CyanogenMod to disable root by default

In the wildly unlikely event that you're as out-of-the-loop as me, "CyanogenMod" is an alternative firmware for many Android based phones. Very approximately: think OpenBios for phones, (so one can imagine by the transitive property of projected Feldmannkeys that not permitting easy root access is a consummate "good thing")

With more streaming media applications that don't work on rooted devices, it makes this more attractive to people who just want their device to work, and don't want to play cat and mouse games to hide the root capabilities from those applications.

I'm dubious about the value of the bulk of this change.

Before: Applications can ask SuperUser.apk for root privileges. The user must then explicitly grant or deny privileges, and allow subsequent grants (or denies) to be silent by default for that specific application.

After: The exact same, except that first you have to go into a setting dialog and change something to let this work.

The belief here is roughly "Users will have to learn what root means before they enable it, and then they'll be educated and make good decisions" which is the same thinking that led to all those useless dialogs people click through in their web browser warning them of the perils of insecure form submission, partially insecure content, and so on and so forth.

It's futile. The users who previously made thoughtful and cautious decisions using SuperUser.apk will continue to do so. The users who routinely granted privileges to "Fun Fart Noise App" will still do so, and will still blame Cyanogen, Google, the phone manufacturer or their local politicians when their bank account is duly emptied. But now there will be dozens of Youtube videos entitled "How to enable root on Cyanogen" explaining how to click past the annoying setting.

The disabling of ADB root by default I'm OK with. That's a useful extra line of defence in some scenarios. But the main change is essentially theatre.