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Comment by HidyBush | Hacker News Reader

This could be easily solved if manufacturers simply allowed for using a unique password to unlock the bootloader. Want to install a custom ROM? Simple! Put the phone in recovery mode, insert the unique manufacturer-provided password, unlock the bootloader, flash the new ROM, go back to recovery, change the password to one of your choosing, lock the bootloader again, add the ROM's official private key to enable safe boot.

This is entirely possible, and yet nobody wants to make it accessible.

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So if you forget your password, your expensive device is instantly and permanently bricked and becomes e-waste?

No, the password is only to lock-unlock the bootloader. If you forget it you won't be able to install a new ROM but you will still be capable of upading your OS or factory resetting it

Forgetting a password shouldn't cause permanent loss of functionality of hardware.

I'm not understanding your argument. You say that unlocking a bootloader is dangerous, so what's your solution? You can't have non-unlockable bootloaders because that would mean a loss of hardware functionality, which you just suggested you consider unacceptable. You can't have easily unlockable bootloaders because that would be dangerous. So now what?

I proposed a very reasonable solution that gives the user control AND responsibility of their own device. If you don't want the responibility (and the control) then stick with your manufacturer's locked bootloader and never touch it.

I don't know about you but I would really like if my work phone had a company-set bootloader lock just like my work laptop has a company-set BIOS lock in case someone steals it or gets lost. There are plenty of professional and personal reasons why my solution would make a lot of sense in my opinion.

> You say that unlocking a bootloader is dangerous

I didn't say that. In fact, I believe the opposite.

> You can't have easily unlockable bootloaders because that would be dangerous.

I do want easily unlockable bootloaders.

I confused you with the person I originally replied to.

Still, my solution still allows to have a passwordless bootloader if you choose to not set a password, so I really don't get what would be wrong with it.

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