The problem with allowing easy shell access is that any arbitrary command execution would be used by exploits, too. There are also a lot of social engineering schemes that bait users into running commands on devices. We don’t think about these risks as engineers, but you wouldn’t believe how many people will follow instructions to open something like the Chrome developer console and paste code blocks into it because some website told them to.
So a secure device is also a locked down device. Getting a shell is a vulnerability because it’s the avenue that exploits would use.
That’s why I’d be in favor of a one-way developer mode, which provided shell access but printed a big unavoidable warning screen in the boot loader.
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Asking people to give up their warrant isn’t legal, generally, so outside of very specific circumstances you have to cover warranty claims on the device, too. I have worked at companies that tried to offer some developer access like this, and the number of people abusing customer service because they got in over their heads with modifications and wanted a fresh unit or want CS to support their mods would make you face palm. So the compromises end up being things like only allowing ephemeral mods that get wiped at each reboot and other default-safe behaviors, but that doesn’t make people happy either.
I agree some big obvious scare message is good but actually voiding the warranty restricts user freedom.
Only thing is, if the company releases software updates to fix issues, they should by no means be expected/required to backport bug fixes to older versions just so that compromised devices can. There are certain warranty claims where the issues would be solved via software update, but thus are unavailable to people who are insistent on staying on a rootable version of the firmware.
At some point in the software as a service world (driven by web apps), we started accepting that a manufacturer can break the software we use (change it so it does not have the same features or even just UX we are used to), and is now mandated to provide security maintence but can still do that by simply forcing a customer to their new version.
I understand the economics of this, but this is why I loved LTS releases and their commitment to backport security vulnerability fixes.
Hopefully with GenAI, companies sprout that will support this for consumers too!
As an engineer, you wouldn't believe how many times I've recently used `curl | bash` to install a piece of software
> You would take our sticks
Did you just completely ignore the entire point of my comment where I said I advocate giving people developer access?
Have all the sticks you want, but don’t come crying to the company if you hurt yourself.
No deal.