Android is already on version 12, but the operating system He already has almost 13 years behind him, since its first version saw the light in 2008 arriving in Spain in 2009. It was one of the operating systems that revolutionized the world, but it was not without errors, some of them very curious.
It counts Chet Haase, a graphics engineer at Google, in his book Androids. Among its pages, we find the curious story of how it was possible to control the system from a single text box, typing in it “reboot”, “shutdown” or even “root”.
The rush made Android 1.0 very vulnerable
From Haase’s book, he says that the development of Android 1.0 was fraught with haste, since there was enough pressure to launch the operating system. In the first phase of Android development, an SSH client was developed (an app that allows you to log in remotely from another device) under the name ConnectBot. Through this app, available in the Android Market (old Play Store), users could connect to their Android remotely, so good up to now.
It was enough to write “Root” in any text app to access the system privileges remotely
After the release of Android 1.0, they began to receive reports from some users. In them, it was explained that simply typing “Reboot” in any text box was enough for the phone to restart. The same thing happened to turn it off, and the bug it worked in any text app. In fact, you could log into Google Chat, type “Shutdown” and have the phone turn off.
Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System
The worst of the bug came with the word “Root” which, indeed, allowed to root the device remotely, fully compromising its security. Why did this failure occur?
One of the developers of the project, Rececca Zavin, tells that the team left the root console of the system open, so it was possible create keyboard events that are sent directly to the Android console, allowing total control over the system. It didn’t take long for the team to fix the bug, but it’s certainly curious how the rush and such a simple bug allowed complete remote control over the operating system.