ACLU Asks FTC To Force Carriers To 'Patch Or Replace' Android Devices 318
chicksdaddy writes "The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday calling on the federal government to take action to stem an epidemic of unpatched and insecure Android mobile devices – declaring the sea of unpatched and vulnerable phones and tablets 'defective and unreasonably dangerous.' The civil liberties group's complaint for injunctive relief with the FTC (PDF), notes that 'major wireless carriers have sold millions of Android smartphones to consumers' but that 'the vast majority of these devices rarely receive software security updates.' The ACLU says carriers leave their customers vulnerable to malware and spear phishing attacks that can be used to record or transmit information on the device to' third parties. 'A significant number of consumers are using smartphones running a version of the Android operating system with known, exploitable security vulnerabilities for which fixes have been published by Google, but have not been distributed to consumers' smartphones by the wireless carriers and their handset manufacturer partners,' the ACLU said. Android devices now account for close to 70 percent of new mobile devices sold. The porous security of many of those devices has become a topic of concern. The latest data from Google highlights the challenge facing the company, with just over 25% of Android users running versions 4.1 or 4.2 – the latest versions of the OS, dubbed 'Jelly Bean,' more than six months after its release. In contrast, 40% of Android users are still running the 'Gingerbread' release – versions 2.3.3 through 2.3.7, a two year-old version of the operating system that has known security vulnerabilities."
Not Owning Your Hardware... (Score:5, Informative)
I think this shows one of the greatest flaws in the not owning your hardware debate. What happens when you the company that owns it simply gives up on support??? You're left holding the bag but can't change it's content.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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If the rumors of Windows Blue are true even MSFT will be getting in on the act, with a new version of Windows being put out every year. If this happens you'll see $1500 laptops treated like $50 tablets because "Your laptop only has drivers for Windows 10 and we are now on Windows 12, go buy a new one".
How so? This would only maybe be the case if they change the driver model at every release, which they haven't done and is why even Vista drivers work on Windows 8. But even then one of my systems with a pre-vista graphics card is still supported in Windows 7.
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Wait, what? Are you sure "unlocking" doesn't actually refer to the cellular communication and not the operating system? They're completely different things.
Criminalizing either one is asinine, but at least locking the communication system to one carrier during the contract period makes an ever-so-slight amount of sense.
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at least locking the communication system to one carrier during the contract period makes an ever-so-slight amount of sense.
How so? If you subscribe to cellular voice and data service in one country, and you buy a prepaid SIM in another country for a business trip or vacation, your primary carrier is still getting your monthly payment and still recovering the phone subsidy. And if your hypothesis were correct, then why would prepaid carriers such as Virgin Mobile USA be selling locked phones and using radio protocols such as CDMA2000 that encourage the sale of locked phones?
Distinction without difference (Score:3)
your primary carrier is still getting your monthly payment and still recovering the phone subsidy.
No they subsidize the phone based on the fees they collect for usage
What you refer to as "the fees they collect for usage" is part of what I referred to as "your monthly payment". Could you explain the difference?
why would prepaid carriers such as Virgin Mobile USA be selling locked phones and using radio protocols such as CDMA2000 that encourage the sale of locked phones?
Don't like it? Buy one outright instead.
Phones bought outright from CDMA2000 carriers are still locked.
Re:Not Owning Your Hardware... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never had to wait for a carrier to upgrade my iPhone.....
Re:Not Owning Your Hardware... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never had to wait for a carrier to upgrade my Nexus.....
Oh, wait, did you think that was unique to iPhone?
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How do you know? For all you know, updates were available weeks before you got them but they had to be tested by the carrier as well as Apple before you got them. The only reason Android people are aware of these issues is because of the variety of devices from a wide variety of carriers.
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Bullshit. TMobile upgraded my TMo Dash (HTC Excalibur) to Windows Mobile 6 before the iPhone even came out.
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Rooting is not illegal, nor is running custom ROMs. Carrier unlocking is illegal.
No law is needed (Score:2)
Customer education is needed. Many of theses devices have upgrades available. Those that don't may not be able to run the newer versions satisfactorily. If a law like this is passed, I see carriers and makers having to shoehorn updates that don't fit and run terribly onto consumer devices that are years out of date.
Carriers and handset makers need to educate customers in order for the customer to protect themselves. The customers themselves need to take responsibility for their device and its security. Carr
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You're missing a very important aspect: The fact that carriers have mostly no motivation to keep "their" devices updated, and thus no motivation to validate patches, effectively leaving them to be forgotten.
