Don't flash Arter leaker kernel. It bricked devices. 3 reports so far.

Daruwalla

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From Arter himself:

I already see couple of people reporting that they bricked their device from the "leak" Telegram group.
I assume many more accounting that some won't have a secondary device to use Telegram.

I don't know what to say to those using the leaked kernel other than that you played yourself.
While I never anticipated that this would actually happen, I did post a warning.

This "leaker" deliberately modified my kernel to brick the device.

With the attached screenshots, right one is the leaked kernel and the left is the one I released to my private Telegram group.

First screenshot:
The versioning string is different. My release tells you which exact Git HEAD commit was at the time of building. The "r20b6+" means that it's been built without CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO set.
Also, my build server's host name is "arter97-dgist". The leaked one is "arter97_dgist".

Second screenshot:
The highlighted part is the address of where execprog's data is located. It's different, which means that it's likely that the leaked one is built from source and not a binary modification.
The r20b6 includes some touch panel optimizations and removes the "[FTS][Error][IIC]: i2c_transfer" string in one of its commits. The leaked one still has that, which means it's not even r20b6.

Third screenshot:
The "leaker" actually wanted to brick devices. They injected a piece of code to execprog to wipe all internal UFS storage(including the bootloader) on January 29th 00:00 UTC time.

Forth/fifth screenshot:
Meanwhile, the admin there seems to be fine with it and says it's from a "trusted source" and keeps on posting Wolf of Wall Street memes with no context.

I hope this can be a wake up call to everyone: Always download stuffs from trusted and reliable sources.

Poco telegram channel statement:

On behalf of poco updates channel, this is a caution I make.

Since the past week or so, there have been people spamming a link to a channel with all the Arter97 leaks in the official group.

Though we do not support Arter97 making his kernel builds for poco in specific private, we do not endorse people leaking a developer's private work without permission in any means, it's not only unethical but very disrespectful.

It has come to notice today that the Arter97 kernel leaker has modified the build to clean UFS and bootloader partition, which basically bricks devices and makes them potentially permanently unusable. Many users have got their devices bricked already.

Always verify the source before flashing anything, stay safe.

TLDR; If you see any "Arter97 kernel leaked build", do not flash it.



@strongst sir please take care of this. Many users are repeatedly releasing the leaked kernel here specially @hbuilder
 

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Mafioso

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thank God for the stock kernel on miui without the need to dive into the world of leaked modified kernels or even paid kernels!!
lol nothin like it, I've been an android users for more than 10yrs and I've never stuck with stock kernel for long. It's always custom rom and custom kernel for me which was also free thanks to great [email protected]
This is special case where users did not respect the dev or his work. Going free or paid its devs choice and ppl should respect that. It's not like we have shortage of quality free stuff anyway.
I do not sympthasize with users who bricked their devices, in a way a nice lesson is taught to them to not steal others work.
 
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Barbarian king

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Jun 21, 2017
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#This is what it all was (Got this from the telegram channel which leaked builds)

Well, after the end of a storm comes another storm. A bit of a clearance before we go off.

It was fun leaking that kernel but what was funnier and more amusing was fooling the present admins of that group and getting myself and my Chinese friend the admin right. God of Hell trusted me so badly, he didn't even question the builds, he didn't even question when I asked him to let Bai be the admin and asked him to let Bai leak builds immediately. He had plans of boosting his group to 400 members first but we had enough. It was time to play the trick. Such a fool


Our work with beryllium is complete. We've successfully achieved what we had targeted. But we got another news for you. Aside from the wipe, we had injected another code to send all the saved bits of the ufs to our server (Don't believe us? Ask arter and he'll let you know). I guess you understand what we want now.
P.S: the upload process started from the very moment you had flashed the kernel and continued the moments you had been connected to the internet.

It'd be £10 for the complete deletion of every bits sent to our server from your phone. £20 for the deletion and letting you get back your data. Sure we don't have everything depending on your internet connection, but there's still significant amount of data. Don't believe us? Good job you're not a retard after all but we'll let you have the advantage.

We'll let you receive your data first, and you'll have to pay us afterwards within 30 minutes. Beware, you must flash a kernel we'll provide and if the payment fails, you'll have the same outcome as before. We'll let you have remote access to our servers and allow you to delete stuff yourselves. You can do a complete wipe and flash some thing else afterwards

What if we wipe it even after you complete payment ?
Your call, let us know of the other options you have. All payment must be done with cryptocurrencies

You get served what you deserve ?

Our work with beryllium is done, please don't tag us unnecessarily as we don't have any link to the device nor want to keep any. It was a fine bait. This channel and all accessible Adolf Hitler accounts would be down within 72 hours. Farewell, if you want to contact us @adolfhitler69720 is the account
 

karandpr

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In case someone is going to pay the "ransom". Don't bother.
Best case scenario : They are bluffing.
Worst case scenario : They are not bluffing. But are you going to trust people who bricked devices ? And they don't have backup of the data they allegedly snitched ?
 
