That phone doesn’t belong to you!!!

As if it weren’t enough to have one phone on the market with an anti-power user feature (Droid X and it’s eFuse),  now we have another showing its ugly head.  The HTC G2 is said to ship with a hardware rootkit that “undoes” any user tampering by reinstalling its stock OS if any modding has been detected (root, custom roms, etc.).

I know that in the past I have voiced my opinion about counter measures like this ending up in phones before, but I am going to reinterate.

With handset makers taking steps to stop users from modding their handsets, they are basically saying that the phone doesn’t belong to you.  You may have paid for it, and you may be holding it, but it’s on loan and the terms of that loan are completely up to the manufacturer and carrier.  I do understand that most (all) phones are subsidized; however, you are paying for that subsidy in the price of your phone plan and you pay that subsidy as an early termination fee if you cancel your contract, therefore you are paying for the phone one way or another.

That being said, I believe that these types of measures are akin to buying a PC and having the manufacturer telling you what OS it can run (PCs can run Windows and Linux, Macs can run Windows, etc.).  Would you want to buy a car and tint the widows, only to have the manufacturer come by your house the next day and remove the tinting?

These types of modding counter measures are anti-consumer and very narrow minded.

I do remember that the Droid X was supposed to be un-rootable and we all know how that turned out, so I don’t see this being a permanent problem, just an annoying one.  Any time you create a prohibition you create an underground.

Are their any Android modders out there that share my thoughts?

About Jesse (The Pen of Doom)

A small time blogger with big time dreams and a love for everything geek.
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