Hacking the Cellphone out of a Cellphone?

I managed to acquire the on-sale $9.99 smartphone we discussed the past few days, hours before the price reverted to $39.00. It's got potential for a nice little media player, experimental hot spot and high speed torrents near friendly neighbors.

I'd like to rip out the cell "activation" notices when it boots up and tame it from downloading apps I never use (Google+ etc) automatically.

The KitKat tablet was tamed lately with minimal effort, but this Lollipop phone wants to be a cellphone too and the Boost mobile network isn't available around here. If there was I'd have blown through my data cap already with the automatic updating.

I know this isn't an Android forum (but you did bring it up and I did buy one) but truth be told I'll swap ROMs in a minute if there's something better and less flaky. I'd go back to KitKat even, no problem.Sadly I don't see any ROMS for this. The best I can currently do is root it (it is) and hope for a nice management app unless you've got a good idea.

Without serious tweaking it isn't worth ten bucks even. I've got it worth $15 so I have momentum you can help build on :-)

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2016 06:30PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

>
> I know this isn't an Android forum (but you
> did bring it up and I did buy one)

I did not :)

Rooting it first. That's the hard part.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

For sure usually, but I lucked into Kingo ROOT. I run it on windows computer with Android plugged-in to the USB.

Then make Android go into Developer mode, enable USB debugging, and click a couple of OKs.

That's what I used on the KitKat tablet, rooted it, took care of business, and now I use it unrooted. It warmed my heart to get into my PogoE02 over LAN :-) I specifically un-rooted KitKat afterwards, but for whatever reason it looks like it only roots one time and auto reverts on Lollipop. doesn't look like re-rooting is possible.

So the smartphone was rooted, I've used Ice Box to freeze some background apps but haven't nailed the one that annoys me every time I turn it on. Google + actually re-installed itself from scratch. Cree-pee.

The phone starts with many seconds of (cell) activation, click activate, wait, then click just kidding and it gets to the UI.

The hardware is HUAWEI Y538 but as for the OS and apps, I haven't seen a monitoring device like this since Windows 8, but Android has managed to best MS by a long shot. After a long day of not being able to uninstall anything I come to that place where it says my WiFi passwords and everything else are backed-up to Google servers.

In conclusion, Android Lollipop must have been designed by a spy agency because it's nothing but monitoring you can't turn off. I just want some music and anything the tablet does is icing on the cake. And you can't turn music off once it's running.

....help.... me....

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2016 12:30AM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

Joey,

Now that you've rooted it. You can try login through telnet or ssh.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

bodhi Wrote:
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> Joey,
>
> Now that you've rooted it. You can try login
> through telnet or ssh.

Luckily the factory reset went quick :-) Tried rooting again and it's real flaky - one app says no permissions and another Froze (that's what it's supposed to do) 15 heavily unwanted service apps.

Before I forget, this time I turned off WiFi right away and it was behaving like a heavily virused Windows machine, where it was straining from the seams to connect to something.

* I could be wrong - and I'm sure there are ways to verify - but having spent nearly all day on this I'd estimate 200-300 Services running in the background. If this were wiped clean and another OS running I bet it'd be a spiffy little sports car of a media machine.

Still bodhi, if I could SSH in, what would I do anyway? Or can I drop a ROM straight in that way? I swear I won't bug you on this because it's a blindside if only one member here bought one. But for the rest of you - you'd have had a field day :-)

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2016 02:07AM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

@Joey

ive probably advised you before..... XDA Developers is THE place for phone info.

Gravelrash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> @Joey
>
> ive probably advised you before..... XDA
> Developers is THE place for phone info.

Must have been you - JoeyPhone tried to register but they say JoeyTablet has the same email LOL

Wow, unlike the Trio tablet there's a lot of goods on this phone. I will definitely proceed with caution, but the way I see it the whole OS has got to go. Thanks a lot gents and I'll keep my ears peeled for solutions.

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2016 03:04PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

Happy here to report a partial solution, 1/2 way there!
If you take out the SIM card inside the phone it only nags once and saves probably 30 seconds of boot-up time. Chick at the dollar store showed me that - after a minute long lecture that HUAWEI's phone dimensions are different than Apples' and Samsung's as a result of lawsuit fallout between the tech giants. I was astonished and she said she previously worked at Best Buy :-)

-edited- our friends at SDA suggested that turning on Airplane Mode turns off the cell broadcast and expenditure of battery power. Didn't know that. But it now boots into the UI with one message that goes away quickly with no clicking required. Cool!

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2016 06:28PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

Would source code shed any light on anything? They offer that:

http://emui.huawei.com/en/plugin.php?id=hwdownload&mod=detail&mid=108

But as for the idea Hauwei will send you a boot unlock code, I don't think it's true. They make it easy to fill out a form with at least four identifying informations, but I have YET to see anyone receive their code! In my case the form advances to a page written in Chinese!

All in all I'm kind of bummed out; I reiterate, and keep this claim handy for Snowden revelations 2.0, but this is a spy device and priced to spy on a certain demographic. The almost perfect unlockability and easy bootlock application with no one reporting being sent a code.... there's a reason.

I don't want to sound like too much of a nutter, but here and now I've come to the realization, after decades of observations and mental processing, to say I believe Google itself is the greatest spy organization ever organised. I just wanted a media player.

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2016 10:55PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

Hello Joey,

AFAICT, the source code is only good for developers and not for any average joe.

With the right kind of software installed, it is possible all smartphones out there can be in any form of a spy gadget.

@Joey,

Have you come across this Z4Root utility?