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The post you linked is very different - it appears to require user interaction, which is a perfectly ok way to allow root access.

This allows any app to gain root. Without user interaction. That is insane.

In any case, a huge amount of Android devices out there run outdated versions of the kernel, drivers or Android itself with privilege escalation vulnerabilities.

The only thing that is insane here is that we all deem this as "normal".

So the update treadmill is normal? That's a very weird thing to assume is normal.

    "Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

    "A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" [1]

Are you confusing "normal" with "desirable"?

The update treadmill is normal, in the classic sense of the word.

I don't consider it normal behavior. It's obsessive in its very nature. But I understand that systems cracking and malware writing are pernicious, antisocial behavior, and should be addressed with heads on pikes outside the city wall.

You say it's antisocial behaviour like they do that just for the sake of it, when there is money to be made. Like sending spam, etc. You want a botnet? Then compromise stuff, and then use the botnet for your benefit. It's not antisocial in any way.

Like making money is a justification. So now we're up to their head and their entire family's head on a pike.

Taking over something and operating it without permission is highly congruent with naval piracy. So perhaps hung from the yardarm is better. At any rate, something gruesome, public and nasty needs to happen to them.

Yes, I think the basic ... drive to do this is just latent in people, and they initially did it just for the heck of it. There was no money in it to start with.

How this could be considered anything other than deeply antisocial is beyond me.

Allwinner chips are lockdown-free even without this - you just need to hold down the right button/pin at poweron and the ROM bootloader goes into a mode that lets you load unsigned code over USB. This kernel code is simple incompetence.

> Allwinner chips are lockdown-free even without this - you just need to hold down the right button/pin at poweron and the ROM bootloader goes into a mode that lets you load unsigned code over USB.

Side-loading unsigned 'ROM's/packages and gaining root are orthogonal concepts in Android: sometimes you want to obtain app-level root in the factory-installed OS - sideloading won't help with that (unless you are side-loading a rooted ROM, but that is not a given)

The boot ROM's recovery mode lets you load arbitrary code into RAM and then boot it. The conventional way to use this is load a flasher program that you then use to flash a new OS image, but you can use it to run any Linux kernel and and software of your choice purely from RAM, which can then do what it likes to the existing OS install. See http://linux-sunxi.org/FEL/USBBoot

> you can use it to run any Linux kernel and and software of your choice purely from RAM

As I said: sometimes you just want to run 1 app as root, not replace the kernel. Also, good luck getting a usable device with your own kernel/software when chip manufacturers don't provide drivers: unless you don't mind the usual litany of XDA caveats ("N0irROM v.0.4. Not working: Camera, GPS, Hardware acceleration. new: mic now working, randomly reboots less often")

to run one app as root, you load up instructions to root the currently installed OS, and install one of the generic SU* apps to manage it

I'm glad that there are still people out there who do not believe in the user-oppressing culture of "security" that seems to have become the norm and are actually trying to do something about it.

You mean, like Google? Nexus devices can be rooted just fine. They just don't give root permissions to any app without asking or even informing me.

Unfortunately the "walled garden" approach currently is the "all-winner" when we talk about securing devices for mass market of non-tech users.

Or did I miss something and a more viable (including economically) concept is invented?

That Occam razor says that it was a debug feature that they forgot to disable.