Usually the term ‘jailbreaking’ isn’t meant to be taken quite that literally, but in the case of the US prison tablet that [Hugh Jeffreys] got sent, it’s really quite apt. Unlike the typical transparent prison electronics, this tablet is hermetically sealed inside an opaque plastic case, with the Windows 10 install firmly locked-down and not allowing anything more to be done with it than access some prison-provided services via the browser in kiosk mode.
The first challenge was to see whether it could be booted at all, with just four metal pads visible on the side of the case. These turn out to correspond to USB pins, but the tablet only briefly tries to turn on with a charger connected. This means that a teardown is required, which ended up involving a hacksaw due to the sealed case.
Inside the case is the Windows tablet with the back cover removed, presumably for easy access to extend its USB port. All of this is embedded in foam and more gunk that makes disassembly rather messy. With the case opened it becomes clear that the likely reason why this tablet was junked was due to a bad third-party charger board, as using the tablet’s own USB port it charges happily and even turns on.
From there it’s a bit of a fight with the locked-down Windows installation, but as it’s just a Windows 10 Home installation, there’s no drive encryption or such to get in the way. This allows for the device to be fully jailbroken, revealing its specifications as an Iview Optimus-C-8001, powered by an Intel Atom Z8350 at 1.44 GHz with a blistering 2 GB of RAM. The Windows installation was from 2018, with apparently no updates since.
Despite the very high school arts-and-crafts appearance of the case itself, the tablet itself isn’t too shabby considering the limited hardware specifications. Although getting the case off is a bit of a pain, it’s not a bad catch if you can find one of these puppies in the e-waste bin.
The poorly 3d-printed case screams “no-bid contract corruptly awarded to a family member”.
It’s also kind of twisted that they are rented for profit. You have pretty limited entertainment in jail; exercise, library books, a tv in a common room. I can understand adding some more modern options, but I can’t understand why the jail should be allowed to put them behind a paywall. That adds a bunch of perverse incentives, questions about captive audience, and inequality.
You just gave a good description of the US prison system
What’s worse is all the “for profit” prisons, many awarded an obscene amount of $$ on No Bid contracts. I’m sure it’s equally obscene the fees they charge inmates for these ‘perks.’
Yeah… They have tablets in the jail here in Nova Scotia (Canada) and they are also behind a perverse paywall…. Though we can rent movies on them or play games from a shoddy selection of android games from 2012-2013 era (RE: KitKat days).
11 cents a minute they charge even if you’re just logged in and sitting at the home launcher screen… There is a “free” section that lets you get online to a Bible website or you can read a PDF of the jail’s handbook.. it’s kife as hell. 11 cents a minute!
That’s $6.60 an hour, you end up paying almost 15 bucks to watch your average length movie..
So they let you post to Hackaday from jail too? That’s worth 11c/min.
Incidentally, on the outside we also have to pay about $15 to watch a movie.
Chances are he is out of jail or has a relative who was/is imprisoned.
We live in a world where private prison companies sponsor bills in state legislatures to add new crimes and longer sentences for existing crimes. Of course it’s done opaquely for deniability. Why would a paywall for these tablets surprise you.
Yeah it’s a punishment
if you read the relevant constitution amendment, slavery was made illegal – except – in the case of those imprisoned, so it is hardly surprising that for profit prisons treat the inmates as such.
Isn’t it great? /S
Runaway slaves are criminals -> criminals can be imprisoned -> prisoners are slaves…
What IS more than just surprising is that this clause(?) has still not been changed/superseded(?).
There’s a pretty active movement to convert the constitution to a religious document, and the founders to religious figures. I’ve seen people who bring little pocket-sized constitutions with them when they leave to house so they can quote it at will. And tattoos. And bumper stickers. The gun lobby turbocharged this since the 2nd amendment protects their existence.
One of the problems with religious texts is that you cannot change them because they are God-given and therefore perfect. So we’ve had only one constitutional amendment in my 40-year lifetime, and it is a very very narrow one that doesn’t effect the general public (a 1992 restriction on the salary of congressmen).
If the Constitution were more easily amended it would hold no weight. It is the framework of our society. The constitution SHOULD rarely NEED to be amended. We have an ever changing body of laws to fill most any need to adapt our governance.
If you look at the rate at which the founding fathers themselves made constitutional amendments it’s clear they did not share that opinion.
Meanwhile we haven’t even made updates to reflect the existence of machine guns, equal rights for women, mass surveillance technology, or the computing power to win any election through gerrymandering.