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Carriers want to sell new phones and signup new contracts not pay to update devices.
Service and repair is mostly for hardware issues, for software they normally tell a use to screw off.
Phone issues are why I am changing carrier. Since VZW screwed with the GN they will not likely get another Nexus. My next device will be a Nexus.
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If this was true then VZW would not delay updates for months on the GN. They would not have skipped updates either. If they wanted to avoid software complaints why load bloatware?
So which is it? They value the delay, or the churn more?
Your theory is neat, but it conflicts with the observable reality.
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We know when VZW gets the file from leaks and such, this means they are delaying months at least.
VZW does not make any changes, Google makes an image for Toro and sends to to VZW for "testing". As far as I can tell this testing is just code for extra delay. The update should go from google to the owner of the device, me, not VZW.
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Why would it add a lot of cost?
The Nexus line gets updated fine and costs less than many phones.
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Ignoring a previous post complaining about the Nexus One no longer getting updates.
No phone, manufacturer, or model is immune to this, nor is any innocent. My G-1 still works fine, but it is clearly an obsolete version of Android, even with CM7 running on it.
And by running, I mean limping. How CM7 got ported to the G1 is scary clever, no complaints, but it's sloooow and unstable, even the stable release. Just not enough RAM to work well.
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Actually all they have to provide is security patches, not an upgrade to the next version of the OS.
So far unless the device is a nexus updates will likely be few and far between. Samsung has being doing better recently, but still very poorly. The GS2 just a week or so ago finally got 4.2.
Re:No law is needed (Score:5, Interesting)
I own a Motorola Atrix 4G. It is an excellent smartphone platform. It has been abandoned
by Motorola even though the phone can easily run ICS and Jellybean. We Atrix 4G users
may never see an official update, on a phone they originally PROMISED to update.
Sad thing is Motorola Mobility is now owned by Google. Go Figure.
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Sad thing is Motorola Mobility is now owned by Google. Go Figure.
Yeah, and they won't give the binary blob needed to run the camera to the Cyanogenmod folks for the Droid 3 either. I'm using very few of the stock applications, but still, I'd like to have a functional upgrade. Motorola Mobility/Google could reduce its liability surface by just forking over the code and letting all the people who would run CM10.1 on the device go "usupported". They'll shut up and the pool of vociferous complainers will be
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Customer education is needed.
I doubt that will scale... The world is complex, you can't ask customers, or even highly skilled technical experts like you and me to understand everything. For example I'll gladly admit that I don't have a clue how bank transfers etc. works, and what security I have that my money doesn't just disappear. And even if I wanted to understand the protocols and security measures the documentation isn't publicly available...
I see carriers and makers having to shoehorn updates that don't fit and run terribly onto consumer devices that are years out of date.
Nobody is talking about major upgrades, just security patches... These usually don't chang
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Here is what I see will happen if such a law is passed. More expensive hardware, maybe one year contracts. The hardware will be more expensive because it will not longer be possible to build a phone that will just be current for the
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There's a difference between fixing something that was broken to begin with and providing new functionality. I get that my first generation iPad only has 256 MB RAM and the features in iOS 6 require at least 512 MB. That shouldn't absolve Apple from fixing bugs in iOS 5 for some reasonable period of time.
Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that so many people don't recognize this, but there is a difference between support and new development. It's not legit to only fix bugs in the newest releases of a produc
Bloatware (Score:5, Insightful)
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Apple's approach to phones is objectively superior in every way. They do not allow the worthless carrier's to touch their hardware or OS, other than to verify that it will work on their network.
Google allowing the carriers to be involved at all in hardware and especially the OS itself was a huge mistake, one they may never recover from.
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May never recover from? They sell more units.
Apple's approach to carriers is the right one, but this end result is because most phones are subsidized. The carriers get the OEM to load crapware and disable features for their advantage. If smartphones were commonly bought right from the OEM they would have no incentives to do these things.
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"objectively superior"
yes, from your perspective maybe. the rest of us like to install things if we want to. If you think carriers don't add bloat to apple I'd like to a: sell you this bridge I own and b: remind you of the apple facetime issue where you'd get a message saying you couldnt' do that.
Apple one upped google: instead of google letting the carriers do whatever they want, apple instead made the carriers doing what they want into something embedded into the phone!
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"objectively superior"
yes, from your perspective maybe.
Which makes it, decidedly, not objective.
Not surprised ... (Score:3)
A couple of months ago my carrier was offering me a new phone.