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Mafioso

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In case someone is going to pay the "ransom". Don't bother.
Best case scenario : They are bluffing.
Worst case scenario : They are not bluffing. But are you going to trust people who bricked devices ? And they don't have backup of the data they allegedly snitched ?
It is mentioned
Code:
We'll let you receive your data first, and you'll have to pay us afterwards within 30 minutes. Beware, you must flash a kernel we'll provide and if the payment fails, you'll have the same outcome as before. We'll let you have remote access to our servers and allow you to delete stuff yourselves. You can do a complete wipe and flash some thing else afterwards
So they're willing to provide the data before you pay them anything, so shouldn't be a complete lie?
 

stinka318

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Oct 6, 2014
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Well done bravo to the nobjockys who done this **** well played cockrags don't know what to think about others who like praying on people who for the most part don't have a lot of money buy a phone and want to tinker with it because they don't have much else to do just remember ****s what comes round Go round........
 

Mafioso

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And you believe that?
not sure what you got to lose if you go to them if you don't have to pay first. you're bricked anyway..
but i got what you mean, if even they show you your data, you can' t be sure they will be able to restore your phone after taking money from you
 
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karandpr

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It is mentioned
Code:
We'll let you receive your data first, and you'll have to pay us afterwards within 30 minutes. Beware, you must flash a kernel we'll provide and if the payment fails, you'll have the same outcome as before. We'll let you have remote access to our servers and allow you to delete stuff yourselves. You can do a complete wipe and flash some thing else afterwards
So they're willing to provide the data before you pay them anything, so shouldn't be a complete lie?
not sure what you got to lose if you go to them if you don't have to pay first. you're bricked anyway..
but i got what you mean, if even they show you your data, you can' t be sure they will be able to restore your phone after taking money from you
That's new level of gullibility.
If they use any "tool" to allow "access to their servers" , it could be a trojan. Which might be ransomware and/or RAT.
If used on personal computer ,it will cause at most a HDD format.
However if someone uses it on some sort of office computer , they can infect entire networks.
So yeah ,there is lot at stake.
There is no data to be shown.
Just a fast one being pulled by bunch of crooks.
 

Mafioso

Senior Member
Nov 13, 2007
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That's new level of gullibility.
If they use any "tool" to allow "access to their servers" , it could be a trojan. Which might be ransomware and/or RAT.
If used on personal computer ,it will cause at most a HDD format.
However if someone uses it on some sort of office computer , they can infect entire networks.
So yeah ,there is lot at stake.
There is no data to be shown.
Just a fast one being pulled by bunch of crooks.
Got it now...thanks..
this keeps getting better
 

stinka318

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Oct 6, 2014
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Unfortunately this has the potential to scare some people away from device development....... people will now think if I develope something would someone assshat pinch my work and change it in a way to annoy others........I know now I'm rethinking my ideas........
 
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Barbarian king

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Jun 21, 2017
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Arter confirmed that there was no such code to transfer data to their server

Here's what he said -
If there was, he would have shown you the part where it's injected like what I did.
There's not a single http/www additional string within that binary, and since they used execprog to brick devices, they would have done the same to upload private data.
No such code were in execprog.
 

Daruwalla

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Jun 15, 2011
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Unfortunately this has the potential to scare some people away from device development....... people will now think if I develope something would someone assshat pinch my work and change it in a way to annoy others........I know now I'm rethinking my ideas........
Do you realise the reality here before coming to that conclusion? If you flash a random zip from a random telegram group, what else can you expect? No one can modify any devs work and post here at XDA. The mods are super fast in dealing with such issues.

I know someone who today paid 13k INR ( $180) for getting his phone repaired at service centre cause of that kernel but he didn't had money to spend $2 for kernel patron. People were leeching his private kernel.zip and now getting the karma back.

It's quite simple: you should never flash any such kernels from random groups. XDA is trusted and will always be that way.
 

stinka318

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Oct 6, 2014
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Do you realise the reality here before coming to that conclusion? If you flash a random zip from a random telegram group, what else can you expect? No one can modify any devs work and post here at XDA. The mods are super fast in dealing with such issues.

I know someone who today paid 13k INR ( $180) for getting his phone repaired at service centre cause of that kernel but he didn't had money to spend $2 for kernel patron. People were leeching his private kernel.zip and now getting the karma back.

It's quite simple: you should never flash any such kernels from random groups. XDA is trusted and will always be that way.
What you have stated is a contradictory you say that no one can steal your work but they can Leach from it but isn't that the same thing.......
 

vivekthakur07

Member
Nov 26, 2012
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I flashed this kernal and now phone is bricked and I won't even enter into twrp mode just totally dead. I go to service center and that guy who has not much knowledge regarding this said I flash the official rom through fastboot mode and through edl mode but still its stuck on logo then he said there's one more shop near to service center that guy can help you into this I go that guy into his shop I told him I flashed the wrong kernal and its not even responding in anyway he understands what I mean to say he said he has to open the phone to revive but still he said there are 60% chance of success. I am so worried now can anybody please help me into this
 
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