Internet connection is required to unlock the bootloader in the Google genuine smartphone Pixel series, but the communication content is unknown



With Google's genuine Android smartphone 'Pixel' series, you can easily unlock the bootloader from the setting screen and install another OS. However, you need to be connected to the internet and communicate with Google to unlock the bootloader. Software engineer

Thomas Fitzsimmons complains about this ``forced connection to the Internet to unlock'' situation.

Pixel phones are sold with bootloader unlocking disabled – fitzsim's development log
https://www.fitzsim.org/blog/?p=545

The image below is a screenshot of the developer options screen of ' Pixel 7 Pro '. Among the options, there is an item called 'OEM unlock' that can unlock the boot loader, and you can unlock it with a smartphone alone without connecting to a PC.



The bootloader unlock feature is used when

installing development versions of Android , and is also used when installing custom Android-based OSes. For this reason, some custom OSes have been developed with Pixel installations in mind. Mr. Fitzsimmons decided to purchase the Pixel series because the security-specific OS ' GrapheneOS ' he wanted to use was only compatible with the Pixel series .



Mr. Fitzsimmons purchased Pixel 7 Pro from the official Google store and tried to unlock the bootloader to install GrapheneOS. However, 'OEM Unlock' in the developer options was in a non-touchable state and could not be unlocked.



On Google's

help page , there are two reasons why 'OEM unlock' becomes untouchable: 'not connected to the Internet' and 'locked by mobile carrier'. Fitzsimmons purchased Pixel 7 Pro from the official Google store, so the possibility of restrictions by mobile carriers can be ruled out. In other words, Mr. Fitzsimmons' Pixel 7 Pro could not unlock the bootloader because it was not connected to the Internet.



Fitzsimmons connected the Pixel 7 Pro to the internet and restarted the Settings app, resulting in 'OEM Unlock' being touchable and able to unlock the bootloader. As a result of Fitzsimmons collecting and analyzing logs when connecting to the Internet, Pixel 7 Pro was connected to 'afwprovisioning-pa.googleapis.com' just before 'OEM unlock' became touchable. turned out. The connection history of the Pixel 7 Pro before and after “OEM Unlock” became touchable is as follows.

hostname Download capacity upload capacity
storage.googleapis.com 383MiB 8MiB
fonts.gstatic.com 137MiB 3MiB
afwprovisioning-pa.googleapis.com 18MiB 1MiB
www.gstatic.com 8MiB 287kiB
googlehosted.l.googleusercontent.com 8MiB 345kiB
ota-cache1.googlezip.net 3MiB 175kiB
dl.google.com 3MiB 86kiB
instant messaging-pa.googleapis.com 1MiB 300kiB
www.google.com 46kiB 24kiB
ssl.gstatic.com 25kiB 3kiB
ota.googlezip.net 17kiB 6kiB
digitalassetlinks.googleapis.com 17kiB 4kiB
clients.l.google.com 14kiB 7kiB
gstatic.com 13kiB 3kiB
mobile-gtalk.l.google.com 8kiB 1kiB
mobile.l.google.com 5kiB 1kiB
lpa.ds.gsma.com 5kiB 4kiB
connectivitycheck.gstatic.com 3kiB 3kiB
app-measurement.com 1kiB 0 bytes
time.android.com 180 bytes 180 bytes


Although the connection destination and communication capacity of Pixel 7 Pro were clarified, the communication content was TLS encrypted and could not be understood. Fitzsimmons said, 'It's welcome that Google is' developing Android as open source 'and' selling devices with bootloader unlock options.' We sell devices that cannot unlock the bootloader without connecting to the Internet.' Please do not need to be connected to the Internet before installing your preferred OS.'

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in Mobile,   Hardware, Posted by log1o_hf