In the set of phones they were offering me, there were some Samsung models running Android 2.x, and an HTC model running 4.x. The Samsung had better specs, but since it was running such an old version of the OS I decided I'd rather have the HTC.
Of course the big problem is that carriers all put on their own shit to make as much money from you as possible. Selling ringtones, wallpapers, their own app stores, all sorts of crap. They don't want to have to re-certify their apps for new versions, so they're not interested in getting these updates rolled out to customers. In fact, I've heard that many of them actively prevent it.
It took me several days of disabling/uninstalling the crap my carrier had installed to make the phone mostly usable, because they literally try to inject their branding/cash grabs into as much as they can do. I'm not sure I've gotten it all, but there was an awful lot of extra crap that needed to be culled.
Carriers aren't interested in your security, they're interested in maximizing their own revenue. If that leaves you with an old and insecure phone, well, the contract shields them from any liability doesn't it?
Re:Not surprised ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why did you buy a carrier phone?
Why not get a device that might actually get updates?
You voted for this system with your purchase, you are part of why it exists.
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Why did you buy a carrier phone?
Why not get a device that might actually get updates?
A guess would be, because the unsubsidized price is gouged, and hard.
To wit: The other day, I was perusing the Sunday paper circulars when I came across one for Best Buy; on the front page, there was an ad for the Galaxy Tab II 10.1" tablet, and the Galaxy SIII phone; though the specs were almost identical (the SIII has a better processor, the Tab II has a 10 inch screen), the price difference was astronomical; the Tab II was listed for ~$350 and the SIII? Unsubsidized, the cost was $700! Heck, an unlocked
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You can get a Nexus 4 from $299 unlocked and contract free.
Because Verizon uses CDMA2000 (Score:3)
Why did you buy a carrier phone?
One reason might be that CDMA2000 carriers (Verizon and Sprint) have noticeably more reliable coverage where the subscriber lives and works than GSM carriers (AT&T and T-Mobile). There are parts of the United States where Verizon carrier, has the most reliable coverage by far. The problem here is that CDMA2000 carriers in the United States happen not to use a removable CSIM. Instead, the carrier programs the subscriber identity directly into the device, and the major U.S. CDMA2000 carriers are willing t
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With 4.x she will be able to disable bloatware without root. You go into apps, select the app and hit disable. You might have to hit uninstall updates first.
You should be able to also just unroot the device and her work tool should be happy. There are simple tools available in the market to do this.
About time! (Score:5, Insightful)
About bloody time that someone does this. It is absolutely indefensible that the carriers have refused to release patches for known security holes for extended periods of time if they release them at all. This blatantly leaves their customers vulnerable and their customers have no way of circumventing this short of rooting their phones.
I read the article before it appeared on Slashdot and many of these phone will literally never receive any patches from the carrier. These phones are effectively being sold as known defective devices and I hope someone initiates a class action lawsuit on the matter as I can't think of any other way to fix this issue. Patch Management really should not be an afterthought and it affects every device, every operating system and unfortunately there are still legions of idiots out there equate Patch Management with Microsoft Windows patch Tuesday.
That it would require a lawsuit in order to patch your phone and secure it against a known vulnerability say much about about the state of American cell phone industry. This country desperately needs to adopt the standards used by the rest of the world and it's a point of shame that we have the industry we do. Most Americans don't know how bad things are here because they never go abroad, and once they do it's like walking into a candy store for the first time with "you can do that?", again and again.
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The phone companies were used to selling dumb phones that never had updates. They assumed they could sell smartphones the same way, but actually becoming a smartphone manufacturer means you have to provide constant updates for years and invest significant resources in doing so.
To be fair a lot of computer manufacturers fail to understand this as well. Sure, you get Windows updates, but what about drivers and the BIOS? My friend bought a mobo/CPU/RAM/case combo from Novatech and it comes with a custom BIOS t
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RTFA! Many of the phones have been patched by the manufacturer and they in turn have handed over the patch to the carrier. The carriers sit on the patches because they don't want to be bothered taking the time and money to test them. The carriers make the patches because the phones are sold worldwide for many models and they are expected to support them in other markets. If you can't find your patch for your phone in the US you can often the patch for the international version if you look.
Verizon is Horrible About This (Score:2)
Differences in the U.S? (Score:2, Interesting)
Here in Norway, the carriers are not involved in the phone software. They merely provide a SIM card. Software updates are received from Google and sometimes the handset manufacturer. And to save on phone bills, the updates are usually done over wifi. You don't even need the carrier for that - only an ISP. The 'computer' part of the smartphone don't need the carrier (or their SIM card) to operate.
