Sooneung

That's even better. I wonder why samsung wouldn't implement that. It's not like it takes more space. The 'Real A/B' takes a lot of space and considering that 64gb was standard for high end phones back in those days, I always thought it was really inefficient and wastful stuff to implement. Now that they have virtual a/b thing, it is kinda stupid for the manufacturers to not implement that feature.

Too tired to fix grammer nor the spreadsheet. Writing this at 5:30 AM in S. Korea. Please keep that in mind. thx!

I read about the recent Galaxy's System Files article, and I wanted to find the reason behind this chaos. I imported all partition information onto my PC and did some calculation. Since I'm no expert at this, some of info may not be correct or represent all devices. My Conclusion in short: As many of you guys have expected/guessed, it's just the storage size unit difference thing. Android (and its root Linux) calculates storage and files in binary(MiB, GiB) but consumers are used to decimal units(MB, GB), so Samsung just decided to calculated in binary then add dummy numbers to hide the difference. I mean if they didn't do that, customers would be angry about smaller storage and complain about it wouldn't they? Even if Samsung and their engineers try their best to explain it, they won't be able to convince them. On my calculation, the whole System Partition"S" are total 10.94GB. This includes system image itself, modem, hw specific libraries, carrier/country specific apps/configs, hw configs etc. Also, I think there are more hidden partitions for KNOX, other more secure things or critical system files. (This sum of partition sizes didn't add up to exactly 256GB. It's missing 2.43GB, but I bet Samsung cheaped out on that. I think it's hidden by KNOX or something.) Here is the list: - System Partitions: 10.94GB - Missing Bytes: 2.43GB - Unit Difference: 17.41 > Total System Files: 30.79GB (Including missing bytes) > Reported System Files: 34.46GB Now you may say that there's still 3.57GB left. I think this one's reserved for system caches and safe buffer. My guess is that Samsung wanted to leave some headrooms so that even if the customer fills up the storage to 100% device can still function, alerting user to delete some files, not locking itself up. OR, it's just cache/tmp files or combination of two. This theory is also somewhat backed up with the fact that actuall /data's usage is 4.74GB bigger than the Samsung's reported used space. Also, Samsung's Reported System Files size changes from time to time. Not because I updated the system. I left the device, calculating this storage thing, but it decided to change the size by itself. If the System partiton ONLY contains the Read-Only ROM, there's no reason for the value to be changed. (Fun fact: /system is ext4 RO, which means read-only. Other system partitions are the same too.) This backs the "Cache/Buffer" theory. I haven't tested this by filling up my device literally 100%, so this is just an assumption. Yes, raw system partitions are 10.94GB (not including those hidden, missing partitions) ARE HUGE for mobile OS. Just like Linus mensioned on WAN show, pixel devices takes up only about 6gigs and even has dual OS partition to seamless update/fallback OS. But on the other side, modern windows takes up about 16-20 gig on fresh install (depending on drivers) and skyrockets if you install pdf viewer, office, etc. I think that applies to macOS too. (Let's not talk about linux. They vary greatly. Though, I think I remember fresh ubuntu being under 10gig. don't quote me on that) Samsung's OS is full of features. Samsung even supports literally 'modding' your device to your likings with Good-Lock app. (Go try it on the Galaxy Store if you haven't. You have been wasting your Galaxy if you didn't use it.) They support Smart-Things or Find your device without installing a seperate app. Whether you like it or not, they have Bixby and Bixby routines included with your phone. You can't find these features on any other phones. At least not with this level of customization, build quality, and features. There's no denying on that Samsung has a lot of bloat preinstalled and the fact that system image is HUGE. But In my opinion, this is justifiable. It just needs a little bit of diet. Here is my spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14AlFARcdSbKqaMk8-ntRDCRTq8h7_6HH/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=100210223171289014815&rtpof=true&sd=true Do note that my calculations are based on Korean varient of S21 (SM-G991N) Note: 'changes eveytime' is not actually true. It actually changes 'time to time' but still I saw it change without any reasons. (no reboot, no update etc.)

Do you know what's hilarious? They didn't block some of the adults manga sites which has child pornography contents thing. Also the site admins keep changung urls. Even if its blocked, we can still visit the sites using free vpns, browser integrated vpn(like one in opera), proxys, google data saver and someone even came up with the idea of putting blocked url in google translate! Smart kid lol And it didn't solve the fundemental problems. I mean we all know about tor network and torrents and the fact that there is some sort of propritary protocols used to sell and buy drugs, hire someone etc. lol

Good for you... I agree that government should block illegal drugs, crimes(like assassination) or child pornography but we are blocking even the torrents sharing sites and manga sharing sites. Now I have to wander around bit more to get xp iso.

I already have it on my pc and android phone and tablet. I'm using cloudflare's dns service. (The 1.1.1.1) I've also installed vpn server on aws instance (what a impractical use of aws lol)

Oh speaking of dns, the Korean goverment is now sensoring out illegal contents both over http(using dns) and https(via listening to sni field and packet intercepting). This can't be solved unless we use vpn. This applies to all isp (i think only on consumer ones) and forced by governments. It's hard to explain with my english skills but it's like having a great firewall of china in korea. (Except we don't sensor out the political opinions.....YET)

Yeah i use vpn from time to time because of this. Btw, some said changing the dns didn't work

This is the log. Red box is user, blue box is the isp monitoring server, and green is the original destination (like google.com)

I use the router ap hub combo unit from isp, but this applies even if we use other routers from... say asus, dlink etc

I know! It's normal for them to not be able to see whats connected. Some guy analyzed the packets and he found out isps actually intercepts the webpage, sends the client some code. Client calculates the unique code and sends it to isp (the intercepted server) thinking they are sending data to real server. Then isp uses this info to distinguish clients and redirect client if they exceed the limit of connected devices. This doesn't work on https (i think) , other protocols such as ftp. They allow mobile agents to connect and communicate freely even on http. It's kinda insane to see isp actually intercepting the webpage (this is mitm attack after all) and collecting user data. The data being collected are: - OS information - Browser info - Network (ip address) info using WebRTC vulnerability (to see if user is on private ip or public ip) - GPU info using WebGL (this is just an assumption) - Some other info he couldn't find out https://gist.github.com/HelloKS/6631237f7f8f51bbd8c0b3e31b022854 This is raw data with sensitive info hidden. Does your isp do this to you?

I forgot to mension this. WE ARE BEHIND THE ROUTER. Our devices get private ip addresses from the router(ap hub combo thing) and the router gets one public ip address.

Hope nobody thinks i live in NORTH KOREA

Does your ISP limit the devices connected to the internet? I live in SOUTH Korea, and it's kind of a norm for the isp to block the internet if too many devices are connected simultaneously. They usually allow upto 2-3, but starts to block the device starting from the 3rd or 4th device. This doesn't botter me very much since this usually happens on pc. And even if you are on a pc they only blocks http protocols so you can still surf the web with https protocol or use other protocols to communicate. I think they are intercepting the plain http connection, monitor the mac or user agent or something to distinguish the users and block if they reach certain point. I'm not very angry about them because the internet subscribtions here are sooooo cheap (you can get 10gbe lane for 80bucks a month if you have access to ftth lane or 27 bucks for full gigabit internet. Yes these both are consumer subscribtions) but still annoyed a bit. Do you have some kind of limitations from your isp?

This is what I think. Key management should be the only way to controll complexness of security or recovery process. No backdoors should be enabled. We can't really do much about unintended backdoors (or securoty holes). Instead, we should take a deep look of codes and improve security as fast as possible.