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Root [AT&T] A few questions on DMCA, rooting, and tethering for an AT&T Galaxy S3

B

beerdrinker

Newbie
I'm sure some of these questions were answered before, but I searched Google and this site and didn't find the information I was looking for or the info wasn't very convincing... Though, I've often been told my Google-fu is weak!

Firstly, if I bought my phone prior to January, 2013 (at a discounted contract price), am I legally allowed to root it now? From what I've read on the latest DMCA laws that made rooting phones illegal, it seems that if the phone was purchased prior to January that it can be rooted any time after, but I'm not at all sure of my interpretation of the law.

I recently bought a tablet and would like to tether my phone so that I could have internet access on the tablet when I'm not by a wifi hotspot. I know this isn't allowed by AT&T, as they want you to purchase their additional monthly plan that allows you to use your bandwidth that you already pay for. Bastards. I don't plan to use tethering very often, but I'd like to have the ability to on occasion.

Can AT&T tell if I am tethering? I understand they will see a spike in data usage if I use tethering a lot (which I don't plan to), but can they actually tell that it is from tethering as opposed to streaming data or another high use app?

Thanks for your replies.
 
You are allowed to Root a device, you just can't unlock it to be put on another carrier. Rooting and unlocking are two completely different things, and it is understandable if you don't know the differences.

Unlocking allows you to go to different carriers. While rooting is just putting a different ROM on your device.

Plus some carriers provide unlocking codes for free, others might make you pay.

Typically they can't really tell if you tether or not. Just know even with unlimited data they might throttle you at a certain point.
 
Oh, okay. Thanks guys. I didn't know there was a difference between unlocking and rooting. Now I do!

This may be a stupid question, but what is ROM? From what I gather, it is a custom version of the Android OS? What does it stand for though?
 
Another question since I'm about to root my phone, do you have to use a ROM once it is rooted? I'm happy with how the phone is now. Literally the only reason I want to root the phone is to run a tethering app.
 
I decided to install a custom ROM to get tethering to work. Before installing this ROM I decided to do a backup (is this what is called a nandroid backup?).

I just clicked "Backup Current ROM" from the ROM Manager app. Below the "Backup Current ROM" was written: /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup. Once my phone restarted it no longer recognized my sd card. I then put it in my computer and the computer said it needed reformatted. After I clicked ok, it said that it could not reformat this card.

Is my card fried after trying to backup my stuff?

Also, my battery life is absolute shit since rooting my phone. The wifi tether app doesn't work. I'm beginning to think rooting my phone was a big mistake...
 
Reflash the ROM or return to stock. Head over to XDA. There's a bunch of tutorials and information for the issues. You did not need to flash a ROM to use a tether app, all you needed was root. Again, head to XDA for all the information you need. Also, search google on how to return to stock. It is quite easy.
 
Well, the phone has officially shit the bed now. The battery life progressively got worse and worse until it would only last about 6 hours from a full charge, and that's with it in my pocket mostly unused. Then today it shut off on me and hasn't worked since then. It will cycle through turning itself on, then shutting itself off and then repeating the cycle. The cycle lasts about a minute from one restart to the next. It never gets past the lock screen.

Hellvalley, I tried XDA and it's like they're speaking a foreign language to me. I'm not tech savvy at all and realize now that I should have never attempted to dabble into something that I have no clue on. I have a friend who is into this stuff on his Android phone. He's going to stop by tomorrow and either get my rooted phone working (with tether) or return it to stock. If that doesn't work, I'm going to take it to the range and see how well it'll take a 12ga slug. I've got insurance on the phone, so I'll just bite their shitty deductible and be done with the whole mess (hope it doesn't come to that). BTW, the reason I was going the custom ROM route (which I never did yet) was because the tether wasn't working after rooting the phone.
 
Whew! I am happy to report that my friend got my phone working again yesterday. All apps, contacts, and pictures were saved! The only thing he couldn't save was the SD card, but I actually didn't store anything on it except maps from a few map and gps apps, so they're easily replaceable.

He put the cyanogenMod ROM on it. The tether is working and the phone is working WAY better than it ever did in stock form! The keyboard is the tits. I HATED the stock keyboard and downloaded a few other ones from the Play Store that I was never happy with. So far the battery life is great. Of course, it's only been fixed for a day, but so far so good.



Thanks for all the help in this thread and others. In the end, the phone beat me... But fortunately I've got good friends! lol
 
GTWalling said:
Can't speak to Tether as I don't use it. The DMCA ruling has nothing to do with Rooting a phone. It is a new law that passed to keep us from Sim Unlocking a phone to use with another carrier. That said you can still get a phone Sim Unlocked by contacting your Service Provider. Just make it illegal to but an unlock code without your provider knowing.
Unauthorized Unlocking of New Mobile Phones Set to Become Illegal in U.S. - Mac Rumors
Click to expand...

It's not a new law, what actually happened was that a temporary exception to the DCMA allowing you to sim unlock your phone for the past 6 years was not renewed.
 
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