The carriers are only for phoning someone up and talk to them, sms and conference calls. Oh, and they provide 2/3
No CSIM in U.S. (Score:3)
Here in Norway, the carriers are not involved in the phone software. They merely provide a SIM card.
In the United States, two of the major carriers don't use GSM at all but instead CDMA2000. Devices using CDMA2000 are not required to use CSIM cards [wikipedia.org], and most CDMA2000 devices in the U.S. do not. Instead, devices' radio interfaces are hardcoded to talk to one carrier.
Oh, and they provide 2/3/4G internet, but wifi is always cheaper when available.
Is Wi-Fi available on city buses?
And the ACLU cares about this why? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I don't use Windows, but even CNET videos (very un-geeky) describe how to reenable the Start menu.
E-waste (Score:3)
Greenpeace doesn't have a lot of time either, what with its focus on better guidelines for iOS developers to ensure they can safely know ahead of time whether their apps will make it into the App Store.
You're right: it does create e-waste to switch to a Mac and buy an iPad mini only to find that your application concepts would run up against a blanket category ban in the App Store Review Guidelines.
They admit proudly they are payed by Microsoft (Score:2)
The American Civil Liberties Union?
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-and-citizens-united [aclu.org]
"In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled that independent political expenditures by corporations and unions are protected under the First Amendment and not subject to restriction by the government. The Court therefore struck down a ban on campaign expenditures by corporations and unions that applied to non-profit corporations like Planned Parenthood and the National Rifle Association, as well as for-profit corpora
Customers and Google could help (Score:4, Interesting)
There are things Google, and customers, could do to help this problem.
A bit of background as to some of the causes:
Phone manufacturers are hesitant to release updates because they really should test them first. Testing is a pain for a few reasons. One is that they also have customizations to their phone UI. Another is that they have many different hardware configurations. They have all these hardware configurations because their marketing people thought that coming out with an entirely new phone handset every 6 months was a good idea. This problem is amplified by the lawyers who refuse to let them release their drivers open source. So those drivers may not even compile against the latest Android kernel. If they released the drivers, then those drivers would be maintained by Google. (Similar problems existing with some PC hardware manufacturers.)
Sooooo...
Google could require that OEMs provide their drivers back to Google. That way they know the drivers will at least compile against the latest versions of Android. Google has put in some efforts [slashdot.org] to prevent [slashdot.org] fragmentation [slashdot.org]. But I don't think they have addressed the driver issue.
Customers could actually complain to their phone carriers and handset manufacturers about bugs, security problems, and missing features. They could also refuse to buy phones from carriers and manufacturers who don't let you install stock Android on the phone. That right there is the #1 -- just cut out the OEMs entirely.
ACLU is out of its purview (Score:3)
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The google branded devices are going to be the up to date ones. The other brands and especially the carrier specific devices are what is out of date.
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This is one of the reasons I recommend Google phones to my friends who like Android.
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The Nexus one is ancient.
The Nexus line gets updates quickly, not for a longer period of time.
You could easily find community Roms for it if you wanted.
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In other words, just like the GP said, Google said go fuck yourself after 1.5 years.
Yeah, that's SO much better than the carriers.
Re: But We Are Open - We are Google - We are Good (Score:3, Insightful)
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Except for security updates, presumably.
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I have a Nexus One as well.
I don't really mind not getting an update to ICS or Jelly Bean. I DO mind not getting bug fixes.
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Re:But We Are Open - We are Google - We are Good (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But We Are Open - We are Google - We are Good (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you missed the point. Google has published the patches but the carriers have not distributed them.
Actually, may be they have. In the sources the ACLU is using for its FTC complaint, the most thorough and well researched article [arstechnica.com] they're using to support their point, is purposefully not counting minor updates:
(Note that we define "update" as a major point release of Android—2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Gingerbread, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. More minor updates or firmware releases are not accounted for here.)
Now I understand Android users getting pissed off for not getting major updates, but if we're really talking about "security updates", minor versions should at least be counted. Gingerbread for instance is not going away anytime soon. All manufacturers for instance are still making the cheaper single processor Gingerbread phones, and they currently have no plans of ever stopping that (at least not for the lower end of the market). Does that mean that Gingerbread is insecure? Not in the least, Google is still making minor security updates for Gingerbread and will probably continue to do so for years to come.
