Sprint's Policy on Handling Rooted Devices

[A454nova]

Thought I'd share.

 

Here is the official document outlining their methods and procedures for handling devices with suspicion of root.

 

Download Here

 

 

Source:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1227396

[lynyrd65]

Everytime I've been to a Sprint store and asked about it, they would say "We recommend against rooting, It could break your phone *wink *wink". Naturally, all of their phones were rooted.

 

What did concern me is that many times the employees recommended pirating apps on 4share.

[P_M_G]

"no way of proving" ?? That seems a lame - you mean to tell me when the tech powers on and Skating Andy bootscreen hits they can't tell? Or if it's on they can't look at the About Phone info and tell?

[pyroscott]

Every time I went to the sprint store and the employees noticed that my phone was rooted, it was like they elevated me to a higher class of customer. They stopped spewing the corporate monologue as they knew I could understand technical talk. It was rather nice. Recently, I was in the verizon store and the rep asked to see my phone. He did a power cycle and when the splash screen came up with this animation (just the boot animation from this video) he laughed until I saw some tears and showed it to the other store employees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSfguC021kE

[A454nova]

Every time I went to the sprint store and the employees noticed that my phone was rooted, it was like they elevated me to a higher class of customer. They stopped spewing the corporate monologue as they knew I could understand technical talk. It was rather nice. Recently, I was in the verizon store and the rep asked to see my phone. He did a power cycle and when the splash screen came up with this animation (just the boot animation from this video) he laughed until I saw some tears and showed it to the other store employees.

 

ok... That is Awesome!! What Rom is that? I have to have that!

[pyroscott]

"no way of proving" ?? That seems a lame - you mean to tell me when the tech powers on and Skating Andy bootscreen hits they can't tell? Or if it's on they can't look at the About Phone info and tell?

 

If a user knows what they are doing, they can make it nearly impossible to prove that they rooted the phone. You can unroot and flash the stock rom, relock the bootloader and reset the flash count. You would have to work pretty hard to prove that the phone was rooted.

 

Now, if someone walks in to the Sprint store and says "the GPS on my phone heats up the phone, kills the battery in a few minutes and then shuts off the phone" and you pick it up and it is running a custom ROM that doesn't properly have the GPS configured, you have them red-handed. Did that specific user root the phone though?

[pyroscott]

ok... That is Awesome!! What Rom is that? I have to have that!

 

I'm not sure what ROM they are using in the video. I have a flashable zip for that boot animation that I can e-mail to you. I have not been able to find the boot animation again after I initially downloaded it...

 

If you want the zip, send me your e-mail in a PM and I will gladly share it.

 

P.S. I'm not sure what the aspect ratio is, it may not look as good on your phone...

[MacinJosh]

Did that specific user root the phone though?

 

Now that would be the harder answer to find out. It may have been one of their friends who did it.

 

For me it seems that if I put a Sense based ROM on my Shift, everything works fine, but most AOSP ROM's I've tried seem to have problems with my phone & GPS. Unless it's my GPS chip giving the problem, but then that would be phone number 2.

[S4GRU]

Every time I went to the sprint store and the employees noticed that my phone was rooted' date=' it was like they elevated me to a higher class of customer. They stopped spewing the corporate monologue as they knew I could understand technical talk. It was rather nice. Recently, I was in the verizon store and the rep asked to see my phone. He did a power cycle and when the splash screen came up with this animation (just the boot animation from this video) he laughed until I saw some tears and showed it to the other store employees. Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSfguC021kE

 

 

Robert - Posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

[pyroscott]

Now that would be the harder answer to find out. It may have been one of their friends who did it.

 

For me it seems that if I put a Sense based ROM on my Shift, everything works fine, but most AOSP ROM's I've tried seem to have problems with my phone & GPS. Unless it's my GPS chip giving the problem, but then that would be phone number 2.

 

I think it is the AOSP ROM's GPS drivers not being fully worked out. My HTC Hero had issues with the GPS not working with cyanogenmod. As soon as I unrooted to bring it in to the Sprint store to see about a replacement, it started working again.

[pyroscott]

I figured out the website that I got it from and posted it in the Sansung section http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/896-boot-animations-for-galaxy-nexus/

[Matt.NY.Tech]

As an ASC tech, we don't care... LOL

 

I encourage users to take FULL advantage of their devices. Hardware failures are obviously hardware, rooting does not come into play what so ever (ie: white screen). Software and radio related issues is where you have a problem. It's hard enough trouble shooting a device with stock software, let alone custom ROM's. I simply tell customers I will have to return the phone to stock in order to rule out any user initiated errors.

[S4GRU]

As an ASC tech, we don't care... LOL

 

I encourage users to take FULL advantage of their devices. Hardware failures are obviously hardware, rooting does not come into play what so ever (ie: white screen). Software and radio related issues is where you have a problem. It's hard enough trouble shooting a device with stock software, let alone custom ROM's. I simply tell customers I will have to return the phone to stock in order to rule out any user initiated errors.

 

And that is a very reasonable approach. As a device MOD'er myself, that's what I would expect Sprint to expect from me. However, anything greater than that is overkill by the carrier IMO.

 

Robert

[P_M_G]

If a user knows what they are doing, they can make it nearly impossible to prove that they rooted the phone. You can unroot and flash the stock rom, relock the bootloader and reset the flash count. You would have to work pretty hard to prove that the phone was rooted.

 

Now, if someone walks in to the Sprint store and says "the GPS on my phone heats up the phone, kills the battery in a few minutes and then shuts off the phone" and you pick it up and it is running a custom ROM that doesn't properly have the GPS configured, you have them red-handed. Did that specific user root the phone though?

 

i agree...i was merely commenting on the "no way" of knowing if a phone has been rooted.

 

I also frequent a store where the reps are mostly rooted. Saw CM on one guys phone, and many months back while I was buying my kids phones I was comparing a Mikrom on his EVO vs the one I was running on my 3D...