gadget: 2013

Samsung Galaxy S 4 Bootloader Unlocked 2013

Dan Rosenberg has done it again… Well, he claims to have unlocked the Samsung Galaxy S 4 bootloader, giving only this slightly blurry image as proof. But anyone who’s been paying attention will know that Dan, aka XDA Recognized Developer djrbliss, is good for his word.

The news comes via a set of Twitter posts over the last few days. The proof photo was posted about five hours ago, with zero details on how he did it. But if you hit his feed and look back a few posts, the picture becomes a little more clear. Two posts dated on April 29th give cryptic clues, literally. He mentions that RSA-2048 is used to sign the kernel and recovery. Looking at a quick Wikipedia reference on this key length tells us that this security is estimated to be uncrackable until at least the year 2030. So how the heck did he do it? Thus far, we know it was not due to a leak:

Is this the result of a leak?
No. I would not associate myself with the publication of confidential materials that are proprietary to these companies, regardless of the fact that I disagree with their policies on device openness. Plus, where’s the fun in that?

Watch the XDA Portal for more news as this develops. And if you’ve got a tasty tidbit of information on this or other exploits use the “Tip Us” button on the top menu bar to help spread the word. To learn more from the source himself, visit the original thread.

Update: Thanks to Recognized Developer k0nane for the correction!

One of the single most important aspects of mobile devices is that they are always connected in some form or fashion. It gives us the ability to sync our content across a wide variety of platforms and devices without needing to have the physical devices in hand. You also get chances to control other peripherals with the help of certain apps, such as being able to mirror your screen onto a TV. Interestingly enough, communications from one of these devices involves not just your ability to do things with it that may affect other devices, but the inverse also can be applied. In other words, you can control your device as well from remote locations/other devices. While we know that there are various apps that will enable some functionality, XDA Forum Member RavinduSha came up with a rather interesting tool that can indeed be a bit of a life saver on certain situations.

Remote Terminal is an app that allows you to access your shell AND execute commands by simply typing an SMS and sending it to the target device. This is like having the terminal emulator open in front of you, but without actually having it. The app listens to any SMS coming into the device and will analyze the content. If the contents are commands for shell, the app will run them (as long as the password is present in the SMS). All commands can be used, from pulling a logcat to creating a directory and even deleting stuff in your device. This, of course, is an app that will carry root level permissions and as such, you will have full control over the device with it. Because of this, it will be on your best interest to ensure that you use a good enough password to prevent other people from “guessing” to try and gain control of your device.

If you decide that this is indeed a tool you need to have, make sure that you run it at least once as you will need to grant it Super User permissions. Please take it for a spin and see if you would like to have improvements done on it or if you come across any bugs. If you try it and get nothing else out of this piece, at the very least remember these 4 simple words: “use a strong password.”

Have fun!