Kuhn: At Least Motorola Admits It

Posted Jul 19, 2010 9:33 UTC (Mon) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
In reply to: Kuhn: At Least Motorola Admits It by Trelane
Parent article: Kuhn: At Least Motorola Admits It

It could conceivably be that the OP was correct that the software can fuse a selected part in order to require you to go back to the shop and get a new chip, or get a second fuse blown for you

I would be surprised, given a device equipped to update its own firmware without return-to-base, if they designed it in a way that meant their service department would have to remove the casing, demount the screen, rework the PCB, remount the screen, and reinstate the casing just to recover the firmware if the update glitched. (The manufacturer lockdown module is unlikely to be able to tell the difference between "misprogrammed official firmware" and "unofficial firmware", and a mobile phone doesn't have room for socketed components.)

Kuhn: At Least Motorola Admits It

Posted Jul 19, 2010 9:59 UTC (Mon) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link] (1 responses)

I agree.

It also seems extremely unlikely that they'd pick the most complicated and likely most expensive chip on the board (OMAP3) and blow e-fuses within it to implement such a scheme. That more or less would translate into needing to swap out the entire PCB that contains the OMAP.

It seems quite sufficient for the device to just check the flash signature and go to a recovery mode on signature failure, especially since TI builds that function into the ROM and CPU (M-Shield, linked above). It just uses e-fuse for key information.

So, while it's technically possible they could have a truly self-destructing phone, it seems extremely unlikely.

Kuhn: At Least Motorola Admits It

Posted Jul 19, 2010 11:43 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]

*shrug* You're probably both right. Especially since the source is a dude on the internet. :)