It’s also pretty messed up that Wyoming gets as many senators as California despite having 98.5% less population. That system was a compromise to allow for the original federation, but is nonsensical now 250 years later.
1791 The first 10 amendments were so quickly passed as they were ideals that were initially thought so fundamental they were not included in the original text but were found necessary to be codified to unify support and cohesion of the nation.
1795 and 1801: 11 and 12 were added shortly thereafter as we discovered difficulties in governing a nation larger than any before it in a time when communication and travel was quite slow across these distances.
These were not so much alterations to the constitution as they were early issues being discovered and addressed.
1865–1870: Amendments 13-15 were the product of the civil war. Necessary due to the fundamental change in how Blacks were viewed under law.
Its hard to consider much beyond that to be included in “the rate at which the founding fathers themselves made constitutional amendments” broken down as such its pretty clear that the founding fathers DID not amend the constitution easily, quickly, or often.
Amendments for womens rights do not exist? Are their rights not covered by the original bill of rights? and Furthered by the 14th, 19th, and 28th Amendments? Do you want a special “womens bill of rights”?
There is no need for a machine gun amendment. They exist and are regulated by laws already at federal and state levels.
Gerrymandering does not require massive computing power.. The first recognized case of gerrymandering in the United States occurred in 1788 when Patrick Henry manipulated Virginia’s congressional district lines to try and sabotage his political rival, James Madison. However, this attempt ultimately failed as Madison was still elected.
Mass Surveillance technology is a fairly recent development and one that is unlikely to ever see reversed by constitutional amendment. But feel free to write your representative, theyll be happy to round file your concerns.
Finally, It is NOT at all messed up that Wyoming is allowed equal representation to California in the Senate. That is the exactly the design and intent of our founding fathers in establishing a split legislature
All U.S. states are granted two senators to ensure that smaller, less-populated states have an equal voice in the federal government. This system balances legislative power alongside the House of Representatives, where representation is determined by population.
A review and amendments all 10 or 20 years would actually be needed. We don’t live and have worldviews like in 1700 anymore.
edit: we also don’t chop off thieve’s fingers like in ancient Bible anymore.
There used to be a county sheriff -> justice of the peace -> labor contracts system in the south related to the black codes. Vagrancy/Trespass/Sloth/Drunkenness could get you stuck in a system that was outlawed only when Florida applied the black code to a white Yankee who was worked to death.
A farmer is Texas got caught apparently benefitting from this system in the 1940’s and argued successfully that the man was not working off a prison debt but was actually a SLAVE. So when was slavery made illegal? In this case it was legal and defensible.
These have got to be some of the dumbest posts ever on HAD!!
Prisoners should not have access at all to these devices. They are in prison for a reason.
Bleeding hearts often become bleeding hearts….
One needs to occupy their mind in the prison somehow, I don’t see any difference between using one of these tablets and a book or TV. The tablets could be used for pure entertainment or education, either way it’s much more stimulating than staring at a wall.
Books, remember those? While I was incarcerated I read every book in the prison library and finished 2 years of college as well as a degree in automotive mechanics. Tablets, tv and social media are just brain rot with pretty pictures.
Yeah, stick them in prison with nothing to do but learn from other inmates how to become a more successful criminal. Absolutely brilliant idea, Eisenstein.
I suspect the suggestion is that they shouldn’t be allowed access to other inmates either.
id say prison is the wrong place to find successful criminals. the successful criminals are never in prison.
Congressmen??
Im curious what crimes you imagine inmates giving masterclasses in?
Do you really think someone is going to get sentenced for shoplifting and graduate to safecracking during their 6 month sentence?
Most people are in jail for stupidity and self control issues. Very few criminals are locked up for intelligent well thought out schemes, The majority are locked up for violent tendencies, substance abuse issues, and petty theft to fund their substance abuse issues.
Romance scams are probably one of the only “learned in prison” crimes of any significance, and lets be real, If youre corresponding with convicts and putting money on their books, youre pretty much asking for disaster anyway.
Here’s the thing. One day, for some reason, or no reason, you could be in prison. Is this what you would like to happen to you?
Aren’t prisons supposed to be reforming them so when they get out from prison they can re-enter society a well adjusted and level headed person who doesn’t commit crimes again?
Or would you rather keep them locked up in their cells as long as possible with no enrichment, until they go mad and start more prison riots?
Or maybe your the type who wants to maximize every free moment they have spent doing actual labor, for minimal pay, for someone else’s profit, in these for profit prisons i keep hearing about?