And ACLU's Christopher Soghian, author/first signature of the two on the formal ACLU complaint, is quoting a Washington Post article which is only quoting himself, ACLU's Christopher Soghian, as the sole source [washingtonpost.com]. WTF? Why did he even feel the need to reference that article? Is his ego more important than the point he is trying to support?
Also, I can no longer find the reference, but the last time his name came up, someone on slashdot found his linkedin profile in which he immediately described himself as being an iPhone owner. And yes, I realize the irony of quoting a source I can no longer find, when I just complained about someone referencing an article in support of his point quoting himself as the sole source.
But assuming I'm telling the truth, or assuming you remember seeing what I saw, who would do that on their linkedin profile? Does he post that on his resume as well? I can think of more subtle ways to communicate one's membership in the iPhone owners club. And if anyone was coming to the rescue of Android users, I would prefer that person to be an Android user/owner himself (after all, there are so many), instead of a person who proudly wears his iPhone as some kind of badge of honor instead (again, that's assuming you think I'm even telling the truth about what I read from his linkedin profile, you may not even believe me of course).
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What part of "carrier" made you think that a post about Google was relevant here?
Re:But We Are Open - We are Google - We are Good (Score:5, Informative)
'A significant number of consumers are using smartphones running a version of the Android operating system with known, exploitable security vulnerabilities for which fixes have been published by Google, but have not been distributed to consumers'
Highlighted the important part from TFS. Google's released patches. Carriers are refusing to give them to their customers. There's nothing Google can do about that. Hence why the ACLU is lobbying the FTC to force the carriers into action.
Lithium (Score:2, Funny)
Dude, you really need to get your Lithium prescription refilled!
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Why would they continue to make bug fixes for an OS version they no longer use?
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When 40% of your user base is on a 3 year old platform, you patch that platform. Google does not sell a phone OS. Android is open source. What Android is really about is getting users and directing their eyes to Google's information services. Google should do right by their customers and patch the old system versions because that's where their customers are. If Google can't go to their customers then Google will slide into irrelevancy like Microsoft has done. If the carriers don't have the capacity to
Re:sounds like the market has spoken (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFS:
'A significant number of consumers are using smartphones running a version of the Android operating system with known, exploitable security vulnerabilities for which fixes have been published by Google
They did release patches, the carriers are blocking them, therefore, ACLU is suing to get the carriers to stop being jerks.
Re:sounds like the market has spoken (Score:4)
When 40% of your user base is on a 3 year old platform, you patch that platform. Google should do right by their customers and patch the old system versions because that's where their customers are.
I know, this is slashdot, but you can at least RTFS which states that carriers are not releasing any fixes for older devices (or, usually, newer devices). So your suggestion is that Google should produce patches which exactly zero people can install? Brilliant!
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What makes you think I am?
I have 0 windows machines that I own.
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Pretty sure he was being rhetorical.
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For the exact same reason Microsoft doesn't make new patches for Windows 95, Windows 3.1 or DOS 6.22.
You already knew that answer, however, so go troll elsewhere.
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For the exact same reason Microsoft doesn't make new patches for Windows 95, Windows 3.1 or DOS 6.22.
Uh, no. Comparing a 2-3 year old OS with a 10-20 year old one is disingenuous at best, and downright stupid at worst.
Had you said, "Microsoft doesn't make new patches for Window XP, or Vista, or 7" I would be with you, except for the fact that they totally still do.
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Part of the problem is that there isn't anything preventing someone from removing Windows 95, 3.1, or DOS 6.22 from their PC and installing an alternate supported operating system.
The big issue with phones is that many of them prevent the user from having the choice to discontinue use of the unsupported OS and move to a supported OS.
I'd argue that when a vendor takes measures to block consensual installation of a 3rd party OS that the vendor must take on the responsibility for ensuring the safety of user fr
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There are lots of reasons why it does not work that way.
ARM has no pci like system, so you need to know what devices are there before you boot. You need drivers that the vendor may not even have, and the OEM will want money for every new version. All this means that every device needs a specific system image and patches can't be applied by everyone the same way like it is in the x86 PC world.
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I meant that you could not make one set of updates for all phones. You have to make them for each phone since you cannot just detect which drivers to use.
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The difference is MS makes patches available.
Now for the people still running Windows 2000, not so much.
Re:And in other news ... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the difference is that no one is blocking anyone from getting the XP updates that Microsoft releases. This isn't about Google no longer supplying updates to old Android versions, it's about carriers blocking users from getting updates.
