hi #permacomputers, #hackers, #bricoleurs
Starting to tinker with old/disused smartphones to self-host. However, upon buying a couple second-hand phones, I'm often faced with Google's FRP protection: you can only use the phone by connecting to the previous owner's google account. Factory reset doesn't solve this.
Do you have any trustworthy resources on bypassing this? terminal tools? forums?
Seems essentials to increase phone's lifespan.
thankssss
@marieverdeil @limitesnumeriques
you may want to have a look at https://mindthegapps.com/samfw-tool/
Hi Marie. What about degoogling the phone using this software: https://e.foundation/e-os/? Would that solve your problem?
ECOSYSTEMKEY FEATURESGET /E/OSNEED HELP /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled”, mobile ecosystem /e/OS is an open-source mobile operating system paired with carefully selected applications. They form a privacy-enabled internal system for your smartphone. And it’s not just claims: open-source means auditable privacy. /e/OS has received academic recognition from researchers at…
@Hans @marieverdeil Nope, not possible at this point. Gobble's FRP is a low-level protection to avoid flashing "untrusted" software on a device. It's the factual proof that you paid for a device that's in reality owned by a Big Corp. IMO, it's designed to disable the second hand market.
"Factory reset" is a bluff, or misleading at least. Best Marie can do is exercise her consumer rights and return the broken device to the second hand seller.
@marieverdeil
for the op6 see here:
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/User:Magdesign#Install_Stock_Android_9.0.8
for others use your prefered search engine
@marieverdeil my experience so far: it's possible but only a few devices have known or easy to access/use exploits that would allow you to bypass FRP. You need to search for *each* (family) model specifically, there is not one single way, and the flaws tend to be patched quickly if the device still receives some support. You might be lucky searching github repos, but generally it's a pain to deal with FRP locked phone, and time consuming, and might not be fixable.
Having learned the hard way, nowadays I ask proof before buying that the device was really unlocked, which often leads to asking sending photos of specific screens to make sure the seller understands the question, because most of time it's mixed up with factory reset, which does not remove FRP. Granted this conflation make the conversations quite complicated, so often buyers just end up ghosting me after my 3rd attempt trying to tell them that I don't mean factory reset :)
Example of exploit: few years ago I used this https://github.com/riskeco/Samsung-FRP-Bypass to recover a Samsung S-something (forgot which one). BTW the explanation of this particular exploit and where it was found in the wild is really interesting https://web.archive.org/web/20220817082417/https://blog-cyber.riskeco.com/en/analysis-of-samsung-frp-bypass/
Good luck! I feel your pain :)
@320x200 @marieverdeil i tried it on quite a few phones, and never had any luck. just writing to tamper expectations, but it's worth a try anyway.
if it doesn't work, one can always buy a phone with broken display and/or battery, and merge the 2!
@marieverdeil MediaTek SoCs pre-20..20?? have totally pwned boot ROM, mtkclient can OEM unlock them bypassing all protections
Qualcomm EDL can overwrite secure boot configuration on devices pre.. 2018ish? (That tool includes an unlock for devices that just store the lock state in plain storage; there are also fun downgrade attacks for other devices.)
Samsung devices from 2015 and before(?) (and probably not after?) seem to not have any secure boot in the first place :D
@marieverdeil No solution here but found it interesting to note that @clararigo comes across the same issue in this paper and is forced to disregard roughly one third of the phones collected..
My article "Zombitron: towards a toolbox for repurposing obsolete smartphones into new interactive systems" is out ! 📄 https://computingwithinlimits.org/2025/papers/limits2025-rigaud-zombitron.pdf I present a high-level approach aimed at encouraging the practice of repurposing obsolete smartphones in the design of interactive systems, despite their complexity and heterogeneity. I discuss how such a tool can be integrated into creative practices and in particular into the design of music controllers. It will be presented Thursday at #LIMITS2025
Unfortunately no solution either, I spent some time trying to bypass FRP on two Android phones I have that are blocked, watching some videos of breaches exploitations (by changing keyboard language / using accessibility tools to access the parameters, things like that). It works on some android versions but you have a good chance that the breach has been patched...
The best way is to make sure that it's not locked or try to find the previous owner :) (same strategy than the people in Shenzen in the article sent by Aurelien)
But this is a real (and frustrating) problem ! It could be great to have at least a way to contact the previous owners via their google account since that information is still inside the phone.
marie verdeil
julientaq
Hans
Roberto M.F.
PocketVJ aka magdesign
Adam Honse
ultrageranium
malte
d1
Val Packett 🧉
𝓻𝓻𝓪
Aurélien
Clara