Ha! Oh goodness no, reform is a fantasy
You should seriously watch some documentation about eg. Swedish prisons (or was it the Finish?).
There are much better concepts for what a prison is supposed to be and do. Robbing inmates of their free movement but not of all freedoms and trying to help them become a better person for a successful reintegration into society.
Does that work for all prisoners? No, of course not but it wastes less resources than the infinite circlejerk many if not most USAs prisons turn out to be.
So you finished your time? Good luck outside with no money, no home, almost no job opportunities -> …. -> Welcome back to the prison.
Hell, around here employers are not allowed to ask for prison sentences – at most after specific stuff relevant to the job one is applying on.
You know what “happened” when a prisoner finished their time? They “paid” their debt to society – any addition punishment afterwards is just piling shit on top (like eg. not even being allowed to vote in Florida).
Sweden has a population of 10.6 million people with 106 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, and a total prison population of roughly 11,232 incarcerated individuals. Sweden has a very low poverty rate, socialized medicine/mental health, and has robust public housing accounting for 20% of the countries total housing stock, or roughly 50% of the rental market.
The current population of the United States is approximately 342.5 million, The total U.S. incarceration rate is approximately 542 per 100,000 residents, representing about 1.8 million people, nearly 1/6 the population of Sweden. The official U.S. poverty rate is 10.6%, representing 35.9 million people living below the federal poverty threshold more than 3 times the entire population of Sweden.
Providing public housing, health/mental healthcare for such a large population is an entirely different issue
Grapes and watermellons are both green and ovoid but thats were the comparison ends. What works for one does not necessarily scale to the other.
Simple solution:
Send American prisoners to Sweden.
Too cold.
Send them to Wisconsin for a winter first.
Even the population is the same.
Except Wisconnies drink more, more like Fins than Swedes.
They even eat Lutfisk in American Scandinavia.
F’n disgusting.
That’s why US has states, no?
Sweden should only be used as a bad example.
“Robbing inmates of their free movement but not of all freedoms and trying to help them become a better person for a successful reintegration into society.”
I never understood this argument. In the majority of cases, I don’t want inmates to reintegrate. I want them to stay in prison forever.
The only good argument I’ve ever heard for raising taxes, was to give out life sentences for every violent criminal, every bike thief, car thief, pickpocketter etc. Just remove them from society and let them stay in prison for life. They get to be among other criminals and we can live in peace.
Yeah ok, if you see people superficially as mere numbers. And you also pay to house and feed them their whole life?
addendum: oops, too bad; you’ve made the wrong mistake (laws are not fair or transparent everywhere). You’re now in prison forever.
Wow. You’re great at a party, aren’t ya? /s
Reddit is that way
Around 10% of all US men spend time in jail at some point. Even my wife, who has a law degree, has been to prison. The flow is too large to keep forever, even if we ignored the constitutional protection from cruel punishment.
It’s like saying you don’t want to release sewage into the clean ocean, and you also don’t want to pay for a treatment system, so you’re going to continually build storage tanks forever.
Nice.
Mixing jail and prison as if they were the same thing.
Prison is for bits longer then 1 year, felonies.
IIRC every state in the USA won’t let you past the bar with a felony.
Without blowing the bar discipline committee anyhow.
Of course legal secretary is also a ‘law degree’…if you’re a liar/lawyer type person.
I’d be amazed if the real stat for jail isn’t higher then 10%.
You go to jail for the night for getting caught having any kind of fun.
I’m mentally enumerating my friends/acquaintances of both genders, (a fair mix of blue, white collar, business owners, professionals, sales, musicians, bikers and a few outright criminals. No government employees, I have standards.)
I’d say about 50+% have been to jail for a night.
20% served a jail sentence.
5-10% prison.
Of course ‘I never do nothing wrong, but everytime I get the blame!’
That was when I was very young.
Mom blaming everything my siblings did on me taught me to never get caught.
Also helps not to do really dumb things.
I think my ‘peak dumb’ was driving golf balls on the police station personal car parking lot, even there we were ninja teens.
Also:
Barkake: v) Blowing the bar discipline committee.
I’ll see myself out.
Norway and Canada are probably better examples to learn from. They are better than Sweden at (re)habilitating people with lower cases of repeated offences.
Here in Sweden we are getting much worse at it. Now both employers and landlords most often do background checks so the people leaving prison can neither get jobs nor places to live. A good way to make sure they have to do crimes again. The right wing parties compete in being the toughest on crime, they have and want to further increase the prison times for various crimes. The prisons are already more than full, so they have made deals with other countries to run prisons there. It will get a lot worse before it gets better again.
