Gadgetory

you you you hello my name is Gary sim from Android Authority now maybe you've heard the term root or rooting your phone or maybe an app that needs root access and you're not quite sure what it means well let me explain now all operating systems have the idea of system privileges as a set of privileges that allow certain users or processes to perform tasks that are reserved for system administrators you don't want normal users doing certain things they are reserved for those who have the authority to do those things now on some operating systems this system set of system privileges are fine grained there are many many levels but on linux and most unix type operating systems it's very black and white you are either a normal user or you are a super user who can do just about anything now traditionally the account for a super user on linux and unix-like operating systems is root and that's where we get the term from root is basically a super user the system administrator who can perform any task and the thing about root is that once you have access to the root account you can do just about anything you like on the system you can change the system files you can change the system configuration and you can read all the data that belongs to other users on the system so if I'm on a multi-user Linux system and I have my email account and I have my personal data root can access all of those whereas normally I couldn't access what's going on in the account next to mine or another account on the system whereas root can see and read everything as it was once said with great power comes with great responsibility so of course you don't want to give root access to just about everybody and therefore on a Linux system there are a couple of mechanisms that exist to limit who has access to the root account and they are called su which tends will substitute user or su do now su or substitute user basically allows a process or a user to change their user ID to that of root and when they do that they gain the privileges of that root account now su do is very similar what that does is it allows you to execute one command with a substitute root user so in other words it's kind of do as root or root do but they call it s you do for substitute user do connected with that original su command now depending on which Linux system you are using and depending on how that is configured there are different ways of the authentication occurs to make sure that only those allow to do those commands get the right to do them so for example on a system that uses just su you need to know the root password to get into the root account on other Linux systems that use more the su do command then maybe you need to be an authorized su doer and maybe you need to know a pass or add not necessarily the root password but probably your account password and those two systems mean that only those who have the privilege can execute super user commands okay that's the world of Linux and let's move quickly into the world of Android now Android is built on a Linux kernel and therefore the ideas of root and of super users and normal users exists on Android as much as it does on any other Linux system now as you can imagine Google do not ship Android with root by default there is no root access for any apps because the moment an app has root access it can change the system configuration it can change the system files and it can read all the data that's associated with any app installed on the system but if you want to actually modify any system filed or read the data or other apps then you need to have root axis now this can be a very good thing for example there is a very popular app and the Play Store called titanium backup root and there is a program that allows you to backup all of your apps onto an external SD card now you can only do that because it requires root access and once it has roots access super user access it's allowed to read all the data on all the files associated with any app on the system including system apps if it didn't have root access it would not be able to do that so there is a positive side to having root access on your phone however there's also a negative side I could write a free game I could put it up on a play store somewhere and on a non rooted system this game could just act quite normally but when it detects that root is available I could maybe bring up a message saying please get me root access because I need to improve the performance of the game and it will happen if you grant me root access or please grab me root access I can upload the school or download an update or just basically a lie that convinces the user to give that app root access and once it has root access then everything on your phone is available to that app or your PayPal account your banking information your email addresses your email passwords your or anything else that you've got on that phone is available on my little game could then start sending that information up to a server which I could then collect in and use for whatever purposes I want to so the fact that you have opened the door to allowing root access on the phone means that you've left a chink in the armor for people who want to write malware to get access to your data you so of course there is an argument is route a good thing or a bad thing those that like at like Titanium Backup root they say root is essential yo those that are more security conscious who realize that opening the door to root access can open the door to security breaches say root is not a good idea I wonder where you are in that debate now before we go on any further I want to tell you a little bit in a moment about how you get root on your phone but before we go any further I want to mention that if you want to connect to me and talk to me about any of the subjects that I covers in my videos then there is a link here that you can use to go to the annual authority forums and I check that daily and I'll connect with anybody there that asks me a question about the videos that I've been doing so now let's move on how do you get root on your phone well basically there are three different ways your phone doesn't come with root occasionally there might be a phone that comes out of China that has root access built into it but by default the vast majority of phones do not come with root X and how do you get it well one way is you can just unlock the bootloader and installed the superuser su binaries that need to be installed on your phone and that's quite easy another possibility is to install a version of Android that has root built into it for example Saanich and mod has root built into it already so if you can find a version of that for your phone you can follow the instructions on their website and you can install Android on there with root pre-baked into it or the third possibility is you need to exploit a vulnerability in Android that gives access to root temporarily so that then the various binaries can be copied on to your phone so just let me tell you about that third one for a second basically every program in the world has bugs in it even the programs that say that they write for NASA that sends spaceships up they all have bugs in them there's nothing we can do about that we haven't found a way of fixing that yet as mankind so all programs have bugs including Android coding windows including Linux including iOS everything's got bugs in it now sometimes those by can be serious and allow people to get into the system through a way that they shouldn't be allowed to get in now that's called a vulnerability now when a vulnerability allows for a program to get root access when it shouldn't have okay then people can use that to gain elevated privileges now what happens is once a vulnerability is a theory look we found this bug in this program and as a thing called an exploit which when someone actually takes that theory and turns it into real code that can actually use that vulnerability and many many root systems actually what they do is they take a bug in the Linux kernel or in the Android system and they find a way to get elevated privileges through a way they weren't meant to through a bug somewhere and then they write an exploit now normally of course when Google finds out about these exploits make Google find out or Samsung finds out about them they patch them up in fact it's interesting because in the current news at the moment the FBI trying to get access to an iPhone and I read this morning that they've already gained access using a third party who showed them a way to get in there and Apple's response was please tell us what is that vulnerability because they want to fix it so it doesn't appear in future iPhones and this is a ongoing battle those who follow security issues this literally is happening every day with all the operating systems across the world so one way to get root is to exploit a vulnerability of course the question is do you really want to run software intentionally on your phone written by somebody who's going to intentionally break your system so they can get elevated privileges now they say they're doing it so they can install root for you but are they or are they doing something else that's a matter of trust and to trust somebody you've never met who lives halfway across the world that could be quite difficult where certainly is for me so there you have it my quick overview of what route is on Lin UPS what route means to Android and how you get root on your Android phone well my name is Gary sim from Andrew authority and I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please do give it a thumbs up as I mentioned earlier there is a place over on the forums you can use this link here to connect to me over on the forums I'll read that at least once a day if you've got anything you want to ask about the videos that I do please come over and have a chat with me there also don't forget to subscribe to Android authorities YouTube channel you can also follow me on Twitter and on other social media accounts also there are they eat the comments here below both on the annual thority website and on YouTube where you can tell me your experiences with root what you think about root which side of the fence do you stay on the root non-root argument and finally please do stay tuned to Android Authority calm because we are your source for all things Android