this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025

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118

Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for 3 days (arstechnica.com)

submitted 21 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 45 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 hours ago

"This actually caused some annoyance among law enforcement officials who believed they had suspects' phones stored in a readable state, only to find they were rebooting and becoming harder to access due to this feature."

I love it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Good security feature but only for the phone in your pocket. The old one used as a camera, homeassistant screen, sms to email forwarder, ssh server, will stop being useful.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago

The old one isn't getting any updates and won't see this change.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I hope there will be a way to turn that off, but I'm afraid there won't.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

On the 9to5Google article it says

Update 4/16: Google has updated the changelog entry to add that auto-reboot is “optional” when it comes in the “future.” This addresses some concern from people who run continuous Android devices, with tablets somewhat fitting into that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

i think samsungs already do this. as long as i can turn it off if i ever need to.

a charging limit would also be nice.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago

Pixels can be configured to limit charging to 80% these days.

I've started using it and the difference between using 80% and 100% on a daily basis is negligible, I rarely if ever let my device go below about 35% anyway. So this change is basically free battery life for the device

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago

Samsung have a setting to set the charger to only charge to a certain amount over night

So if you plug it in at 1800 at 0230 or whatever it won't be charging until just it calculates that it will be full charged when you wake up

[–] [email protected] 5 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

The latest Google update will make your phone more secure if you don’t touch it…

Fuck entirely off. The last time my phone surprised me with an update, it was ads on my goddamn lock screen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Google itself as of this moment never did put adds on a lock screen, it is the manufacturer or third party apps who can do it. Some Realme and Xiaomi phones do it afaik and probably some other brands.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

What brand is your phone?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

I like it but, why so long? If I haven't unlocked my phone in 24 hours I'm either dead of hospitalized, 3 days seems super extreme.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Because I want my alarm clock to actually work.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

or maybe, I have replaced it with a newer phone, and repurposed it as some sort of lightweight server or something. So it doesn't get unlocked anymore, ever

[–] [email protected] 22 points 15 hours ago

Especially since so many phones won't make it 72 hours without a charge, even if sitting unused.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 16 hours ago

3 days seems like a good "default" but I agree I'd definitely like the option to make it shorter.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

That's good, if I don't unlock my phone for 3 days, either the phone is lost or I'm dead.

[+] [email protected] 13 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Stock LineageOS doesn't seem to have that feature

[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

@[email protected] says it does

[–] [email protected] 5 points 17 hours ago

They say their device restarts at 4 am but they don't seem to show how to set it up. On my Note 10 I don't seem to have this feature with stock LineageOS, maybe they're running a modified version of it, like Resurrection Remix

[–] [email protected] 22 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

You want to do this even with custom roms.

Having your phone automatically go into the BFU state ensures that there's only a small window for a thief to extract data from your phone.

If you ever think your phone is about to be stolen or seized you want to power it off for this exact reason.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

They're saying custom ROMs like Grapheneos have had this for a long time already.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I read it as "This is a silly Android thing that I don't have to deal with because I use custom roms".

I use Graphene and use this feature, but I can understand why it would seem silly to some people and I can think of use cases where you wouldn't want it to happen (like using your phone as a security device with Haven (https://github.com/guardianproject/haven)) installed.

Most Android users don't understand the BFU/AFU states and the security implications, it is good that default android is including a sane security default that'll be pushed out to the standard Android users.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago

Lineage as well, mine reboots at 4am every day

[+] [email protected] -2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 11 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It is not enough to lock the phone.

An advanced attacker that has access to forensic imaging tools can pull data off of your phone as long as it has been unlocked the first time after boot.

There are some models and some OSs (like Graphene on the newest Pixels) that are safe, for the time being, in AFU mode. You still want to power the phone off if you have the chance.

In your friend's situation, his phone can be powered, isolated from RF to prevent remote wiping and kept in a lock state in order to preserve the keys in memory until an exploit is found for that model. If the OS automatically reboots after 3 days, it prevents this kind of attack.