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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2024

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  • While unlocking the bootloader […] unleashes the full potential of the bootloader, it also poses a security risk. Even with your lockscreen protected with a pattern/PIN/password, not having flashed a custom recovery, having an anti-theft app installed (maybe even converted/installed as a system app) your phone’s data is easily accessible for a knowledgeable thief.

    All the thief needs to do is reboot into the bootloader and boot or flash a custom recovery such as ClockWorkMod or TWRP. It’s then possible to boot into recovery and use ADB commands to gain access to the phone’s data on the internal memory (unless you have it encrypted) and copy/remove files at will.

    Granted, the risk seems low. The thief would not only require knowledge of fastboot, he would have to turn off the phone before you have issued a wipe command using an anti-theft app. You could of course flash back the stock recovery & relock the bootloader after being done with flashing stuff, but that would require you to unlock it again if needed which will erase your userdata.

    Of course, a thief can/is also the government.

    But, most phones can be unlocked by the pigs regardless, with eg. Cellebrite. The best bet is probably a pixel, as it can be relocked easily, with graphene. Or no phone at all.
    Also, I’d guess many Cellebrite tricks work with (weak?) pins/patterns. Use a password, and no fingerprint. And on eg. graphene, the emergency wipe after 10 wrong pws etc.









  • Imo builtin AdBlockers is much worse than addons. You have no free choice, have to trust that the devs will provide updates regularly and accurately (in contrast to just switching to another AdBlocker when eg. uBlock breaks), and are fucked once they decide it’s too much work/Google pays them a nice sum to not block them/they decide to just replace the ads instead of removing them.

    Addons on iOS, just as on Android, are very much needed and an actual solution to a whole plethora of problems, that no browser on its own could ever solve.