decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more...
decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


You won't find me on Facebook


Donate

Donate Paypal


No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.


What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments


Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
rooted(?) Android phone. | 348 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
rooted(?) Android phone.
Authored by: jesse on Wednesday, April 10 2013 @ 01:39 PM EDT
It means that you have taken responsibility for all operations of the system.

You have access to all software configurations, what is installed, removed, and
can customize it in any way you want.

By default, most phones are controlled by the group you purchased the phone
from; and as part of the contract your purchase was subsidized and you are
forbidden to "root" your device (a violation of the contract). This
puts full control over the phone in the hands of the vendor. You are allowed
limited personalization, and my not remove just any application (usually limited
to additional third party applications purchased from the application store).

The term "rooted" does come from "having the root password",
whether you got it by asking, or via some bug to have subverted the systems
security and put your own password in place.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

rooted(?) Android phone.
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 10 2013 @ 07:22 PM EDT
The term comes from Unix style OS's which Android is in fact based off (Linux
kernel). Their is a user called root by default that has full access to do
anything it wants to the system software. Other users on these computers can
also get the same full access as the root user so they can change system stuff
and this is called getting root access. This lead to the term rooting and then
the term rooted to refer to a computer that you have gained this high level
access.

getting root access is a risky thing because it means you can do anything to the
system including stuffing it up. Also their is a risk that malicious software
can do a lot of damage if it gains root access. So a rooted phone has a risk
that you will do something bad to your phone software or let a virus run rampant
so it has to be used with some caution.

Also note that using root on a phone is not illegal. your not breaking any laws
by using it. What you do with your root access may break copyrights or other
law but that's no different than any other thing in this world really.

There is an issue in some countries if they have laws like the DCMA that stop
you breaking a locked system. It could be argued that enabling root on your
phone which often involves exploiting some fault in the phones security could
break laws like the DCMA. Their is currently a DCMA exception in place to allow
you to legally root a phone you own yourself. But these DCMA exceptions are not
a fixed law and are constantly being re evaluated and changed so what is legal
now may not be forever. Tablets may get different DCMA exception rulings than
phones and phones that have a discount from a carrier and are still under
contract may be treated differently as well.

With countries with no DCMA or equivalent it falls back to the general you own
it so do what you want. Just be aware of copyright laws etc.

Also note that for Android phones there is two forms of 'hacking'. One is
replacing the bootloader which is the first bit of software on the phone that
runs when it first loads. A new bootloader allows you to completely change the
OS on the phone so you can run a different or modified version of android or
even full linux. Installing a new bootloader sometimes needs software to
temporarily root the phone first but not always. Once you put a new OS/ROM on
your phone then it may come already rooted or if not you may choose to root this
new OS as well later. You can also choose not to root it for security reasons.

Michael

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • DCMA = DMCA - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 15 2013 @ 12:09 PM EDT
rooted(?) Android phone.
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 10 2013 @ 07:32 PM EDT
Also note a root kit is just a virus or similar that uses root level access to
install itself right into the system software so that it can hide itself from
detection. how do you detect or remove software that acts as the system and
tells all running programs that it is not even there?

Michael

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details )