Please… don’t offend me with talking points from a lame ex-vice president hypocrite who uses ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more fuel and energy each year than most people on the entire planet. Please don’t quote the Copenhagen jackasses with their private jets and fleets of limos (who will generate more CO2 than some African countries do in an entire year), or the Kyoto crowd who wants the USA to take it in the shorts, but has decided that pollutants that come from Russia, China, and elsehwere somehow won’t hurt the planet. Do you realize what you are to these people? A SUCKER.

The problem with the whole global warming hoax is the absolute absence of objective science. It’s AWOL– gone. Instead, we want to enslave productive people on the basis of warm-fuzzies, PR, and computer models that can’t seem to predict the weather a week in advance, let alone 10 or 15 years.

Bottom line, if you feel so strongly about the GW hoax, put your money where your mouth is. Instead of dictating to me what *I* should be thinking or doing, start by changing *YOUR* impact on the planet. Unplug your computer and network connection. Grow your own cotton, and weave your own clothes. Grow and hand-pick your own food. Rise when the sun rises, go to bed when it sets. Don’t make use of any kind of lighting, fuel, adhesives, paints, plastics, or pharmaceuticals. Don’t use matches… in fact, don’t cook your food or heat the cave you’ll have to live in. When you have done this successfully for 5 years, you can come back and give us all some pointers on doing our “fair share” to save the earth.

Lest I forget, a reply to your comments about abortion. YOU missed the entire point. The issue was the insanity (otherwise called “the law”) that says if you kill a child by accident, you are murderer, but if you kill it on purpose, you are “exercising your right as a woman.”

I don’t care what side of the fence you’re on…the point is that you can’t be on BOTH.

Correction to typo— I meant 4.5 billion year history of the planet.

Utterly dissapointed, not by the “hack” but by the big “off topic” comments here, no matter who what said.
Please, if you want to discuss stuff like this, go to sites/blogs/forums who are about that.

Now technicall stuff please.

My main grasp with all these “smart” phones is that they are simply (especially in Belgium) way to expensive for the amount of “smart” you get.
N900 is a fine piece of kit, but 600 euro??? com’on.

@Moreau
GTFO, thanks

@polossatik
Considering the amount of processing power and RAM that’s packed into such a small device, I’d say 600EUR is justified.

Look at the specs for the Droid/Milestone:
550 MHz CPU, 430MHz DSP, 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 3.7 inch WVGA multitouch screen, 5.0MP camera with flash, Wifi, and Bluetooth

all in 169 grams! Sure, you could purchase it on contract but you have to understand that the real production cost of the device has barely (if any) profit margins.

@octel

Come on man, as if you believe there are no (or small) profit margins. Have you seen the net profit of all these phone manufacturers?

@Moreau
Don’t bother. He’s obviously a Global Warming Consiracy Denier.

I love that word, denier. I’m going to start using it more. As in: you are a just another Flying Spaghetti Monster denier.

Oh ya. Rooted Phones = win

Nice hack. Wow that went off topic fast.

@Urza9814

Mind you, I have no objection to your point of view. It’s your “logic” that makes my eyeballs bleed.

If you can’t tell the difference between death by a failure to act, vs death as the result of purposeful intent and action, you have some serious problems.

The average lab monkey can identify the difference.

@Moreau “Guess what produces CO2 besides cars, planes, and factories…YOU DO.”

CO2 produced from biological processes has very different implications than CO2 from fossil fuels, because CO2 from biological sources is CO2 that was extracted from the atmosphere to begin with.

The fact that you don’t understand this tells me you’re either scientifically illiterate or willfully ignorant, and that everything else you say on this subject is likely to be B.S.

“CO2 produced from biological processes has very different implications than CO2 from fossil fuels, because CO2 from biological sources is CO2 that was extracted from the atmosphere to begin with.”

I think you forget where fossil fuels come from.

@Moreau
“ah bloo bloo bloo”

Yes, we all need the government to some extent or another. Do you live in a shack in the woods? Did you make the computer you’re using out of sticks and rocks by hand? Don’t forget, you’re using the internet, a service that originated from a little organization called DARPA (psst, it’s part of the DoD).

In short:
Moreau, Zelka,and Urza9814 — please GTFO and take your shitty trolling elsewhere.

But, the last post of octel, was amusing, and I’m not even american.

and about the Android and the networks.
I think that if they use some proprietary code in their system, they have the right to protect it, and make agreements about its use. In the end, they’re not prohibiting you developing software for android, and at least in my country, you sign a contract, there’s nobody forcing you to do it (although, if there isn’t another option in another company, maybe it would be an unethical marketing approach?).

Well, I’m not that literate about cellphones, monopolies and network contracts (neither have a “smart” phone). That’s just what I know, and my humble opinion.

By the way, @Octel–

You’re a spirited SOB. I have friends like you. Maybe one of these days, I have opportunity to buy you a beer.

Another embedded system running unsigned code. I guess it’s interesting, I don’t even own a cell phone or smart phone, but am thinking about getting the ST-Ericsson U8500 because it pwns this and the latest iphone in many aspects, most notable processing power. It’d be fun to reverse it.

i wike animals…

Everyone has their favorite way of using the internet. Many of us search to find what we want, click in to a specific website, read what’s available and click out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because it’s efficient. We learn to tune out things we don’t need and go straight for what’s essential.
This goal-oriented way of surfing the web is largely based on short-term results. For example, finding facts to write a blog post, doing a comparison before making a purchase and reading a news site to find owww.onlineuniversalwork.com
ut what’s happening right now.

First off I think the droid should have been completely open originaly. (Stupid companys wont let anyone take potential profit)

Also Moreau I think you should not worry so much. People can think what what they want and trying to change their minds is far too difficult. It takes two oposing forces to create friction.

Call me a hippocrite but I dont thing this comment thread is for anything other than rooted droid coments anyway.

I’ll take a beer too.