Werner Almesberger wrote:
Ian Stirling wrote:
Why should a phone be better in this respect than a PC?
Well, on the PC, you don't change the BIOS very often, if ever.
Furthermore, the BIOS is in storage that your system doesn't
usually access either.
True, of course, though root can still brick it.
On the Neo, your "BIOS" is the boot loader, so every time you
upgrade the boot loader, you get a chance to brick your system.
Furthermore, basically all non-removable storage is just one
single Flash area, so the driver writing your data files is just
a few bits away from bricking the device.
Sure, kernel bugs can kill your system.
There are some protections, but software is very limited in what
it can do. Also, neither the MCU nor the Flash memory have any
complementary protection mechanisms. (In the next device, also
the MCU will have some reasonably good protection against the
most common forms of accidental overwriting.)
And no, I don't think we want to get into DRM ;-)
I really think you do.
I want to be able to give this phone to my (hypothetical) employees.
I do not want skilled lazy, employees able to - for example - edit their
GPS logs which corroberate the inspections they are required to do.
This is _not_ DRM that stops the owner of the phone doing stuff.
It's DRM that stops users of the phone that may or may not be authorised
users from doing stuff.
Think of it as a BIOS password on steroids.
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