The Android Site

First off, this is not a guide to pirating apps. There are legit reasons for wanting to backup your applications. Sometimes an older version of the app worked better, or had features you liked better. Sometimes new versions don’t work with specific phones and you need to revert back. Now, you can use AppManager to backup most apps, but protected apps are not included in this because they are stored in a different directory. With a rooted phone, you can access this directory and copy the apps to your SD card or to your computer. After all, you paid for it, it’s yours. If you want to pirate apps, or buy an app, copy it then return it, that’s on you, I’m not advocating that.

First method, copy with your phone to SD card:

1. Install and open a Terminal Emulator on your phone.
2. Enter su to be superuser (root).
3. Enter cd /data/app-private/ to enter the protected application directory.
4. Use ls to view the apps in the directory.
5. Enter cp filename.apk /sdcard to copy a single app to your SD card.
   (Or to backup all the protected apps: cp * /sdcard)
6. If you want to backup all your apps, they can be found in /data/app/

Second method is to use Android Debug Bridge with your PC:

1. Install the Android SDK on your PC
2. Connect your phone to your computer via USB cable, and make sure USB debugging is enabled on your phone (Settings > Applications > Development)
3. Enter adb shell to fire up Debug Bridge and enter shell mode
4. Enter su to become superuser
5. Enter cat /data/app-private/filename.apk > /sdcard/filename.apk to copy the file to the SD card.
6. exit
7. exit
8. And finally adb pull /sdcard/filename.apk filename.apk pulls the .apk file from your SD card to your computer.

Success? Problems? Moral issues with copying software? Let us know in the comments.

Ben Marvin Hacks, How-To adb, android debug bridge, hacking, Hacks, How-To, Paid apps, protected apps

Remember the excitement when the G1 was first rooted? Now there’s the same for owners of the Sprint Hero and Samsung Behold 2. For the Hero, there’s a thread over at xda-developers with clear instructions on how to Root your Sprint Hero. Not much yet in the way of custom ROMS or other goodies, but you can run applications that require superuser such as wireless tethering.

For Samsung Behold 2 owners, head over to All Droid for your rooting instructions.

I don’t have either of these handsets, so I can test myself, but if anyone successfully roots (or doesn’t), let us know in the comments how it went. And as always with hacking and modifying your phone, do so at your own risk.

[Thanks Ted for the tip on the Behold 2]

Ben Marvin HTC, Hacks, Hardware, How-To, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile Behold 2, hacking, Hardware, Hero, How-To, HTC, root, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile

Still a work in progress, as are most of the Android porting projects going on right now, but it boots and that’s pretty much it as far I can tell from screenshots and some of the forum threads. Not surprising these talented people are working furiously, there’s currently a bounty to succesfully port Android to the Omnia. If you’re a developer or a Samsung Omnia user, check out the project here.

Ben Marvin Hacks, Samsung hacking, Hacks, Omnia, port, Samsung, Samsung Omnia

It’s not everyday you see a Windows Mobile smartphone running a Linux-based mobile operating system. But, in the crazy (crazy cool, that is) world of handset hackery, anything is possible. So, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that Android hackers have ported Android OS to the HTC Touch Diamond (Diamond) and HTC Touch Pro (Raphael). The new Android OS ROM has been posted to the HTC-Android forums for anyone willing to use their previous-gen smartphones as Android guinea pics.

To be clear, Android OS runs just fine on the Diamond and Raphael. Unfortunately, there’s still the issue of creating Linux drivers to control all the different devices in the HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro. So, for now, Android OS can basically only surf the web and send SMS through the smartphone’s GSM connection (GPRS, EDGE, 3G). Everything else (microphone, speaker, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc.) just doesn’t work… yet.

We’ll  be looking forward to seeing everything fixed hopefully in the near future. But it would be nice if HTC jumped in on this and ported Android to more of their devices.

[PPCGeeks] [via IntoMobile]

Ben Marvin HTC, Hacks, Hardware, How-To hacking, Hacks, HTC, ROMs, smartphones, Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Windows Mobile, WinMo

First off, I take no credit for this guide, this is straight from the xda-developers forums, which is an excellent place to learn about HTC phone hacking. So let’s get started. Make sure you backup anything important on your phone as this will erase everything. There are several apps in the Market that will backup apps, SMS, and other data for you. So don’t complain if you’ve lost your data. Your contacts and email should still synch with Google once you reinstall the new OS.

