Android Hacking

Intro

Android devices are fast becoming one of the most popular devices around. They range from smartphones, to tablets, TV-on-a-stick to laptops.

Getting the most out of one of these however might involve a nice bit of hackery!!

Terms of reference

Flash? brick? ROM? Kang? WTF?! Explanation of terms:

• ROM - Read-Only-Memory, the install code (firmware) usually in compressed .zip or .img form this is what you replace your original firmware with
• Root - Basically gain administrative privileges but also the 'physical' root of the file-system directory tree (in *nix)
• Flash - The process of installing firmware, 'flashing'
• Bootloader - The small bit of code that tells device what system to boot, often locked to original system
• Firmware - The operating system installed with specific hardware drivers for the relevant device in question
• Recovery - A hidden system partition containing tools to recover,restore,backup the system
• CWM - ClockworkMod Recovery, the CyanogenMod backup and restore tool, an alternative recovery system
• Nandroid (backup) - The poorly names method of making a backup of your complete device system done from CWM
• brick/un-brick - one of the risks is 'bricking' your device, literally making it no more use than a brick!
• CyanogenMod - A popular (most popular) third party Android alternatives
• AOSP - Android Open Source Program
• AOKP - Android Open Kang Program
• ADB - Android Debug Bridge, part of the Android SDK, useful for interfacing with your Android device from a computer
• XDA-developers - The most popular phone (and more) discussion forum
• Kang/er - cheat/thief, someone who takes someone else’s work and presents it as their own work.

Rooting your device

Why root?

To enable full control and install all those useful apps that require it

Installing ROMs like AOSP, CyanogenMod

Requires rooting (normally) Unlocking bootloader (normally) Installing CWM (or 4Ext/other) Recovery Reboot to recovery Flash downloaded image/s

G-Apps

Due to Google licensing, it is not legal to (re)distribute google applications in third party ROMs, so a separate .zip is usually supplied to be flashed after install of your chosen ROM, if you wish to do so. It is highly likely that not installing G-apps will result in limited functionality of your device, depending on what it is and your requirements.

De-google'ing your Android

You might think that Google is the new micor$oft and want nothing to do with them, but really can't abide by windows phone or iPhone, so can you be truly Google free on an Android device? Probably not...yet