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I don't use Android phones, but different phones use different specially modified versions of Android. It's not like every version of Android is exactly the same.
You can't just go get a random version of Android and run it on any specific phone.
Re:Jailbreak. (Score:4, Informative)
I run (unofficial) Cyanogenmod and mostly like it, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Every release has a little something important broken. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to the people doing this stuff for free, but when your battery life suddenly gets cut in half and you have to choose between a working camera in the newest release or short battery life, it gets to be a PITA. Plus, it's a time sink...
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My device is not officially supported by Cyanogenmod (or anyone, for that matter), so I'm reduced to using XDA releases.
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So why not let users update the SW themselves over the internet?
Have it make a notice for users to update next time they are on a wifi network, or connected to a computer.
Carriers don't want to not because it'll cost them money, but because it wont sell any more decides so what do they care?
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Because someone still has to port the update to the phone. This is because many devices are not running stock android. If the kernel changes or the issue is with a driver then you are looking at a whole ball of wax.
The issue here is that ARM has nothing like PCI, and has traditionally not had to worry about this sort of thing. This means bootloaders and everything else can and are different across devices.
Carriers don't want to pay for updates because they want you to buy another device.
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So why not let users update the SW themselves over the internet?
Have it make a notice for users to update next time they are on a wifi network, or connected to a computer.
Carriers don't want to not because it'll cost them money, but because it wont sell any more decides so what do they care?
If anything, maybe force the carriers & phone manufacturer to release all the source code for the device they stop updating. Let the community take over if they wish. This is the only reason ROMS for rooted users have bugs. The devs have to guess how various things like the radios work.
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Nice idea, but impractical due to all the proprietary HW in the phone; they can't release since they do not have permission. You'd need dozens of companies to grant permission for that.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Remember the riots that took place because people running Gingerbread were arbitrarily deemed to be using devices too slow to handle the demands of Ice Cream Sandwich?
I love when they use the "your device is too slow" excuse while hundreds if not thousands of rooted people are running versions of Android 1/2 major versions ahead without any problem. I remember putting 4.1 on my HTC Thunderbolt and having it runs leaps and bounds faster than the bloated 2.3.4 that it was on.
I sometimes wonder if they tweak the Android system to run slower just so people will go out and buy a new phone.
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It's too much effort to port all the crapware. Seriously.
The problem with the Nexus lineup is that unless you're on AT&T or T-Mobile, you're SOL. AT&T's mediocre where I mostly use my phone these days. They were that way in prior years in different areas. T-Moble? They'll tell you they've got rocking coverage and blazing "4G" speeds. Maybe. If you're in the downtown area of the major metripolitan markets they're in. If you're in the edges, on the road, etc. you will get decidedly mixed resul
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Nexus branded phones aren't much better. The galaxy S2 got an update to ICS (4.0) then an update to Jellybean (4.1) before updates were discontinued. That's two major updates for the S2. The Nexus S got an update to ICS (4.0) then an update to Jellybean (4.1) and google announced no 4.2 would be coming for the nexus S... That's just two major updates the the Nexus S, no better than the S2. The Nexus one was the same, update to Froyo (2.2) and gingerbread (2.3), then announced no more updates. The sad thin
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The GS2 got Jelly bean last week. The updates for it have not yet been discontinued.
The Nexus S is still well supported in the community and has gotten bug fix versions of 4.1.
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4.2 is current I know, my phone is running 4.2.2.
The T-mobile and Sprint GS2s got 4.1.2 at the end of March or beginning of April. Meaning if 4.2 came out for them it would not be for another 3+ months.
Many non-google phones get no updates or 1 update. Against my recommendation she who must be obeyed bought a rezound. It only ever got one update. It will likely never see anything beyond ICS.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:android lol (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what you think. You never noticed that I was sitting there with two extra cans and a pair of scissors!
Re:android lol (Score:5, Funny)
Very true. My old communications device was the most secure and I've yet to find something that rivals it. It was impossible to spoof, clone, or manipulate and all my data was secure. Sure it was hard to make long-distance calls, because finding large spools of string is difficult, but the fidelity of those tin cans was soooo pure. Plus, they never got any malware, not even once.
Unfortunately, you're very vulnerable to a can-in-the-middle attack.
Re: (Score:3)
Groups like the ACLU always need money. They have to keep their big contributors happy.
I have discoverd that Melissa Chabrán is on the board of the Washing State ACLU. She is also the Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.