If you have US-RC30/UK-RC8 or higher, you will first need to downgrade your phone to a previous version. (Skip these steps otherwise)

1. Format your phone’s SD card to FAT32 mode:
   • Hook your phone up to your computer using a USB cable and then wait for the notification to show up in your title bar of your phone.
   • Click the notification, and then click “Mount”.
   • A new removable disk should show up on your computer. Right click it and select Format, and select FAT32 as the file system type.
2. Download and unzip the RC29 or RC7 image file. Copy the DREAMIMG.nbh file to the SD card. (RC29 for US, RC7 is for UK)
3. Turn the device power off.
4. Hold Camera button, and press Power button to entry bootloader mode. You should see a gray/white screen with instructions to flash your phone with the update on your SD card. If you don’t see that, make sure you followed the instructions properly.
5. As per the on-screen instructions, press the Power button to start upgrade procedure. DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO INTERRUPT THIS PROCESS.
6. After it is finished, perform the restart your phone.

Once you are running RC29 firmware:

1. Download recovery.img and copy it to your SD card (see the previous instructions on how to copy from your computer to your Phone’s SD card).
2. Download the Hard SPL and copy the zip file to the SD card.
3. All files must be on the root of your SD card.
4. Restart your phone. Wait for your phone to start up fully and show the home screen.
5. After your phone starts up, hit the enter key twice, type “telnetd” and press enter. (Yes, it will start up a contact search, don’t worry. Just type it.)
6. Download an Android “Telnet” application from the Market and connect to localhost.
7. If you connect successfully, you will have a root prompt “#”.
8. Type the following into Telnet (these commands will give you root access easier in the future):
   • mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
   • cd sdcard
   • flash_image recovery recovery.img
   • cat recovery.img > /system/recovery.img

Now you have root!
Now that you have root, you will want to apply “Hard SPL” to your phone. HardSPL is what will allow you to apply flash images from other regions (like UK on US phones, and vice versa), create full backups of your phone, install the latest build from the Android source, and usually resurrect your phone if it is “bricked”. You have already downloaded the file to your SD card, so now you can apply it.

1. Power off your phone.
2. Start up in recovery mode by holding home and pressing power.
3. You will now enter recovery mode. You should see an exclamation.
4. If you do not see a menu on screen, press Alt-L to show the menu.
5. Press Alt-S to apply the update from the SD card.
6. After the update is complete, hold Home and press Back to restart.

And now, the last step! You are still running an old version of Android, but you want to upgrade to the latest and greatest update! You can do this, and not lose root by downloading modified versions of the updates.

Download one of the latest ROMs to install, I recommend JF1.5:

JesusFreke 1,51

Haykuro Builds

The Dude’s Cupcake 1.2 Full
The Dude’s Cupcake 1.1a Lite (No 3rdparty/dev apps/Manup Blue Theme)

You will also want to apply the latest radio update from HTC. Install the same way as the system image:

HTC Downloads Page

To install the latest build (instructions from Haykuro):

1. Gain root (follow the various threads available on the forums to accomplish this).
2. Download the latest build above.
3. Copy to your sdcard as update.zip
4. Power off your phone.
5. Hold the Home button, and power on the device. (This should send you into recovery mode).
6. Press ALT+B to create a nandroid backup (if you wish to fall back without losing any data later, if you do go back to RC33 [or any other firmware 1.0 update] you will need to reflash your radio, users have reported problems using the new radio on the old firmwares.)
7. Press ALT+W, then ALT+S.
8. wait for it to finish, then home+back.

There you have it. I hope I gave proper credit and backlinks to the awesome people that make this possible. Now you can brag about your new Cupcake and also do all the cool stuff with root, like install full Linux distros, tether your phone, and install apps on the SD card.

Ben Marvin Hacks, How-To, Software Android 1.5, Cupcake, G1, hack, hacking, Hacks, Haykuro, How-To, HTC, JesusFreke, root, Rooting, Upgrade, xda-developers

Think you have what it takes to hack into an Android phone? TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative team has just announce the 3rd annual Pwn2Own contest in which participants attempt to gain access to devices via security exploits. The targets include popular browsers running on laptops and a full range of smartphones, including Android. With prizes being $5000 per browser bug, and $10,000 per mobile bug, plus the device you “pwn”, the stakes are high.

Winning scenarios against the mobile devices include attacks that can be exploited via email, SMS text, website browsing and other general actions a normal user would take while using the device.  Physical access will not be granted to the mobile devices, and proving successful exploitation of one of the mobile devices will be verified by our team of hardware hacker judges on the ground at the event.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Pwn2Own contest, check out the rules and results from last year.

I predict the Blackberry will be left standing (as the Ubuntu laptop was last year), and the Windows Mobile phone will be the first to fall.

Ben Marvin Hardware, News, Software hacking, Pwn2Own, security