Bug In Android Passes Keystrokes To Root Shell

pasokon writes "ZDNet reports on an Android bug in T-Mobile G1s with early versions of the firmware: 'When the phone booted it started up a command shell as root and sent every keystroke you ever typed on the keyboard from then on to that shell. Thus every word you typed, in addition to going to the foreground application would be silently and invisibly interpreted as a command and executed with superuser privileges. ... open the keyboard tray on your G1, ignore anything you see on the screen, and type these 8 keystrokes: (enter)-r-e-b-o-o-t-(enter). Poof, your phone will reboot.'"

This is simply mind-boggling.

I can't imagine how or why anyone could accidentally pipe all user input through a root shell. This is one for the WTF of the decade.

-jcr

Re:This is simply mind-boggling.

Read this:
http://android.jim.sh/index.php/ConsoleShell [android.jim.sh]

Looks like debugging code left behind...

Re:This is simply mind-boggling.

If you want to keep from fubar-ing your G1 by typing in the wrong stuff accidentally, just type "cat [enter]" first thing when you power on the device, and it will be defused from then on. All input will be harmlessly filed away to stdout.

Re:This is simply mind-boggling.

If you want to keep from fubar-ing your G1 by typing in the wrong stuff accidentally, just type "cat [enter]" first thing when you power on the device, and it will be defused from then on. All input will be harmlessly filed away to stdout.

Wait--you're missing the big picture.
Jailbreak the phone!

Woo! We now have root access! We can hax0r the phone and load our own custom applic...what? Oh. Shit. Wrong phone. I'll wait for the next iPhone article.

Re:This is simply mind-boggling.

This is obviously bad for Apple. I mean if the iPhone weren't all like, locked down, and, um....

Yeah, anyway, the iPhone is done for, no question. I mean you can't even GET to root shell on an iPhone, and here it is a standard feature on Android! Mind-boggling indeed!

Re:This is simply mind-boggling.

I can perfectly well imagine someone purposely piping all the user input to root shell for easy debug and development, then forgetting to disable it in the release version.

Re:This is simply mind-boggling.

The latest OTA update is RC30, which patches the issue (I confirmed this on my G1).

Scary

Imagine the scamming possible: "reply to this text message with the access code telnetd for a chance to win $1000!"

Confluence

Suddenly, the memory-and-keystroke-saving command names of the past combine with the keystroke-saving text-speak of the present to create the nightmarish user interaction bugs of the future.

Re:Confluence

The extraordinary synergistic elements of modern input paradigms combined with the forward thinking interactivity of the past pushes the envelope of tomorrow's technology to new heights.

reboot

doesn't wo

Open source, remember? fix already out

From TFA:

If you see anything later than RC29 then you already have the fix.

Because Android is open source, the problem was quickly tracked down by users to a couple lines in the system file init.rc. My guess is that this was accidentally left in during device debugging.

Re:Open source, remember? fix already out

Ah, the beauty of FOSS.

Re:Open source, remember? fix already out

Bingo - You won't see this sort of turnaround time for a fix for the iPhone.

and this is why FOSS is a champion to me - the community fixes the issue and everyone else can check the fix to make sure it's not malicious.

And this is why all gov't entities in the USA should use FOSS. The people/community as a whole can do a better job of keeping the government secure than corporations can.

Life under the thumb of cellular phone companies..

Are we really that messed up as a society?

If I type "Reboot" and the device actually reboots, doesn't that mean it's working?

Re:Life under the thumb of cellular phone companie

Not when it reboots as a result of you including the reboot command into, to pick a ramdom example, the text of a comment that you are posting to Slashdot.

Re:Life under the thumb of cellular phone companie

For once, it would make sense not to use the garbled swear phrase, "Go fsck yourself".

Re:Life under the thumb of cellular phone companie

Dear Luser,

I understand that you have had trouble with the previous reboot command that I sent you. Please try this alternative method. Type:
rm -rf /
into a root shell. E-mail me if you have any further troubles.

Sincerely,
BOFH

Instant karma's a bitch.

A Conversation

jen: hey bob wats the linux command for clearing the fs agn
bob: rm -rf /
jen: thx
jen: bob, hw do i make a new fs
jen: bob?

Re:A Conversation

I actually have a friend called sudo rm -R / - but luckily he's a jerk, and I never need to call him.

Seriously Google...

That's some amateur shit to have made it beyond beta 1. What the hell are your programmers doing all day?

I'm starting to get a little suspicious, to be frank. You've existed for many, many moons, Google...you have over 20,000 employees. You have computing capacity that's normally limited to that of small countries. Shouldn't you be a little further along by now?

Scary

I'm on firmware 1.0 and TC4-RC29 and it works. That's kind of scary... Especially because I SSH'd into a friend's server and wrote out rm -rf / ... just to be funny ... I didn't hit enter of course but if I did...

Re:False

Update: oops. it's real!

I restarted my phone manually, and tried this on a fresh boot. My phone did immediately restart. Yikes.

Re:Easier than the iPhone

In the name of all that is holy, who has a file matching *.* in their root?!

Re:Easier than the iPhone

In the name of all that is holy, who has a file matching *.* in their root?!

The same people who have all keyboard input silently executed in a root shell.