Canada would have to actually punish criminals for that to be true here.
To be bettered and re-integrated into society. If dangerous, to keep the people safe.
Oh, you thought for some perverse view on justice, for mere punishment?
Also, the biggest internet/finance-criminals are entirely legal, since they use loopholes. Young people look up to them, because status.
Looks like an Etch-a-Sketch.
I helped design a couple tablets for prison at a prior job. It is interesting to see what goes on in getting one able to be made available for inmates. The ones we worked on had to be locked down from the touch interface. We didn’t have any networking stack on the device, and the USB port was non standard as well.
From a production stand point, they aren’t very expensive in the way of individual components, but with an expected warranty and the likely hood of abuse, the margin is raised to cover expected costs. Not to mention all the supporting software had to be special built and the cost recouped over a fairly small number of units.
In our case, we delivered educational material as ebooks on the tablets. The state was paying for the books and distributing them on the devices. Inmates could get educated.
The studies point out that the higher the education, the less likely someone would offend. So if the initial education from the state didn’t help enough, the education while incarcerated should reduce the likely hood of offending again. In the end, an inmate who exited jail/prison and was able to improve themselves would cost less in the future and would likely pay back to the state more than was spent on them.
If you want to be upset about the for profit side of incarceration. Look into the phone calls or even the sending money to inmates that then use it for the limited items they can buy while incarcerated. Most of the money transfer systems charge fairly high fees to move money from outside to inside. Think grand-ma sending Johnny $20 a week, and $5 comes off the top as fees.
Then the commissary is highly overpriced for items that are jail/prison spec. And you can’t always take those items with you when you leave. Some items are purposefully made to a lower standard. Headphones must have cords that can break or risk them being used as a garrote.
I remember being told at some of the prisons, that was a hot commodity since it kept for a long time and sometimes they would need to prep food in the cell for some reason.
Before I left that industry, I know there had been a push to make all mail be delivered electronically. If you sent something in the physical mail, it would be scanned and delivered electronically. This was done to further physically separate the incarcerated from the outside world and reduce the ability to get something to the incarcerated like drugs or other unacceptable items. I don’t think I knew a the time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the delivery of the mail electronically would start incurring fees as well.
Prisoners could bodge up a USB adaptor.
Then with a specially built rubber ducky script you could restore a lot of functionality. They are known to just ‘type in’ any files that are missing, once they get write to the filesystem.
If the tabletentury shipped with USB keyboard drivers, which I’m guessing it did, because lazy admins.
There really should be some award for people that invent things like rubber duckies. (USB fobs that identify as keyboards but then run scripts.)
Nice work!
Which is what I was hoping for, ‘am dissapoint’.
Windows 10 home from 2018…
What they need is a rubber ducky and a script for that OS version.
To jailbreak the tablet with just a USB device and a bodged up adaptor.
Then a way to make it look unhacked w secret unlock method.
Not sure if it would help, but they might find one spot that gets one bar from a badly secured AP.
You goobers were so busy trying to turn this into a reddit thread that you totally missed the fact that it is a Windows tablet lol.
ding ding ding!
I formally award you with Hackaday Gold
Work detail maintaining the prison? Great! So long as it’s within reason. Work outside of that like chain gangs? You are just taking jobs from the non-prisoners, possibly even leading to more desperation leading to more criminals.
Education programs?
Ok. I bet you aren’t interested in paying for that. Or.. even if I am wrong, we have a LOT of voters who are not. We also have a lot of corrupt politicians and corrupt commercial prisons that will take that money for their own uses. How about opening these tablets up to some educational sites? And make it free or at least affordable to use them? Not that I would want to do away with education programs, but to supplement them.
Treatment programs?
Treatment for what? Mental health? I think the regimen you described is going to completely f**k up their mental health anyway. What do you want the treatment to accomplish? Maybe add some time-limited and well vetted entertainment options so as to preserve mental health.
Evidently, it’s pretty easy to get around any restrictions on prison tablets. California spent millions providing tablets to prisoners in a push for “digital equity”. They used them to watch porn and exploit women and children from behind bars.
https://www.foxla.com/news/california-death-row-inmates-porn-taxpayer-tablets
https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/california-inmate-accused-of-calling-and-sexual-messaging-a-child-on-prison-tablet
That’s just CA…Government employee incompetent at locking down tablets…Not news.
Reads first link…
They gave them tablets that came with a video chat application?
That’s not incompetence, that’s sabotage.
Look for the nearest Frenchman and blame them.
It’s always the treacherous French.