• pacoboyd
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    6 months ago

    Let’s be real here. Folks running Linux as thier desktop have a high chance of knowing what they are actually doing. Folks with rooted android phones have a high chance of having watched a 12 year old tell them how to root thier phone on TicTok. Which of these groups is participating in the more risky activity?

    • @[email protected]
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      6 months ago

      This is the real problem.

      Far too many people with rooted phones having no business with a rooted phone, installing whatever from wherever with no regard to the security implications.

      At least people with root on a Linux system, by default, are going to be more knowledgeable in that regard.

    • @[email protected]
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      236 months ago

      12 year old tell them how to root thier phone on TicTok

      The real pros learn from Indian guys on Youtube

      • pacoboyd
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        6 months ago

        Can’t tell if this is serious question or not, but for the end user. Lemmy is a bit of a technical microcosm, so while we might not want protection from ourselves, the MAJORITY of people out there are not technically savvy. So while not everyone has a linux workstation (lets assume 2-3% based on some reporting) Android has an approximate 70% worldwide market share. So that means the VAST majority of people running Android probably can’t be trusted to plug in a toaster correctly. This is the same reason there are guiderails on roads with steep embankments.

    • @[email protected]M
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      6 months ago

      The last time I rooted my phone, I used a sketchy app I downloaded from megaupload (man, I’m getting old) that may or may not have given that phone superherpes. You are not wrong.

    • Anna
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      36 months ago

      But what about those of us who are running degoogled GrapheneOS.

      • pacoboyd
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        56 months ago

        I think you probably fall into that 3% I talked about in my other comment. I bet you know how to block apps from detecting root too, so probably not a good faith argument.

    • @[email protected]
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      6 months ago

      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
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        16 months ago

        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).

        • @[email protected]
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          6 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

    • YAMAPIKARIYA
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      26 months ago

      I unrooted my phone because Google making things harder every time was just not worth the benefit to me anymore.