As you may already know, the latest Samsung firmwares came with a new secured bootloader. You can recognize it in download mode easily. It states: Knox warranty void: 0x0 or 0x1.
As for now, there is no way to reset that flag from 0x1 to 0x0.
Then I read in a comment of Chainfires post concerning that flag, that as long as you do not try to downgrade to a non secured bootloader, this flag will not change. He claims to have that information directly from Samsung.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Chainfire/posts
Has anyone already experience with rooting an "untouched" S4 which has the secured bootloader and can confirm or decline that?
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Conclusions and Facts about KNOX-enabled firmwares (based on statements from chainfires post and it's comments above, ans based on this thread)
https://www.samsungknox.com/overview/technical-details
As for now, there is no way to reset that flag from 0x1 to 0x0.
Then I read in a comment of Chainfires post concerning that flag, that as long as you do not try to downgrade to a non secured bootloader, this flag will not change. He claims to have that information directly from Samsung.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Chainfire/posts
Jeffery Butler said:FYI...Samsung told me that Knox warranty becomes 0x1(void) when the device with secured bootloader attempts to have non-secured bootloader. MH1 is the very first binary with secured bootloader. If MH1 is attempted to be downgraded to lower version(i.e. MGD) which has non-secured bootloader, then Knox warranty becomes void forever, and this means that the device can be used only for non-Knox device(no container can be created).
Has anyone already experience with rooting an "untouched" S4 which has the secured bootloader and can confirm or decline that?
- - - - - - - - - -
Conclusions and Facts about KNOX-enabled firmwares (based on statements from chainfires post and it's comments above, ans based on this thread)
- Not possible to downgrade to KNOX-disabled firmwares/bootloaders (An attempt sets 0x1) (even though some people state, downgrade is possible when omitting the bootloader file in a firmware package: see http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2444671, not confirmed)
- Even if you flash a KNOX-enabled firmware via odin (e.g. the latest fw) knox will be set to 0x1
- Flashing unsigned or modified images via odin will set knox to 0x1
- Samsung stated, resetting the flag is impossible
- KNOX is mandatory and can not be completely removed
- Warranty Void is no counter, it is a flag (0,1) it was never seen 0x2 or so
- Mirroring all partitions from a clean 0x0-Device to a 0x1-Device via JTAG produces an unfunctional device (reversible by restoring the 0x1 partitions on the phone)
- KNOX bootloader verifies signatures of kernels and recoveries. No custom ones possible without voiding the knox warranty
- Some experts think, an eFuse is involved. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFUSE). An eFuse is mostly only incremential. Even unwriteable by low level tools or JTAG. But it is still not proven, that eFuse is used.
https://www.samsungknox.com/overview/technical-details
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